THE DISCOURSE OF EMBODIMENT IN THE NINETEENTH- CENTURY BRITISH AND NORTH AMERICAN DEBATES

by

Jennifer Esmail

A thesis submitted to the Department of English

In conformity with the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

(September, 2008)

Copyright ©Jennifer Esmail, 2008

Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada

Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l’édition

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada

Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-69936-2 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-69936-2

NOTICE: AVIS:

The author has granted a non- L’auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l’Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. . The author retains copyright L’auteur conserve la propriété du droit d’auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author’s permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n’y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis.

Abstract

The Discourse of Embodiment in the Nineteenth-Century British and North American

Sign Language Debates examines the transatlantic cultural reception of deafness and signed languages to determine why a largely successful nineteenth-century known as advocated the eradication of signed languages. The dissertation answers this question through exploring a range of texts including fiction by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Oralist texts by and Thomas Arnold, and deaf resistance texts including poetry and proposals to establish Deaf settlements. I argue that Oralists – and a wider Victorian culture – believed that signed languages were inferior to spoken and written languages because they believed that signed languages were more embodied than these other modes of language. This charge of embodiedness produced negative constructions of signed languages as more concrete, iconic, and primitive than speech and writing. In chapter one, I examine poetry written by deaf people in order to uncover the phonocentrism that underscored both Oralism and the dominant nineteenth-century construction of the importance of aural and oral sound to poetry. In chapter two, I consider the relationship between the sign language debates and the debates around evolution in order to argue that both sides of the evolutionary debate were invested in making deaf people speak. In chapter three, I consider Wilkie Collins’s depiction of a deaf heroine in his novel Hide and Seek. I argue that Collins’s desire to make his heroine speak through her body rather than sign points to the difficulties of representing a signing deaf person within the conventions of the Victorian novel. Finally, chapter four focuses on the rhetoric around deaf intermarriage and community as it arose in the eugenicist turn taken by Oralism. Using a variety of theoretical approaches including Deaf and Disability Studies, post-structuralist understandings of language, and animal studies, I examine how cultural constructions of deafness and signed

ii languages reveal nineteenth-century anxieties about the nature of language, the meaning of bodily difference, and the definition of the human in the post-Darwinian era.

iii Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to Laura Murray and Maggie Berg for their insightful suggestions, expertise, and unflagging support. I would also like to thank Cathy Harland,

Elizabeth Hanson, and Mary Carpenter at Queen’s University who have always been generous with their time and knowledge. Christopher Keep and D.M.R. Bentley, at the University of

Western Ontario, have modeled exceptional Victorian scholarship and have been constant sources of information and encouragement.

This research was made possible through a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social

Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. I am also indebted to the help of the librarians at the Library of the Royal National Institute for the

Deaf, London, England. I also appreciate Judy Yaeger Jones’s assistance with my research on

Laura Redden Searing.

I cannot begin to thank those friends and colleagues who have kindly provided feedback, friendship, and support throughout this project: Dana Olwan, Laura Cardiff, Daniel Martin, Sarah

Krotz, Fiona Coll, Cheryl Cundell, Lindsey Banco, Heather Emmens, Sara Mueller, Vanessa

Oliver, Karen Bourrier, and Jason Boulet. These scholars have helped shape my project through their thoughtful engagement and their kind encouragement. I also appreciate the support of my family and friends including the Esmail and Kangas families. Most of all, I am grateful to Eric

Carlson whose brilliance has challenged me, whose kindness has supported me, and whose insight is reflected on every page.

iv Table of Contents

Abstract...... ii Acknowledgements...... iv Table of Contents ...... v Introduction: Speaking Minds and Signing Bodies ...... 1 Chapter 1: “Perchance my Hand may Touch the Lyre”: Deaf Poetry and the Nineteenth-Century Sign Language Debates...... 41 Chapter 2: “Human in Shape, But Only Half Human in Attributes”: Sign Language, Evolutionary Theory and the Animal-Human Divide...... 97 Chapter 3: Ventriloquizing the Deaf Heroine in Wilkie Collins’s Hide and Seek ...... 129 Chapter 4: “A Deaf Variety of the Human Race”?: Sign Language, Deaf Marriage, and Utopic and Dystopic Visions of Deaf Communities...... 182 Conclusion: Apologia: Linguistic and Corporeal Inclusivity in Deaf Studies...... 223 Works Cited...... 242 Appendix A: Poems Discussed in Chapter One...... 259

v vi Introduction: Speaking Minds and Signing Bodies

In 1872, Thomas Arnold, a prominent British teacher of deaf children, published a pamphlet on “The Education of the Deaf and Dumb.” He began his pamphlet by emphasizing the importance of the question of whether deaf children should be educated to use speech or sign language:

The importance of the recent correspondence in the Times on the rival systems in which

the deaf and dumb are educated can hardly be over-estimated, not only from its bearing in

the Science of Language, but also from the fact that the rescue from ignorance, the

usefulness and the happiness of thousands of our own and all coming generations are

involved in the controversy. (3)

Arnold illuminates how the nineteenth-century sign language debates were of interest to more than those people closely connected to deaf people. While deaf people and their language use are usually considered today as a minority issue that exists on the margins of educational or medical discourse, over the course of the nineteenth century the language use of deaf people informed wider cultural understandings of the nature of language, the meaning of bodily difference, and the definition of the human. In fact, as Arnold notes, vehement arguments about the systems of deaf education spilled onto the pages of Victorian England’s newspaper of record. This passage from

Arnold’s pamphlet also reveals that the public interest in the sign language debates served two masters: public understandings of the general “Science of Language” and only secondly, the needs and desires of deaf people themselves. Overall, the purpose of Arnold’s pamphlet is to argue that deaf people should be forced to speak rather than sign; he believed that signs had

“failed to become a sufficient language of thought” because “the process of the understanding cannot be described on the fingers” (5,6). Arnold’s attempt to dissociate human thought from

1 language spelled or signed on the body was characteristic of those who argued that deaf people

should speak instead of sign.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Deaf1 communities, languages, cultures and

identities both were created, and faced destruction, in Britain and North America. The nineteenth

century brought momentous advances in the education of deaf children and the standardization

and spread of signed languages. Signed languages were key to this growth of Deaf identity and

the Deaf community. Once deaf children were assembled in schools, usually residential schools,

they brought with them signs they used at home, learned the signs of their teachers, and

developed languages among themselves. and

(used in Canada and the United States) developed and spread with the nineteenth-century growth

of formal deaf education. However, almost as soon as these developments in deaf education and

signed languages were underway they were challenged by a wider culture that was increasingly

interested in, and concerned about, deaf people and their use of signed languages. It was in the

nineteenth-century that the Oralism movement, what Dirksen Bauman has called a “medico-

pedagogy,” was born (“Listening” n.p.). This movement, comprised mainly of hearing people,

usually educators, doctors, and parents of deaf children, aimed to eradicate the use of signed

languages among deaf people in favor of and speech. The Oralist movement

mobilized various strategies to promote its goal of teaching deaf people to speak, including

1 While it has been standard practice in Deaf Studies to use a lowercase d to refer to the audiological condition of deafness and an uppercase D to refer to those deaf people who identify with a Deaf community and use a signed language, this practice has recently been called into question. The major objection to the d/D practice is that it cannot accurately reflect the complexity of a deaf/Deaf person’s experience in the world or the range of possibilities for deaf/Deaf identity. An additional issue for this dissertation is the difficulty of categorizing deaf people who lived in the nineteenth century as either deaf or Deaf. While most of the deaf people I discuss used signed languages in some form, some of them may not have self- identified as culturally Deaf. Because of the inability of the d/D practice to address the complexities of nineteenth-century deaf identities, I reluctantly use the potentially problematic term “deaf” in this dissertation unless referring to contemporary Deaf issues, where I maintain the d/D distinction.

2 publicly attacking signed languages, lobbying for educational reform, and publishing articles and

books about the benefits of Oralism. The movement grew stronger over the course of the

nineteenth century, culminating with the Oralist victories of the 1880s and 1890s, (including the

decisions in favor of Oralism at the Milan Congress of Deaf Educators [1880] and the British

Royal Commission on the Education of the Blind and Deaf and Dumb [1889]). By the end of the

nineteenth century, oral training was the predominant mode of educating deaf children in Britain

and North America. This approach continued until the 1960s and 1970s when sign language

education was finally reinstated to centrality in deaf education.

While this sketch of Oralism focuses mainly on deaf education, Oralism’s scope extended

far beyond pedagogical matters. The Oralist movement sought the complete eradication of signed

languages in general and the assimilation of deaf people as speaking and lip reading members of a

hearing society. As will become clear in the chapters that follow, Oralists aimed to eradicate deaf

culture, deaf community, and deaf identity. Oralism was a widespread movement that sought to

influence all areas of deaf people’s lives: from what language they were taught, to what language

they used with their friends and family, to whom they married, to whether or not they should have

children. Sign language was constructed as an insidious threat not only to deaf individuals

themselves but also to the hearing majority in these countries. Oralists constructed speech, on the

other hand, as the pinnacle of human language and the only suitable option for (usually white)

European and North American deaf people.2

2 The legacy of racism in Deaf education can be traced in the history of education for African-American deaf students. Carol Padden and Tom Humphries explain that “for most of their early history, schools for deaf children in the South taught their white and African –American children separately. From the middle of the nineteenth century until desegregation began in 1955, every school for the deaf in the southern states made ‘separate’ arrangements based on race” (38). Part of these arrangements meant that while white deaf children were taught speech under the aegis of Oralism, African-American deaf children were taught only manually. See chapter two, “An Entirely Separate School” of Padden and Humphries’s Inside for more on the history of race issues in American deaf education. Douglas Baynton also affirms that “oral 3 This dissertation illuminates the cultural factors that contributed to a movement that

sought to limit the modes of human languages in favor of an insistence that everyone, hearing and

deaf, should speak. In examining literature and other cultural texts, this dissertation poses a

number of questions about the inextricable elevation of speech and denigration of sign in

nineteenth-century British and North American culture. What beliefs about language and human

ability inform the Oralist claims that signed languages are inferior to spoken languages? What

cultural developments led to the increasing gains made by the Oralist movement over the course

of the nineteenth-century? Finally, why was the language use of a small minority such a

widespread object of concern in nineteenth-century Britain and North America? At the root of my

investigation is an attempt to understand how modes of language were hierarchized in the

nineteenth century. That is, why was it so difficult for nineteenth-century Britons and North

Americans to imagine that a visuo-spatial language was as sufficient a language as an aural-oral

language?

In this dissertation, I argue that Oralists – and a wider Victorian culture – believed that

signed languages were inferior to spoken and written languages because they believed that signed

languages were more embodied than these other modes of language. Signed languages were

understood as products of the body in a very different way than speech and writing. Whether it

was perceiving signers as linguistically, and therefore intellectually, challenged, as using a

language that encouraged the growth of a “deaf variety of the human race,” or as employing a

primitive language from the vestiges of human evolution, the following four chapters provide

case studies of the various manifestations of nineteenth-century understandings of sign’s

rootedness in corporeality.

education was clearly not extended to blacks on the same basis as whites” (45). See Baynton 45- 48 for more on the education of deaf African-American children.

4 I contend that this charge of sign’s embodiedness carried with it certain negative

connotations: first, that signed languages were more iconic and concrete than spoken language

and therefore were unable to represent abstraction; second, that signed languages were more

primitive than spoken and written languages and were therefore more suitable for animals or for

“primitive” peoples; and third, that signed languages were not “true” and sufficient languages,

and that they interfered with the acquisition of “true” languages like English. Oralists constructed

speech, conversely, as detached from the materiality of the body. Speech was therefore more

suitable for representing thought (especially abstract thought), was the mark of an evolved or

superior culture, and, to some extent was synonymous with the concept of language itself.

In order to better understand the particular construction of signed languages as more

material and corporeal than other modes of language, each of the chapters that follow will

investigate nineteenth-century hierarchies of modes of language, in particular the triangulation of

signed languages, speech, and writing. My research reveals that nineteenth-century British and

North American constructions of this triangulation elevate speech, denigrate sign, and generally

locate writing in the interstices of the two, although writing’s position can shift depending on a

host of factors. As I will argue in later chapters, it is often the flexibility and ambiguity of

writing’s position that reveals the untenability of the hierarchy of language and the strange

investments that nineteenth-century culture had in speech.3 As Lennard Davis notes, “so many of our assumptions about writing, about language, about communication are based on the premise that language is in fact sonic, audible, vocalized” (Enforcing Normalcy, 101). Because of this, as I will demonstrate in chapter one, when deaf people access writing outside of speech, the entire

3 Of course, I am not the first to note the nineteenth-century privileging of speech. Jacques Derrida traces phonocentrism throughout Western history as I will discuss further below. In the context of Victorian

5 mythology of speech’s centrality comes into question. This introduction will provide historical

background to the nineteenth-century sign language debates, lay my theoretical foundations

through attending to the works of Jonathan Sterne, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Jacques Derrida,

and then examine the various manifestations of the perception that signed languages were more

closely linked to the materiality of the body than other modes of language.

Historical Background to the Sign Language Debates:

As various critics and historians including Lennard Davis, Douglas C. Baynton, Jonathan

Rée, Harlan Lane, and Jan Branson and Don Miller have documented, European and North

American deaf schools, languages, and communities were largely established in the latter part of

the eighteenth century and early part of the nineteenth century. Branson and Miller explain that

“[t]he historical record prior to the sixteenth century is scanty as far as the use of sign languages

is concerned, but from the sixteenth century, we find clear evidence that, in Britain, sign

languages were regularly used among people who were deaf and between deaf and hearing

people” (61). Davis identifies the eighteenth century as the point at which the category of “deaf

people” coalesced and sign languages became standardized. He argues, “[i]t was only by

attending the residential schools created in the eighteenth century that the deaf became a

community. The dramatic rise in the number of deaf schools in Europe – there were none at the

beginning of the eighteenth century and close to sixty by the end – indicates the groundswell that

made this new ethnic group self-aware” (82).4 These developments were accompanied by, or perhaps were a product of, a wider cultural and philosophical interest in deaf people and signed

England and Nineteenth-century America, Jonathan Sterne, John Picker, and Ivan Krielkamp make similar observations about the authority granted to speech over other modes of language. 4 The rise of formal deaf education is tied to the rise of general education. For example, it was the passing of the 1870 Education Act that guaranteed elementary education to all British children, which led to the establishment of the Royal Commission on the Blind and Deaf and Dumb (1889). The recommendations of this Commission established the parameters of government-funded education for blind and deaf children. 6 languages (Branson and Miller 17). Davis argues, “deafness was for the eighteenth century an area of cultural fascination and a compelling focus for philosophical reflection” (55). This cultural fascination with deafness in eighteenth-century Europe revolved largely around philosophical inquiry into the nature of reason and language. Philosophers and others sought answers about language and the senses through examining the case of deaf people as demonstrated in the numerous plays, books, treatises, and public demonstrations of deaf children that appeared over the course of the century.5

These historians suggest that in the early part of the nineteenth-century – and continuing over the course of the century – significant changes arose in the cultural construction of signed languages and deafness.6 The enlightenment interest in reason and universal languages gave way to Victorian concerns about “man’s place in nature,” (especially in the post-Darwinian period), the origins of language, and imperial encounters with colonized groups (Branson and Miller 150).

The relevance of these new cultural issues to the situation of deaf people will be investigated in the chapters that follow. The most significant change that occurred over the course of the nineteenth-century was the growth of the Oralist movement.7 Branson and Miller suggest that in

5 See Davis’s chapter 3, especially 52-55, and Rée’s chapters 13 through 17 for more on the philosophical interest in deafness in the eighteenth century. 6 See Branson and Miller 23-26, 7 My reference to the “Oralist movement” effaces the variety of positions and approaches that so-called Oralism supporters maintained in the nineteenth-century. While Oralist supporters in Europe and North America did band together in their common fight against deaf people’s use of signed languages, they had various backgrounds and beliefs. British Oralists, for example, saw Oralism as an inheritance from the first British schools for deaf children established in Scotland in the late eighteenth century by Thomas Braidwood. Braidwood, it has been argued, used oral training for deaf children (Rée 196, Branson and Miller 100-104). Various Oralists then asserted that this inheritance should be honoured in the face of French Manualist incursions. See Rée, who quotes The Times’s assertion that Oralism is a British educational method being threatened by the French system of signs and residential schools (226). This nationalistic approach used the long feud between the British and the French to buttress British Oralist claims. See Branson and Miller, mainly chapter five, for their opposition to the belief that the Braidwood schools – the first schools for deaf children in Great Britain – were, in fact, Oralist in orientation. Branson and Miller argue that because most studies of deaf history have taken the U.S and France as their focus, “the British situation has been summarily dealt with and in the process, seriously misrepresented” (xii). Branson and Miller give evidence to suggest that not only were the Braidwood 7 the first half of the nineteenth century the “education of deaf students began to expand and

diversify as schools were established throughout Britain and Ireland” (129). While there were

certainly earlier isolated attempts to train individual deaf children in speech, it was not until the

foundation of deaf schools, and the development and propagation of signed languages within

them, that a broader movement to advocate for speech-based rather than sign-based education

emerged. According to Branson and Miller’s evidence, some of these schools employed some

articulation training and some of them rejected it entirely (129). However, Oralism clearly

became more and more influential over the course of the nineteenth century.8

The situation of deaf education in the United States is similar to the British experience.

The first public and permanent American deaf school, the American Asylum for the Deaf in

Hartford, Connecticut, was established in 1817 as a school that used signed languages. Other

schools for deaf children opened around the country over the course of the century. According to

Baynton, in 1860 very few deaf children were being taught through exclusively oral methods

whereas “by the turn of the century, nearly 40 percent of American deaf students were taught

without the use of sign language” (5). These schools included “57 residential institutions, 40

public day schools and 15 denominational and private schools” (Carbin 17).

schools not Oralist but also the British did not import from the French but instead had their own homegrown Manualist heritage (123). On the other hand, nationalist arguments were also used by Oralists in the United States but in an entirely different context. As Baynton notes, deafness was understood in America “as a condition that isolated people from the national community. Deaf people were cut off from the English speaking American culture” (15). This rhetoric of deaf people as “foreigners in their own land” (15) grew out of the position of the United States as a country of immigrants struggling to establish a national culture. As Baynton notes, after the civil war, there was an increased focus on “the creation of national unity and social order through homogeneity in language and culture. Oralists likened the deaf community to a community of immigrants” (16). See Baynton’s first chapter for more on the nationalistic overtones of American Oralist rhetoric. 8 See Branson and Miller for a more detailed history of British deaf education including an 1881 survey of British deaf schools’ methodologies. 8 Canada, with its intermediary position of geographical proximity to the United States and

imperial relationship with Great Britain, seems to have generally followed the lead of American

institutions. Though very little research has been published on Canadian deaf history, Clifton F.

Carbin’s Deaf Heritage in Canada provides information about the history of Canadian deaf

education. Carbin notes, “schools for deaf children in the United States educated Canadian deaf

children as well…until Canada established its own schools for deaf children. Many of the

teachers who taught in these early Canadian schools had received their training in American

institutions” (Carbin 12). To this day, the dominant signed language used in Canadian

Anglophone deaf communities is American Sign Language rather than British Sign Language.

The first deaf school in Canada was established in 1831 in Quebec, and other provinces soon

established their own schools. In 1899 there were seven residential institutions for deaf children

nation wide. While there has been no definitive survey of the teaching methods of Canadian deaf

schools, evidence suggests that as in American schools, Oralism became gradually more

pervasive as the nineteenth century progressed.9

The national contexts of the growth of Oralism are only one element of the complexity of

positions that arose in the sign language debates. In addition to Oralists, there were two other

positions: supporters of the Combined system and supporters of the Manual system. Supporters of

the Combined system generally advocated both speech and sign education. They supported

speech training where possible and stridently opposed the elimination of signed languages. This

position was challenged by Oralists who argued that the Combined system guaranteed failure in

speech training because, when given the choice, deaf children always opted to use signed

languages. Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837- 1917), an educator of deaf people and the most

prominent advocate for sign language in the United States, described himself as a supporter of the

9 See chapters 3- 6 of Carbin’s Deaf Heritage in Canada for a detailed history of Canadian deaf education. 9 Combined system, in distinction to his father, Thomas Gallaudet (1787-1851), one of the founders of American deaf education and a Manualist. Supporters of Manualism generally rejected any speech training for deaf people, arguing that signed languages and writing were entirely sufficient for communication. Deaf people were almost entirely supporters of the

Manualist or Combined system.10 Even when they accepted the arguments for some speech training, deaf people did not support the elimination of signed languages. This point is essential to understanding the sign language debates. It was entirely hearing people – hearing parents, hearing educators and hearing governmental representatives – who paternalistically advocated

Oralism in opposition to the desires of deaf communities in all three countries.

From this admittedly brief sketch of deaf history in these three countries, I would like to suggest that the nineteenth century is a foundational and understudied time in British and North

American deaf history. It was then that deaf people became a people. They created their own cultures, languages, and literatures, and increasingly constructed group and individual identities that grew out of deafness. Secondly, it was in the nineteenth century that the greatest threat to these identities emerged in the form of Oralism. Many have called the Oralist approach a form of cultural genocide because it aimed to disintegrate Deaf communities and assimilate speaking and lip reading deaf people into the majority hearing population. In these decades deaf people both experienced the creation of their identities, languages and communities and a fight for their very existence. While it was in the eighteenth century that deaf education began and in the twentieth century that the dominance of the Oralist regime finally came to an end,11 it was in the nineteenth

10 At the 1893 World’s Congress of the Deaf at the Chicago World’s Fair, which was attended by over one thousand North American and European deaf people, a resolution was passed “affirming their unanimous condemnation of the oral method in Deaf education” (Murray, “Co-equality” 101). Also see Amos G. Draper’s “The Attitude of the Adult Deaf towards Pure Oralism,” (1895) for an example of the widespread objections to Oralism in deaf communities. 11 I do not want to overstate this point about the end of Oralism because, as many would argue, the traces of Oralism and its denigration of signed languages and deafness are still very much with us. In issues like 10 century that the fight was waged for what it means to be deaf and to use a language different from the majority language of English in all three countries.12

Theoretical Foundations: The Audio-visual litany, Arbitrariness and Phonocentrism

In order to explore the foundations of nineteenth-century beliefs about deafness and signed languages, I pause here to engage with the contemporary theoretical approaches that will inform my argument in this dissertation. My theoretical framework – which is buttressed by the

Disability Studies model of the social construction of disability, by Jonathan Sterne’s theorization of the audio-visual litany, and by Jacques Derrida’s critique of phonocentrism – permits me to interrogate transhistorical ideologies of sensory and linguistic experience. As Davis notes, “If we look carefully we can see that the aural/oral method of communicating, itself seen as totally natural, like all signifying practices, is not natural but is based on assumptions about the body, about reality, and of course about power” (Davis 15). It is the nineteenth-century assumptions about the body, reality, and power, which contributed to the nineteenth-century sign language debates, that I disentangle and highlight in this dissertation through close textual readings. The

genetic screening for deafness, cochlear implants, oral schools, and various pedagogical methods still being practiced, the Oralist logic of eliminating deaf people by assimilating them is startlingly pervasive. See Padden and Humphries’s Deaf in America for more on the challenges facing Deaf people and Deaf Communities in the twenty-first century. 12 Unfortunately, the scope of this project does not permit me to undertake a history of francophone deaf communities in Quebec, who use la langue de signes québécoise (LSQ), nor of the history of the deaf indigenous peoples of North America. It is important to note, however, that the first school in Canada for deaf children opened in Quebec city in 1831. The first school outside of Quebec for deaf children was established in Halifax in 1856. Clifford Carbin notes that while there has been no research done on early signing in Canada nor the signing of deaf First Nations peoples before Europeans arrived, “it is logical to assume that French-based and English-based signs were introduced in the same way as spoken French and spoken English were introduced to Canada – brought by explorers or settlers from France, the United Kingdom, and later the United States” (Carbin 319). For more on Quebec’s deaf history see Daigle and Parisot’s Surdite et Societe: Persepectives Psychosociale, Didactique et Linguistique, and Blais and Desrosiers’s Quand Les Sourds Nous Font Signe: Histoires de Sourds. 11 chapters that follow will also historicize what has been understood as “natural” or transhistorical in ideologies of human communication.

My theoretical orientation follows Davis by challenging what seems to be “normal” about speaking and hearing. As such, it is firmly aligned with Disability Studies and Deaf Studies’s theorization of disability as a socially constructed phenomenon. As Rosemarie Garland Thomson notes in Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Literature and Culture

(1997),

the meanings attributed to extraordinary bodies reside not in inherent physical

flaws, but in social relationships in which one group is legitimated by possessing valued

physical characteristics and maintains its ascendancy and self-identity by systematically

imposing the role of cultural or corporeal inferiority on others. (7)

Thomson emphasizes that disability is a process dependent on the social hierarchizing of bodies rather than something inherent in the body itself. This hierarchizing, of course, is a function of power. Davis makes this point most clearly when he emphasizes how “normalcy and disability are part of the same system” (2):

Disability is not an object – a woman with a cane – but a social process that

intimately involves everyone who has a body and lives in the world of the senses. Just as

the conceptualization of race, class and gender shapes the lives of those who are not

black, poor or female, so the concept of disability regulates the bodies of those who are

“normal.” (2)

This dissertation is founded upon this Disability Studies approach and it therefore seeks the conditions of disabling in a wider culture rather than in the individual body as well as assumes that disability issues are far more important than the marginal role they are accorded in an ableist culture might suggest.

12 The most important elements of the disabling of deaf people that occurred over the course of the nineteenth century were bound up with ideologies about the perceived differences between speech and sign, and between hearing and sight. In his book The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (2003), sound historian Jonathan Sterne explains that critical approaches to sensory experience tend to rely on transhistorical understandings of vision and hearing. He outlines what he calls “the audio-visual litany” of the supposed differences between the sensory experiences of hearing and vision. He argues that the “audio-visual litany…idealizes hearing (and by extension, speech) as manifesting a kind of pure interiority” (15). Sterne emphasizes that

“these differences between hearing and seeing are often considered as biological, psychological and physical facts” rather than the “ideological” positions that they really are.13 Some of the tenets of Sterne’s audio-visual litany include the following: “hearing is concerned with interiors, vision is concerned with surfaces”; “hearing is a primarily temporal sense, vision is a primarily spatial sense”; and “hearing tends towards subjectivity, vision tends towards objectivity” (15).

Sterne especially takes issue with the notion that sound and speech are ephemeral and immaterial.

In opposition to Oralists like Thomas Arnold who, as I explain below, liken the fleeting quality of thought to speech’s evanescence, Sterne argues that to assert that “ephemerality is a special quality of sound, rather than a quality endemic to any form of perceptible motion or event in time, is to engage in a very selective form of nominalism” (18). That is, for example, signing is just as ephemeral as speaking in its reliance on temporality. Somehow sign’s visible nature has been used to distance it from the capacities of speech towards the qualities on the visual side of the audio-visual binary such as surfaces and exteriority. I will demonstrate below how the philological biases of Oralists and other language scholars are rooted in this audio-visual litany.

13 For Sterne, this litany is “ideological in the oldest sense of the word: it is derived from religious dogma,” specifically Judeo-Christian theology (16). 13 Sterne attempts to remedy the problem of transhistorical understandings of sensory experience by historicizing sound reproduction. This dissertation also attempts to historicize sensory experience and modes of communication by considering nineteenth-century manifestations of the audio- visual litany as they appear in the discourse of the sign language debates.

Ferdinand De Saussure’s conception of language as a system of signification, as laid out in the Course in General Linguistics (1916), is another important lens through which to consider

signed languages and the sign language debates. While his postulation of language as a system

dependent upon social convention is useful in deconstructing the Oralist arguments that spoken

words inherently reflect the thoughts they signify, Saussure’s legacy for signed languages is

mixed. As various critics, most notably Jacques Derrida, have noticed, Saussure privileges

speech when he defines “language” in terms of spoken language. For Saussure, language “is a

system of signs in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and sound-images,” or

the signified and the signifier, respectively (15). To clarify, when Saussure uses the term “sound-

image” he does not mean “material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint

of the sound, the impression that it makes on our senses” (66). Saussure’s conception of

signification has “two primordial characteristics”: the arbitrary nature of the sign and the linear

nature of the signifier (67 – 70). Both of these characteristics, as various critics including Derrida

and Deaf Studies scholar Dirksen Bauman have highlighted, depend entirely on the conflation of

speech and language, which is obviously a problematic and phonocentric definition of language.

My main concern is with Saussure’s alignment of arbitrariness and abstraction in

language. For Saussure, “the bond between the signifier and signified is arbitrary.” This means

that the signifier is “unmotivated, i.e. arbitrary in that it actually has no natural connection with

the signified” (69). The accuracy of Saussure’s postulation – that linguistic signification depends

upon arbitrariness – comes into question when considering signed languages. Signed languages

14 clearly use more iconicity than spoken languages and yet they are also true languages.14 There are

many signs that are “motivated” insofar as they can be understood, by a cultural and linguistic

insider, to resemble the concept they are representing. In a linguistic paradigm dependent on

Saussure’s belief that signification relied upon arbitrariness,15 the potential iconicity of signed

languages becomes problematic.

As Sarah Taub notes in her book Language From the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in

American Sign Language (2001),16 since Saussure,

a lack of connection between a word’s form and its meaning has been seen as the highest

property of language, the thing that raises humans above beasts. Any creature, this

reasoning goes, could imitate a dog’s bark and use that sound to mean dog… humans

alone have detached these sounds from immediate, intuitive associations and fashioned

an elegant system of symbols from them. (2)

Because signed languages combine “visual imagery with linguistic structure on a scale no

language can equal” (Taub 1), their linguistic valuation has been affected by the widespread

denigration of iconicity. In fact, because arbitrariness was so long the hallmark of a complex

language, early sign linguists sought to de-emphasize the potential for iconicity in signed

languages. As Bauman notes, early “sign language linguists went to elaborate lengths to

14 As Sarah Taub notes, ASL has its own lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntax and is therefore a “true language.” This argument for ASL’s linguistic status was first made in the 1960s by Gallaudet researcher ’s theorization of the linguistic patterning of signed languages (37) and is now widely accepted. 15 Taub explains that Saussure’s focus on arbitrariness “was aimed at countering a naive view of iconicity, one that would attempt to derive the bulk of all languages’ vocabularies from iconic origins….Yet for years it was used to shut down discussions of any iconic aspects of language” (35). In fact, because there is much less iconicity in spoken languages, linguists were able to efface its importance. However, Taub notes, “sign linguists, unlike ‘speech linguists’ never had the option of ignoring iconicity; iconicity is simply too pervasive in signed languages” (37). 16 Taub’s central argument is that ASL can use iconic images to convey abstract thoughts through deploying metaphor: “a vast array of concepts are linked by metaphor to concrete concepts; a great deal of meaning can therefore be expressed by visual images of concrete objects and actions” (4). 15 downplay or even deny ASL’s iconic properties so that it would conform to the principle of arbitrariness” (“Listening” n.p.). Taub explains that because sign linguists and signers have persistently had to refute the imputation that signed languages were merely pantomime, “even now, talking about iconicity to Deaf people and sign linguists can be a touchy matter – as if admitting that signed languages do have a lot of iconicity is tantamount to agreeing that they are not languages” (37).17

However, other sign linguists like William Stokoe and David Armstrong have valued the

iconicity of signed languages and have reversed the argument by postulating that, “spoken

languages could be viewed as impoverished given their relative lack of iconicity…. Armstrong

has suggested that had linguistics begun with signers, iconicity rather than arbitrariness might

have been regarded as a defining principle of human language” (Taub 41). That is, the fact that

signed languages have different qualities than spoken languages does not mean that they are not

true languages. Signed languages clearly stretch the boundaries of Western theories about the

properties of language as articulated by Saussure. Bauman explains that more recently, “linguists

began to challenge the very premises of Saussure’s principles…. As a result the data from sign

language linguistics have fundamentally altered the ‘nature’ of what we call language”

(“Listening” n.p.). Overall, as Bauman argues, “the bias toward arbitrariness is a result of

phonocentric thinking and does not pertain to a general rule in linguistics” (“Listening” n.p.).18

17 Taub explains that “sign linguists, at least in the early days, took two basic approaches to iconicity: strongly arguing against its presence/importance (with the goal of proving ASL etc., to be true languages), and reveling in its multifarious manifestations, excited by the differences between signed and spoken languages” (37). For a more detailed history of how sign linguists have approached the issue of iconicity in signed languages and what this suggests for linguistics as a field see Taub 35- 42. 18 Relying on Derrida, Bauman sees arbitrariness as phonocentric because of his understanding of Saussure’s “alignment of sound/arbitrariness.” Because Saussure saw language as a sound-based system, and therefore understood the bond between signifier and signified as sound based, his insistence on the principles of the arbitrariness and linearity of the signifier are phonocentric and exclude signed languages. See Bauman’s “Listening to Phonocentrism with Deaf Eyes” for more on his critique of Saussurean linguistics. 16 Linguistic analyses took their cue from Saussure’s sound-based assessment of arbitrariness but this phonocentric approach to linguistics has had to shift with the growth of signed language linguistics over the last five decades. Linguists have had to relinquish their belief that a lack of iconicity denotes linguistic sophistication.

Perhaps part of the problem that faced linguists was their perception of a straightforward opposition between iconicity and arbitrariness. That is, if there is an iconic or motivated valence to a sign, does that necessarily mean that the link between signified and signifier cannot still be understood as adhering to the principle of arbitrariness? By using “arbitrariness” I mean to emphasize the idea that there is nothing inherent in a signifier that connects naturally or necessarily to a signified. The process of signification, even when infused with iconicity, is still a system of social convention. After all, there is no universal signed language intelligible to all people. British Sign Language (BSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) are mutually unintelligible even though they both developed in English speaking countries. And while the BSL sign for “tea” and the ASL sign for “tea” both seem to bear some resemblance to the Western cultural process of making or drinking tea, they both feature different aspects of that process and use the sign in a different grammatical system.

Furthermore, an orientation towards visual iconicity does not detract from the complexities of grammatical structure. Signed languages have both. Taub explains that “iconicity is a relationship not between words and the world but between our mental conception of a linguistic item’s form and its meaning” (42). That is, iconicity does not assume a necessary and transparent connection between the materiality of the world and a self-evident bodily sign but instead is still entirely a social construction. Studies have shown that non-signers cannot understand a signed language despite its iconic elements which means, in Taub’s words, that

“signed languages [are] conventional as well as iconic” (38). What I want to emphasize is that

17 there is more complexity to issues of iconicity and arbitrariness than Saussure might have understood with his speech-focused orientation. This has become increasingly clear to the field of signed language linguistics, which has now shifted to valuing the potential iconic nature of some signs. Literary studies, however, does not seem to have progressed alongside linguistics, and still generally looks to Saussurean arbitrariness as constitutive of signification.

In Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida also undertakes a rigorous critique of Saussure’s reliance upon the “sound-image” and the attendant “suspicion” of writing that Derrida locates in the field of linguistics. Derrida points to Saussure’s understanding of language as synonymous with speech as well as his conception of writing as only a representation of speech as evidence of

Saussure’s privileging of the voice, or “phonocentrism.” Derrida also interrogates Saussure’s reliance on the arbitrariness of the sign: “No doubt this thesis [of the arbitrariness of the sign] concerns only the necessity of relationships between specific signifiers and signifieds within an allegedly natural relationship between the voice and sense in general, between the order of phonic signifiers and the content of the signifieds” (44). By illuminating the contradictions inherent in the fact that Saussure ostensibly sees a necessary and natural relation between sound and thought even while he derides the belief that there is a necessary and natural relation between a particular sound and a particular thought, Derrida underscores the paradox of Saussure’s notion of arbitrariness. While Derrida’s main critiques of Saussure are focused on the phonocentrism that rejects writing as only a secondary mode of language, his interrogation of Saussure’s privileging of the voice can also be mobilized to uncover the bias against signed languages. As Jonathan

Culler notes, Derrida shows that the Saussurean dismissal of writing “is crucial to the Western tradition of thinking about language, in which speech is seen as natural, direct communication and writing as an artificial and oblique representation of a representation” (100).

18 The cultural construction of language buttressing Oralism was quite clearly

“phonocentric” in its elevation of orality and sound at the expense of other forms of language. In

Of Grammatology, Derrida explores the wider historical privileging of speech over writing in the

West because of the perceived proximity of speech to thought, or even to the self. In fact, according to Derrida, subjectivity has been constructed through speech, or, more specifically, through “hearing-oneself-speak.” In this formulation, “phonocentrism” refers to the privileging of speech because of its “presence.” This notion of speech’s presence, as Derrida demonstrates, inflects – Derrida might even say infects – Western metaphysics and its foundation in

“logocentrism” or the locating of truth in “the word.” In the phonocentric history of the West, speech has been constructed as a direct embodiment of thought, and writing as only “a particular, derivative, auxiliary form of language in general…the exterior surface, the insubstantial double of a major signifier, the signifier of the signifier…” (Derrida 7). In this understanding of the hierarchies of human language, speech is originary and writing only derivative.

Throughout Of Grammatology, Derrida demonstrates that phonocentrism is buttressed by a binarization of speech and writing. As in other binaries that organize Western thought, according to Derrida, one of the terms of the binary is privileged over the other term; in this case, speech is understood as superior to writing. In this dichotomization, we find both the root and the remedy for phonocentrism. In order to disrupt phonocentrism, and the logocentrism it informs,

Derrida strives to demonstrate the untenability of this binary in various ways throughout Of

Grammatology. As we will see in chapter one, various deaf poets also call attention to the fallacies inherent in understanding writing only insofar as it represents speech. After all, as Sterne explains, “[a]s Derrida and others have noted, to treat writing as simply a representation of speech

19 is to efface its own social character” (46).19 Some of Derrida’s deconstructive strategies include examining the contradictions in seminal moments in history when phonocentrism was being formed and reinforced. As Andrew Cutrofello notes, Derrida also deconstructed this binary through arguing that “it is impossible to make sense of the ideal of a purely expressive language

[which is what phonocentrism sees in speech]. For in its dependence on iterable signifiers, all language requires that very non-expressive element which has traditionally been ascribed to non- phonetic writing” (n.p.). The iterability required of any mode of language, its repeatability and therefore its systemic nature, inherently deflates the fantasy of speech as a purely expressive language, a fantasy that informs so much Oralist discourse. As Culler notes, “however swiftly it vanishes, the spoken word is still a material form which, like the written form, works through its differences from other forms” (108). Overall, through demonstrating the impossibility of maintaining a rigid distinction between speech and writing, Derrida challenges phonocentrism at its foundations. When the binarization of speech and writing collapses, so does the foundation for speech’s hegemony.

As we will see, the assertion by various Oralists and other nineteenth-century thinkers that speech is closer to thought than all other types of language is a perfect example of Derridean phonocentrism as it appeared in the nineteenth century. The desire to eradicate signs from deaf education and the Deaf community because they might interfere with English literacy is also phonocentric in its privileging of phonetic writing. It is this privileging that Derrida calls “the most original and powerful ethnocentrism” (3). Finally, the notion that abstraction belonged

19 See chapter 22, “Painting the Voice,” and chapter 23, “Writing and the Analysis of Speech” in Rée’s I See a Voice for a more detailed discussion of the relationship between speech and writing and the ideologies that inform cultural perceptions of this relationship. Rée explains that “writing systems… are theoretical conjectures about the structures of the languages they apply to, rather than mechanical records of their audible features” (269). See also Davis’s introduction, especially pages 15 – 22 for his examination of “the facile equation made between speaking/hearing and writing” (16) and his suggestion that “the myth that needs to be debunked is that speech is somehow closer to writing than is sign language” (20). 20 properly to speech and phonetic writing, and that non-phonetic languages could not proceed beyond the iconic is also phonocentric in privileging sound as foundational to abstract meaning.

As Bauman and other Deaf Studies scholars have noted, it has been in the education of deaf people and the sign language debates that phonocentrism has demonstrated its most explicit and most harmful manifestations. For this reason, it is quite strange that Derrida never engaged with these issues or with sign language since it is a third term that disrupts the false binarization of language into speech and writing. Bauman argues, “[w]ith its deconstruction of a voice- centered tradition, grammatology, one might say, initiates a ‘Deaf philosophy’” (317). It is this philosophy, and this desire to disrupt the supremacy of the voice that so oppressed deaf people, that informs my approach to the nineteenth-century sign language debates.

A key part of my attempt to interrogate the supremacy of the voice in its nineteenth- century version will be to re-consider the persistent and pervasive idea that signed languages are more embodied than spoken languages. My objection has two crucial tenets: first, why should a relationship to embodiment (accurate or not) be denigrated as inferior; second, why are signed languages understood as more corporeal than speech? After all, speech is equally a product of the body as sign. It comes from the body and is received by the body. Like signs, speech creates meaning through the movement of the body. Signs and speech are equally ephemeral, appearing in traces of motion for an instant. The significant difference between spoken and signed languages is not their relationship to the body but what parts of the body they emerge from and what senses they engage in reception. Speech is created through the lungs, tongue, throat, mouth and lips. Signed languages are produced through movements of the face, arms and hands. Speech is primarily an audible phenomenon, although with speech-reading deaf people it becomes a visual experience. Sign is primarily a visual phenomenon, although when used with deaf-blind people it becomes a tactile experience. If the only differences between speech and signs are their

21 physical points of production and reception then why is one perceived as more embodied than the other? With the audiovisual litany and Derrida’s critique of phonocentrism to buttress my approach, throughout this dissertation I would like to ask why sign seems more obviously imprinted on the body? What ideologies of language, sensory experience, and the human body inform this belief in sign’s corporeality and speech’s ephemerality? In this dissertation, I will foreground how sign is not, in Davis’s words, the “radical other” of speech that Oralists suggested it was (19). As Carol Padden and Tom Humphries have argued, ASL and English, for example, have different qualities but equal capabilities being “equivalent in expressive power but different in what they expressed” (154). Speech and sign are equally ephemeral and equally embodied. In fact, it is in the case of lip reading deaf people that the embodied dimension of speech is made most clear: Olaf Hanson, a nineteenth-century deaf American “argued that speechreading involved merely substituting one form of visual communication that was reliable for another that was less so because ‘to the deaf, speech is but another mode of signs, and a very poor and indistinct one as compared with any other methods’” (Van Cleve and Crouch 135).

The Charge of Embodiedness: Iconicity, Concreteness, and Primitiveness However, because of the strange romanticization of orality, which granted it proximity to

thought and to subjectivity, while simultaneously distancing it from corporeality, signed

languages were attacked in the nineteenth century for their perceived embodiedness. As I noted

above, this construction of sign was accompanied by various conclusions: first, that speech is

synonymous with language and is inextricably bound to thought; second, that signed languages

are iconic languages of the body that belie abstract thinking; and third, that writing, as a product

of speech, is inaccessible to signers. These ideas were held not only by Oralists but were also

reflected in general nineteenth-century culture. Before finally turning to a description of chapters

22 that follow this introduction, I would like to pause here to examine these three beliefs about the meaning of the connection between signed languages and the body.

In their book Damned for their Difference: The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as

Disabled (2002), Jan Branson and Don Miller consider seventeenth-century Cartesian beliefs

about the relationship between language and humanity. They then argue,

although debates would rage through the rest of the millennium about the nature of language,

the dominant view was that language derived only from the faculty of speech. Those without

speech, thus, were labeled frequently as ‘mindless,’ as less than human. Those who were

deaf were assumed to be incapable of learning language, incapable of human understanding.

(25)

In this configuration of speech and language, sign language is relegated to inferiority and

marginality, and in no way is considered a language as such.20 While Branson and Miller trace

this equation of speech and language throughout the last few centuries of Western thought, in this

dissertation I will demonstrate that this equation had particular cultural resonances in the

nineteenth century. For many Victorians and their North American counterparts, language and

speech were inextricable terms.

A representative example of the nineteenth-century phonocentric cultural obfuscation of

speech and language appears in the 1861 public lectures that F. Max Müller, the first Professor of

Comparative Philology at Oxford, gave at the Royal institution in London. I discuss these lectures

further in chapter two. Stephen Alter calls Müller “the Victorian world’s most widely read

Orientalist and language theorist” (4). Alter argues that in these influential Lectures On the

Science of Language, Müller was able to “set out coordinates of public understanding of the field

20 See Douglas Baynton’s Forbidden Signs, chapter 2, for more on the American context of the perceived inferiority or primitivism of sign language in the nineteenth century. 23 of philology” (64). Müller, who was a vehement opponent of Darwin and his theories as set out in

On the Origin of Species, published two years before Müller’s lectures, believed that “language was the one great barrier between brute and man” (Lectures 1861 356). For Müller, the ability to use language was the “outward manifestation of the uniquely human capacity for abstract reflection” (Alter 64). Müller, who Alter argues “made himself a mid-Victorian cultural hero” through popularizing his philosophies of language (65), confused speech with language. He also bound speech and reason inextricably through his famous pronouncement: “Without speech no reason, without reason, no speech” (Lectures 1863 69). As I will demonstrate in chapter two,

Müller pronounced upon the capabilities of deaf signers, arguing that signed languages “are not the signs of things or conceptions as words are: they are the signs of signs, just as written language is not an image of our thoughts but an image of the phonetic embodiment of our thought” (Lectures 1863 74-5).

Müller’s ideology was representative of a widely supported strain of thought about language.

His audiences included influential Victorians from the poet Laureate Tennyson to Queen Victoria herself. However, there were also many who disagreed with Müller’s formulations. William

Dwight Whitney, “nineteenth century America’s leading writer on general linguistic theory”

(Alter xi), debated Müller for the duration of their careers about the nature and origins of language. These debates developed into a transatlantic public dispute in the 1870s that I explore further in chapter two. In opposition to Müller, Whitney argued, in his book The Life and Growth of Language (1875), “there is no mysterious connection between the thinking apparatus and the articulating apparatus, whereby the action that forms a thought sets the tongue swirling to utter it…the muscles of the larynx and mouth are no nearer to the soul than those of voluntary motion, by which among other things, gestures are produced” (291). Whitney explicitly untangles thought from speech in his book. In underscoring the physical motions of the tongue, larynx, and

24 mouth, Whitney also emphasizes the embodied production of speech that thinkers like Müller efface. In order to prove his assertion about the lack of connection between thought and speech,

Whitney turns to deaf people, “whose thinking and articulating apparatus is all in order, but who, by the numbing of the single nerve of audition, are removed from the disturbing infection of conventional speech” (292).21

Unfortunately, much Oralist educational theory reflected Müller’s construction of the synonymity of speech and language and the inextricability of speech from thought in order to justify its insistence that deaf people be taught to speak. Arnold, “Britain’s intellectual champion of pure oralism” (Branson and Miller 164), who established an Oral school in England in 1867

(Rée 225), frequently cites Müller in his work. His “manuals for teaching deaf people speech and lip-reading as well as for educating deaf people in general became the central texts in Britain for pure oralists and above all, for the professional training of pure oralist teachers” (Branson and

Miller 164). When writing about the powers of the human voice, Arnold argues that “this marvelous organ has certainly more than a chance relation to thought, its use of air and sound, the former necessary to life and the latter the least material of qualities, is finely adapted to the swift and changeful nature of thought” (The Education of the Deaf and Dumb, 1872, 11-12). Arnold saw necessary connections between the supposed ephemerality of the voice and the fleeting qualities of human thought. Arnold’s alignment of speech and thought is one that, as Derrida notes, has a long history. In looking back to Aristotle’s belief that spoken words represent thought

(and written words represent only spoken words), Derrida declares that this belief relies on some postulation of “a relationship of conventional symbolization” between “mind and logos” (11). In this understanding of language, “the voice, producer of the first symbols, has a relationship of

21 Here, as Alter argues, Whitney is a “forerunner” to Saussure in his “elaborat[ion] of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment conception of language as a social product” (Alter 4). For more on Whitney and his debates

25 essential and immediate proximity with the mind” (11). With this notion of phonè-logos proximity informing much nineteenth-century linguistic thought and deaf pedagogy, deaf signers were persistently denigrated for the way their language of the body supposedly distanced them from the mind.

For Oralists, the issue of representation intersected with ideologies of sensory and linguistic experience to privilege speech. A visual form of communication such as sign language was understood as existing a step away from the thought itself because the visual moves a step further away from the perceived interiority and immateriality of speech’s reflection of thought.

Müller and Oralists like Arnold believed that speech and thought were virtually synonymous.22 At the Second International Congress on the Education of the Deaf held at Milan in 1880, another

British educator of deaf children, David Buxton, argued that, “‘Signs’ are not a language, though they are sometimes said to be one. They are but a substitute for a language, and a bad substitute….They do not open the door to the world of written and spoken language; they turn the key inside, and the poor mute soul is confined within its own small intellectual world – for life”

(56). Buxton, whose treatment of deaf intermarriage I discuss in chapter four, denies the linguistic capacities of signed languages and insists that signs limit the intellectual potential of deaf people. Like Buxton, Arnold conceived of signs as a degree removed from thought, a distance that did not apply to speech:

with Müller, see Stephen Alter’s William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language (2005). 22 While Arnold’s work was very influential, and while he authored the textbook used in training British Oral teachers for the whole of the nineteenth-century, I do not want to generalize too broadly about the linguistic beliefs of the supporters of Oralism. Though by and large, Oralist rhetoric, especially in the early and mid- nineteenth century associated speech with thought, there were certainly some Oralists, like Alexander Graham Bell, who had a more sophisticated understanding of language, and sign language more particularly. Bell did not object to the use of signs because he equated speech with reason or thought, but rather for a variety of other reasons including his eugenicist fears that sign language among the deaf community would lead to intermarrying among the deaf resulting in a “Deaf-Mute variety of the Human Race.” See Bell’s pamphlet A Deaf-Mute Variety of the Human Race, as well as his testimony to The Royal

26 When we think in sounds we seem to perceive the very subjects of thought. There is no

perceptible intervening image, form, or sign so that few know anything about this vehicle

of thought until their attention is specially directed to it. Mimic signs are essentially

different; for, as they are pictorial representations of mental images, as a vehicle of

thought they must be mentally perceived and associated with the ideas. To think in such

pictures must be inferior to thinking in sounds that only recall the ideas. (The Education

of Deaf Mutes, 1891, 6)

In Arnold’s strange formulation, the sounds of speech are not iterable signifiers in a system of signification. Instead, speech transparently reflects thought.

Nineteenth-century cultural beliefs about signed languages – outside of the deaf community that actually used these languages – attributed signed languages with opposing features to spoken languages. That is, where speech reflected the thoughts of the mind, signed languages manifested the immediate needs of the body. Where speech was suited to abstraction, signed languages were anchored in the concrete. The materiality of the body persistently figures in descriptions of signed languages within this culture that attempted to repress the fact that speech is also a product of the physical body. In her book Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical

Constructions of Deafness (1999), Brueggemann explains, “[s]temming from the work of Helmer

Mycklebust and Hans Furth in the 1960’s the perception still persists that sign language somehow

limits its user to concreteness and informality -- that it cannot achieve what we so value in the

hyperliterate, abstract, formal environment of the academy” (171). While Brueggemann

accurately emphasizes the importance of Mycklebust and Furth’s influence in the twentieth

century, I want to call attention to the fact that this notion that sign language is incapable of

Commission for the Education of the Blind and Deaf and Dumb for more about his position. I address Bell’s role in the sign language debates in chapter four. 27 representing abstraction goes back at least as far as the nineteenth century. For example, Arnold argues,

[s]igns are pictures of objects, and therefore resemble them. The one suggests the other

from this semblance. But by what signs shall we express abstractions, purely mental

states, operations and intuitions? As none of these can be reduced to a material form it is

impossible to figure them by signs…. The processes of the understanding cannot be

described on the fingers. (The Education of the Deaf and Dumb, 1872, 5-6)

The concrete nature of signed languages was widely accepted in the nineteenth century and, as

Brueggemann notes, even beyond until the present day. The related belief is that signing deaf people are unable to access abstraction in any language, whether signed or written, because their comprehension is rooted in the materiality of their first language of signs.

Because of this pervasive construction of the concreteness of signed languages, deaf educators often exhibited their students in order to justify the Manualist system of education and showcase their pupils’ abilities with abstract thought and language. Early in the nineteenth century, Abbé Sicard,23 a manualist French educator of deaf children, held public performances to

demonstrate the abilities of his deaf students (including his two star pupils Jean Massieu and

Laurent Clerc) from the Institution Imperiale des Sourds-Muets in Paris.24 Jonathan Rée explains,

23 Sicard was the successor to the Abbé L’Epee, who was the founder of Manualist deaf education in France. 24 In 1815, Abbé Sicard, along with his deaf pupils Jean Massieu and , toured England, giving public demonstrations including one commissioned for the British parliament: On one occasion the Duke of Kent handed a French book to Massieu, who rendered a passage in signs, which Clerc then translated back into written French. But most of the time, [Massieu and Clerc] simply had to satisfy the public’s curiosity as to whether they would really understand abstract or artificial terms, words whose meanings were linguistic rather than sensory…for example…‘What is the difference between love and friendship…mind and matter?….authority and power?’ (quoted in Rée 196) This visit of Sicard’s to London is important to the history of Deaf education in the United States as it was in London that the American Thomas H. Gallaudet met Laurent Clerc. Gallaudet was in England on a commission to research the best methods of educating the deaf but here the story becomes contested. The 28 “the purpose of these performances was simply to demonstrate the intellectual virtues of sign language by exhibiting the personal culture of the Institution’s individual pupils, especially their deftness with artificial and abstract ideas” (192). At these demonstrations, the public asked the deaf students various questions that were translated to the students through interpreters using signs. The students then wrote their reply on a chalkboard in various languages including French,

Latin, English, German, Italian and Spanish (Davis 54-5). Rée provides the following example of deaf pupil Jean Massieu at these public exercises:

‘What is hearing?’ ‘Auricular vision’ was Massieu’s well-received reply. And gratitude?

‘The remembrance of the heart.’ Sense? ‘an idea-carrier (une porte-idee).’ Hope? ‘It is

the flower of happiness,’ he replied in a flash. And eternity? ‘A day without either a

yesterday or tomorrow.’ (qtd. In Rée 193, emphasis in original)

In his discussion of these demonstrations, Davis underscores how “the panopticon created by

Sicard put the deaf on display but did not allow the deaf to control their own display except by the deviousness of subaltern strategies” (56). The Foucauldian notion of power operating through spectacle, as well as the participation of institutions like education in exercising biopower, is a useful lens through which to consider the relationship between Oralism as a pedagogical movement and deaf people as a marginalized group.

well-known story of the founding of American Deaf education is that Gallaudet sought out the successors of the prominent Scottish educator Thomas Braidwood at their various British schools who did use some oral training. These educators were apparently unwilling to share their trade secrets, or else were only willing to do so under very strict conditions. Gallaudet happened to attend one of Sicard’s public demonstrations in London and became impressed with the manual method. Sicard was open about his methods and invited Gallaudet to learn from him. Eventually Sicard’s student Laurent Clerc accompanied Gallaudet back to the United States where they set up the American Asylum for the Deaf in Hartford in 1817, the first permanent institution for deaf education in the United States. The controversy erupts around two points: the degree of Oralism practiced at the Braidwood school, and what exactly the Braidwood’s school’s administrators told Gallaudet when he wanted to learn their methods. See Rée 198-202; Lane 155- 205; Baynton 3,7; Padden, Branson and Miller 133-7 for various positions on Gallaudet’s trip to Europe and the founding of the American Asylum for the Deaf. 29 In his book When the Mind Hears: a History of the Deaf (1984), Harlan Lane writes in first person in the character of Laurent Clerc. Lane’s Clerc explains that the questions at the public exhibitions arose as “a kind of test of our intelligence, and if they particularly dwelt on abstractions it was because hearing people were under the misapprehension that the deaf could deal only with concrete things” (38). British and American educators of the deaf also sought to address this misapprehension about deaf people and sign language. Similar demonstrations of pupils’ skills were widespread in British and North American deaf schools where students would answer math problems, define concepts, and put their abstract thinking skills on display.25 In

1845, H.B. Bingham, the principal of the College of the Deaf and Dumb in Rugby, England,

published a collection of Essays by the Pupils at the College of the Deaf and Dumb, Rugby,

Warwickshire. In his introduction to the book, Bingham explains that he presents these essays to

the public as “proof” that many deaf students, “when educated, possess a quickness of

apprehension, and a scope of imagination equal to those of their own age who are not naturally

deaf” (xi-xii). Bingham narrates how his students wrote these essays for visitors to the school

who suggested the essay topics. These essay topics echo the types of questions posed to Clerc and

Massieu by the public in order to assess their grasp of the abstract. The Rugby students are asked

to write about pertinent social issues like slavery, revolution and the advantages of the railway,

topics related to their deafness, such as whether it is worse to be deaf or blind, and about abstract

concepts like “death” and “light.” One interesting topic was proposed by Charles Dickens when

25 Often the rhetoric used by those in power about the languages of other marginalized groups was quite similar to the denigration of signed languages by hearing Oralists. As Laura J. Murray notes in “Joining Signs with Words: Missionaries, Metaphor, and the Massachusett Language,” the languages of Indigenous Americans were often described as more incomplete, rudimentary and concrete than spoken English. As I note in chapter two, the signed languages of deaf people were often compared to the gestures used by indigenous Americans and this alignment was understood to suggest that both kinds of gestural modes were more “primitive” than speech. See Murray for more on the role of metaphor, particularly “gestural metaphor,” in interactions between missionaries and indigenous peoples in seventeenth-century New England. 30 he visited the school: “If you can describe an author to me, I should be very glad to know (having some interest in the subject) what he is?”(6). The student’s characterization of an author is one which involves “quarrels” with the “bookseller about publishing his manuscripts, the airs he gives himself when he hears his works praised, and the way he finds some defect or other with them, as if to say he knows more now than when he wrote those works” (7). Dickens would perhaps have been gratified at the student’s final assertion that the “Good author” “is the great machine by which three-quarters of the happiness of the world is promoted. Long may such Authors as these be respected” (10). These public demonstrations, whether performed or printed, of the educational progress and abstract thought of deaf students were widespread among deaf schools in Britain and North America. As vehicles for requesting financial donations for deaf education from governments and the public, these demonstrations sated public curiosity in exchange for public support.

While nineteenth-century hierarchies of language elevated speech and denigrated signed languages, writing seemed to be more troublesome to place. Writing complicates these configurations of speech-mind-abstraction and sign-body-concreteness by being simultaneously abstract and concrete. Writing, perceived as a product of speech, was both a reflection of abstract thought and yet acknowledged as being created through the concreteness of the body as a material artifact -- that is, for example, letters on paper. For these reasons, and the ambivalent cultural valuing of writing, writing became a fascinating battleground in the Sign Language debates. The key issue was this: if writing was a product of speech – an “image of the phonetic embodiment of our thought” to quote Arnold – then how could deaf people who did not speak, write?

In order to maintain their hierarchy of language, Oralists attempted to argue that using a signed language disrupted a deaf person’s acquisition of English language skills. This was why

Oralists insisted on the total eradication of signs and resisted a more moderate Combined system,

31 which augmented sign with oral training and writing. They believed that any use of sign would interfere with the appropriate use of English and result in the appearance of what they called

“deaf-mutisms” – meaning errors in grammar or other English usage due to the different grammatical systems of signed languages. St John Ackers, a British MP and advocate for

Oralism, (also known as the “German” system as opposed to the Manualist or “French” system), wrote of a visit to a deaf school where

those who had been taught under the “French” system, [were] unable to converse with us

who were unacquainted with signs and the manual alphabet, and whose attempts at

writing were most difficult and in many cases impossible to understand owing to the

language of their country being to them a foreign language. That the language of their

country will ever be thus, even to the most highly educated, if taught on the inverted

order of the sign language, will be admitted by even the staunchest supporters of those

systems. (116)

Oralists – who argued that the combined system where sign and English speech were taught concurrently resulted in poor English language acquisition – used the example of “mutisms” to defend their decision to eliminate sign language from deaf education. For example, Alexander

Graham Bell presented similar concerns in his testimony to the British Royal Commission in

1888. He argued that a deaf child educated in sign,

has learned to think in the gesture language, and his most perfected English

expressions are only translations of his sign speech. As a general rule, when his

education is completed, his knowledge of the English language is like the knowledge of

French or German possessed by the average hearing child on leaving school. He cannot

read an ordinary book intelligently without frequent recourse to a dictionary…and he can

32 generally make people understand what he wishes in broken English, as a foreigner

would speak. (“Fallacies” 353)

Both Ackers and Bell refer to signing deaf people as foreigners in their own country. As Baynton notes, this rhetoric was widespread in Oralist discourse of the later nineteenth century (15).26

These Oralists all express concern that signs, in all their corporeality, inherently corrupt

English language acquisition, a topic which I will discuss further in chapter one. The supposed

illiteracy of signers in English was a key weapon in the Oralist arsenal. The blame for this

supposed illiteracy was always assigned to signed languages. Susanna Hull, the British Oralist at

whose school Bell first worked with deaf children, and who Branson and Miller call one of

“Britain’s earliest and most fervent pure oralists” (169) was typical in censuring signed

languages. In her testimony at the Milan Congress, she declared that “signs will always injure

language, and spoken language is as natural to the deaf as to ourselves when it is, as with other

children, the only means of communication presented to them” (71). Of course, the accusation

that English language is injured by the “inverted” order of signs, as manifested in “mutisms,”

assumes that English grammar is superior to any other language’s grammar. Oralists held English

literacy at a premium and speech as a goal. Through aligning speech with language, abstract

thought, and literacy, Oralists attempted to denigrate the embodied language of signs which they

argued limited its users to pantomime, concreteness, and iconicity.

26 See chapter one of Baynton’s Forbidden Signs for a discussion of this issue of “foreignness” in an American context. Baynton traces part of this discourse to increasing nationalism and immigration after the civil war. He also argues, “[f]or the oralists, as for their contemporaries in other fields of reform – the assimilation of the Indian, the uplifting of the working class, the Americanization of the immigrant – equality was synonymous with sameness” (34). In the context of deaf Americans, this sameness meant that all Americans needed to speak the same national language. Jill Lepore also addresses the issue of language as a feature of national unity in A is For American: Letters and Other Characters in the United States. In her chapter on “Visible Speech” and Alexander Graham Bell, Lepore argues that “for Alexander Graham Bell, the foreignness of sign language meant that it ought to be extinguished, just as the languages of immigrants to the United States ought to be abandoned: because foreign languages – foreign peoples – threaten the health of the republic” (183). 33 In the past two decades, Deaf Studies scholars and other researchers have published groundbreaking research on the sign language debates of the nineteenth century. These books – including Lane’s When the Mind Hears (1984), Davis’s Enforcing Normalcy (1995), Baynton’s

Forbidden Signs (1996), Brueggemann’s Lend Me Your Ear (1999), Rée’s I See A Voice (1999) and Branson and Miller’s Damned for Their Difference (2002) and Christopher Krentz’s Writing

Deafness (2007) – use a variety of approaches to understand the history and causes of the rise of

Oralism over the course of the nineteenth century. Lane writes in the voice of Laurent Clerc to tell the history of the founding of deaf education in the United States. Davis theorizes the development of the idea of normalcy and its dependence on its opposite, abnormality or disability for its meaning. Baynton historicizes the American context of the sign language debates with a special focus on education and immigration. Brueggemann reads Oralism through the lens of the history of rhetoric and its basis in “the good man speaking well.” Rée addresses Oralism in his comprehensive exploration of philosophical approaches to language and deafness in Europe ranging from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. Branson and Miller use a sociological approach in order to examine how deafness was constructed as disabling in Britain and Australia from the early modern period until the present day. Krentz explores issues of deafness and writing in nineteenth-century American fiction through the lens of “the hearing line,” which, for Krentz, is akin to W.E.B. DuBois’s color line. These books each offer a different perspective on the causes and consequence of the sign language debates – analyses that I address and incorporate in the chapters that follow. Each of these important books have also introduced new archival texts and theorized new approaches to understanding this momentous development in deaf history.

My work is indebted to these important and influential texts’ contribution to the historical record and the theoretical imagining of the Sign Language debates, but it also breaks new ground

34 in several ways. First, while the construction of sign as an embodied language informs all of these works to varying degrees – for example, in their discussions of linguistic ideologies, or race, gender and class, or developments in deaf educational pedagogy – it has never been examined and interrogated as its own development. No study has historicized the perceived corporeality of signed languages in the context of the nineteenth-century transatlantic sign language debates.

Second, I have taken a transatlantic approach to the issue. Not only were the sign language debates simultaneously occurring in Britain and North America, but also both sides of the Atlantic featured the same key players and witnessed the same constructions of deafness and signed languages. Deaf communities considered their transatlantic peers in their creation of culture and community. They shared strategies at Deaf conferences, reported each other’s news in their periodicals, and expressed solidarity with the fights against Oralism that others were waging.27 One key example of the importance of a transatlantic perspective is the influence of

Alexander Graham Bell, the most prominent Oralist in Britain and North America. Bell’s Oralist

efforts spanned all three countries. He was born in Scotland, apprenticed at Susanna Hull’s

Oralist school in London, and then spent the rest of his life in Canada and the United States

promoting this Oral method. He established Oralist organizations in the United States, wrote to

the Canadian government about the importance of eradicating deaf community, and testified at

the British Royal Commission on the Education of deaf children. Clearly a study bounded by a

focus on particular national contexts omits important elements of the sign language debates and

effaces the fact that deaf people often felt as though they shared more in common with deaf

people in other countries than with hearing people in their own (including their educational

interests, mode of language, and visual orientation to the world). By expanding the focus to all

27 As Joseph J. Murray notes, Deaf people of this time “created and maintained consistent contact with each other over national and continental boundaries” (“Co-equality” 100). 35 three of these English-speaking countries, we can better understand the nature of these transatlantic debates about signed languages.

Third, I have turned from the historical approach employed by many of these scholars including Baynton and Branson and Miller, to a cultural studies approach to the sign language debates. Because these debates were so rooted in cultural constructions of language, literary analysis of specific texts – including literature, scientific treatises and educational texts – is an extraordinarily valuable approach for understanding these debates and yields new insights into nineteenth-century conceptions of the relationship between bodies and language. The insights yielded using literature vary by chapter. In chapter one, which addresses deaf poetry, I argue that literature was actually used by deaf people and their allies as a significant, and overlooked, strategy of resistance to Oralism. Chapter three, on the other hand, looks to the difficulties Wilkie

Collins faced in scripting an embodied unscriptable language amidst the conventions of the

Victorian novel. The widely read texts by Dickens and Collins, which appear in chapters three and four, are valuable for their reflection of, and intervention into, nineteenth-century cultural constructions of deaf people and their languages. Furthermore, in using a literary and cultural studies approach to texts that have been previously used to glean historical information, including the eugenicist treatises that appear in chapter four or the philological debates that are the focus of chapter two, I have traced discursive patterns that reveal the primacy of deaf language use to so many central nineteenth-century cultural concerns.

Of course, one problem with my approach is that nineteenth-century literature, as it is accessible to us at least, is always written. While I have tried to recognize sign language texts where possible, such as the sign poetry I highlight in chapter one, my research is necessarily limited to written texts. In the twenty-first century, my only access to the sign language debates is through their paper remains. As Bauman notes, Deaf activists have had to “resort to print to 36 defend something that cannot be rendered in print. Yet print would have to be the voice of self- representation throughout the nineteenth century” (“Introduction” 6). This certainly distorts some of the picture in exploring the Sign Language debates. When writing in English, deaf people were using the hegemonic language of the dominant hearing culture, a language that was always secondary to their own languages of signs.

Each of the following four chapters is a case study of nineteenth-century cultural attempts to understand the relationship between the body and language through the lens of deafness and signed languages. In each chapter, then, there appears a unique context for the trinity of modes of human languages – writing, signed languages and speech – and how this trinity affected responses to the sign language debates. In all of these cases we also see how particular dominant definitions of ability – and conversely, disability – arise out of these perceived relationships between language and bodies, particularly the perception that signed languages are more corporeal than spoken languages. The cultural construction of signed languages as more embodied than speech that I have been tracing in this introduction appears in each of the following chapters. The assembled chapters buttress my conclusion that this construction of sign’s embodiedness was a significant, and undertheorized, element of Oralist discourse and the nineteenth-century culture that engendered it.

In chapter one, I examine poetry written by deaf people in order to uncover the phonocentrism that underscores both Oralism and the dominant nineteenth-century construction of the importance of aural and oral sound to poetry. In this formulation, speech is the originary source of poetic writing, and because deaf people cannot speak, they should not be able write poetry. The signing deaf body thereby becomes a bar to poetic achievement. Recognizing these false ideas about language, deaf poets, as well as their advocates, used poetry to challenge the hegemony of speech and the belief that writing is only a secondary product of speech. Through 37 interrogating the phonocentrism inherent in dominant cultural beliefs about poetry, these poets also challenge the same phonocentrism that buttresses the Oralist movement that they resisted.

Furthermore, through creating signed poetry as well as celebrating signed languages in their written poems, these poets participated explicitly in the resistance to Oralism and insisted that signed languages were equal to speech and writing. In this trinity configuration, deaf poets attempted to decouple speech and writing as well as insist on the inclusion of signed languages in the category of human languages.

In chapter two, I consider the relationship between the sign language debates and the debates around evolution in order to argue that both sides of the evolutionary debate were invested in making deaf people speak. In the years after Darwin published On the Origin of

Species (1859), sign language was increasingly constructed as an intermediary between the abstract speech of the human and the bodily gesture of the animal. In fact, the Victorian period was a time when the meaning of the human and the definition of language intersected in new ways, especially in the second half of the century. My contention is that deaf people became tangled in the threads of the cultural focus on what it meant to be human and what it meant to use language. The issue I engage with here, and throughout this dissertation, is not simply the cultural reception of deafness and signed languages but the larger cultural exploration of what languages were appropriate for human use.

In chapter three, I turn to the problem of deafness in literature. That is, how can an unscriptable language like sign language be conveyed in a written text? I begin with questioning the absence of deaf characters in Victorian fiction, a body of texts that frequently contains characters with various disabilities. Through considering the one Victorian novel to feature a deaf heroine, Wilkie Collins’s Hide and Seek, I find that the deaf heroine’s use of an unscriptable language places the author in the position of ventriloquist. Collins makes his deaf heroine’s body

38 “speak” even though she explicitly refuses to speak through her voice. Furthermore, Collins focuses his attention largely on his heroine’s non-linguistic body language rather than her linguistic use of sign. In this chapter I argue that Collins’s desire to make Madonna speak through her body rather than sign points to the difficulties of representing a signing deaf person within the conventions of the Victorian novel.

In chapter four, I examine a second form of resistance to Oralism beyond literature: the desire to form deaf communities outside of the oppression perpetrated by a hearing-dominated society.

This chapter extends my interest in the construction of sign as particularly corporeal towards tracing how this relationship between signs and bodies was increasingly perceived as threatening in the later nineteenth century. In order to do so, this chapter focuses on the rhetoric around deaf intermarriage and community as it arose in the eugenicist turn taken by Oralism. The Oralist opposition to deaf communities constructed them as a problem in their potential to create a “deaf variety of the human race,” to use Alexander Graham Bell’s terminology. In this formulation, language, particularly signed languages, can corrupt the body. This body is simultaneously the individual body of a deaf child born of deaf parents, as well as the national or even human species body, which becomes corrupted through a hereditary strain of deafness. I argue that in this

Oralist-eugenicist nexus, the reproduction of deaf bodies occurs explicitly through the reproduction of deaf language. However, I suggest that in deaf communities, like the one founded by Jane Elizabeth Groom in Western Canada, deaf people reject this pathologization of their bodies and their language. In Groom’s understanding, the disabling faced by deaf people arose from cultural conditions rather than deaf bodies. Deaf people are therefore abled through belonging to a community that can use their language. In this final chapter, I note that Groom’s rhetoric looks ahead to the social-constructivist views of disability that buttress contemporary

Deaf and Disability Studies. I conclude this dissertation with a consideration of the parameters of

39 the field of Deaf Studies, and its attempts to grapple with the relevance of languages and bodies.

As it grows, the field of Deaf Studies increasingly faces questions about what kinds of bodies and what modes of language it should properly take for its field of study as well as what types of language-body configurations equip a scholar to participate in the field. In these critical discussions we find one twenty-first century version of interrogations of the relationships between deaf identities, deaf bodies and deaf languages.

40 Chapter 1 “Perchance my Hand may Touch the Lyre”: Deaf Poetry and the Nineteenth-Century Sign Language Debates

In his autobiographical book Lost Senses: Deafness and Blindness, first published in 1845,

deaf British writer and missionary John Kitto declares that deaf people are incapable of writing

poetry. Kitto argues, “for want of hearing others speak, it is next to impossible that [a deaf

person] should have that knowledge of quantity and rhyme which is essential to harmonious

verse” (1.168). But in a contradictory move, after explaining his personal disqualifications for

writing verse, Kitto provides specimens of poetry he has written so that the reader can judge his

failure at what he calls “the tuneful art” (1.171). “If the reader can discover,” Kitto continues,

“the formal errors – the bad rhymes – the halting, hopping, stumping feet – which I am unable to

detect, then my proposition is demonstrated; but if he can make no such discoveries, it must then

be admitted with some qualification” (1.171). American educator of deaf people, E.M. Gallaudet,

addresses Kitto’s strange vacillation in his article, “Poetry of the Deaf,” published in 1888 in

Harper’s magazine. Gallaudet humorously declares, “Kitto’s poetry is better than his reasoning”

(91). Gallaudet then provides examples of poetry written by fourteen deaf poets in North America

and Europe, including Kitto, in order to demonstrate that deaf people can write poetry.

Gallaudet’s interest in the poetry of deaf writers was not solely literary. The assertion of

poetic ability in deaf people became an important tool for the deaf community and other

advocates of the Manualist position during the sign language debates. 28 In the same year of the

28 Though I do not wish to efface the different positions that various members of the deaf community took on the issue of Oralism, every source I have read, from the editorials of deaf journals to testimony presented at the Royal Commission asserts, beyond a doubt, that an overwhelming majority of North American and British deaf people opposed Oralism’s call for the eradication of sign language. 41 publication of his Harper’s article, Gallaudet was called before the British Royal Commission on the Education of the Blind and Deaf and Dumb (1885- 1889)29 to defend the right of the deaf community to use signed languages. The members of the Royal Commission expressed skepticism about the career prospects of signing deaf individuals who were not orally trained. In response, Gallaudet argued that educated deaf people “stand side by side with those who have all their faculties.” For Gallaudet, “this practice of the oral method with the deaf is not essential to the highest success in the various pursuits which they take up” (Gallaudet, “Testimony,” 468).

Gallaudet then, strangely enough, used deaf poetry to defend his point. He presented his Harpers article, “Poetry of the Deaf,” to the commission as evidence, noting that the commission might be

“surprised” at the “apparent absurdity” (468) of poetry by deaf people. Gallaudet then read a sonnet – “Memories of Sound”30 by deaf poet Amos. G. Draper – aloud to the commission (468).

Why did Gallaudet believe he could prove the success of signing deaf people through

reading a sonnet? In this chapter, I will explain how, and why, poetry written by deaf people was

mobilized to defend their rights to use sign language and resist the cultural imperative to speak. I

will investigate why poetry by the deaf was considered an “absurdity” (Gallaudet 87) in the

nineteenth century through considering nineteenth-century constructions of the relationship

between sound and poetry as well as nineteenth-century phonocentric understandings of language

as discussed in my introduction. It is my contention that the phonocentric beliefs about the false

binary of speech and writing (and the related superiority of speech) that underpinned Oralism also

informed nineteenth-century skepticism about the poetic abilities of deaf people. I will then

explore how this poetry was used as a tool in the sign language debates. Through considering the

thematic, formal and bibliographical qualities of this body of deaf poetry, I will argue that it was

29 The nineteenth-century terminology for the group that we now call “deaf” was either “deaf-mute” or “deaf and dumb”. The terminology reveals that the category of deafness as it was constructed in the nineteenth-century was explicitly concerned with speech as well as hearing. 42 used by members of the deaf community and their supporters to defend their right to sign, to resist Oralism, and to challenge the phonocentric foundations of nineteenth-century constructions of both poetry and language. These deaf poets exploited the “apparent absurdity” of deaf poetry in a way that revealed contradictions in nineteenth-century cultural understandings of poetry and language. Poetry, then, ultimately illuminated and interrogated the phonocentric notions that buttressed the Oralist program. In this chapter, I will focus on the poetry of the British and

American deaf poets mentioned by Gallaudet’s article on the “Poetry of the Deaf,” including John

R. Burnet, John Carlin, Amos G. Draper, Angie A. Fuller, John Kitto, Mary Toles Peet, Laura C.

Redden Searing and William Henry Simpson.

A Poetry of “Absurdity”: Constructions of Sound in Victorian Poetry

Kitto’s publication of poetry that he claimed he was incapable of writing reflects the contradictions that arose when Victorians and their North American counterparts considered the idea of poetry written by deaf people. In “Poetry of the Deaf,” Gallaudet introduces this contradiction by quoting from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Poetic Principle”:

Contenting myself with the certainty that music, in its various modes or meter,

rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in poetry as never to be wisely rejected – is so

vitally important an adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance – I will not

now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. (Poe 7)

Here Poe demonstrates the difficulties of explicating and defending the relationship between sound and poetry. Despite his claim that music is so “vitally important” to poetry, Poe refuses to elaborate on its importance. Furthermore, Poe contradicts himself by claiming that music is both an “adjunct” and “essential” to a poem. An adjunct, defined as “a thing added to something else

30 Draper’s sonnet, along with all the other poems I discuss in this chapter, is available in appendix one. 43 as a supplementary rather than an essential part” (Oxford Dictionary of English), is precisely that which is not essential and yet Poe paradoxically refers to music as both essential and adjunctive to poetry. Like Kitto who declares that he cannot write poetry as a preface to poems he has written, Poe contradicts himself in asserting the importance of sound to poetry.

After quoting Poe, Gallaudet continues: “If this dictum of so great a master of the music of verse is accepted, the declaration that poetry may be appreciated, and even produced, by those bereft of the sense through which alone music can be enjoyed, presents an apparent absurdity”

(87). Gallaudet gestures throughout his article towards the idea that Poe’s “dictum” about the essentiality of music to poetry should not be “accepted,” but he never entirely resolves the

“apparent absurdity” of deaf poetry. Perhaps this is because, as I have noted, Poe never actually presents a dictum but instead refuses to pause and pronounce one. While Gallaudet foregrounds

Poe’s theory of verse, he also contradicts Poe by presenting this poetry written by deaf people.

Gallaudet never explicitly declares that Poe, and the understanding of poetry that Poe represents, is misguided; but he undermines Poe by suggesting that the “absurdity” is only “apparent.”

Gallaudet’s use of the term “absurdity” when referring to poetry by deaf writers is symptomatic of the intersections between deafness and poetry. Laura C. Redden Searing, an

American journalist and one of the most widely published nineteenth-century deaf poets, also uses the term “absurd” in reference to poetry by deaf poets. In Searing’s poem, “The Realm of

Singing: An Autobiographical Allegory,” the song of a bird with a “crippled” wing, who, in this allegory, represents the deaf poet, is described as “absurd singing” (208). Gallaudet’s and

Searing’s use of the term “absurd” when referring to poetry by deaf people disentangles and then re-entangles the issues that arise in considering the relationship between deafness, sound, and poetry. “Absurd” is derived from the Latin “absurdus,” which the Oxford English Dictionary

(OED) defines as “inharmonious, tasteless, foolish.” “Absurdus” unites “ab” meaning from, and

44 “surdus,” which is defined by the OED as “deaf, inaudible or insufferable to the ear.” Therefore, absurd poetry is, in some etymological sense, poetry from the deaf. Searing and Gallaudet may not have intentionally invoked the flux of aurality and disparagement that the term represents.

However, I will reclaim the term “absurd poetry,” in addition to the term “deaf poetry,” to refer to this poetry divorced from sound – literally, poetry that is absurd in that it is “deaf” and

“inaudible.” “Deaf poetry” is poetry that does not “hear” and does not “speak,” that is, it was not created from orality nor should it necessarily be forced into aurality. It may adhere to formal conventions that seem to require sound and yet its practitioners do not hear. In the context of this chapter, “deaf poetry” will refer to poetry created by deaf people, but this need not be the case.

Perhaps poetry that appeals to other senses like sight rather than sound, even when not created by deaf people, can equally be categorized “deaf poetry.” I use the term as a marker of a particular relationship to language and textuality, rather than as a lack of a generic quality, such as sound or rhyme.

The concepts of deaf poetry and absurd poetry resist the sound-based model of poetry that caused such anxiety for nineteenth-century deaf poets. “Absurd poetry” is an especially useful term in the context of nineteenth-century British and American poetry written by deaf people because the gap that exists between “inharmonious” and the pejorative term “tasteless,” in the definition of absurdus, or between “inaudible” and “insufferable to the ear,” in the definition of surdus, is the same gap that surfaces in the debate regarding deaf poetry. Perhaps it is the conflation of “inharmonious” and “tasteless” or of “inaudible” and “insufferable to the ear” that leads to the Kittoean position that deaf people cannot write poetry. Is it not possible that people who are deaf can write poetry that does not rely on aural harmony and yet is not “tasteless”? Was there space in nineteenth-century poetry for poetry that was inaudible and yet not insufferable to the ear?

45 I n order to examine the perceived contradictions of deaf poetry, we must first turn to

Victorian constructions of the relationship between sound and poetry. It is a literary truism that poetry is a genre dependent on sound. Poetry has long had aural and oral associations. Because of its bardic genealogy, its continued links with composition and consumption through being read aloud, and its use of rhythm, metre and rhyme, poetry has been understood as a genre characterized by the use of sound. We can clearly see the centrality of orality and aurality in common understanding of poetry by simply considering that literary critics continue to call a first-person “voice” in a written poem “the speaker.” Throughout my project I will use this term within quotation marks in order to draw attention to critical investment in this idea and to indicate that I do not take the implications of the term for granted.

Various editors who published deaf poets did seem to take the implications of the supposed orality of a poem for granted. In fact, these editors consistently underscored the apparent impossibility of the deaf poet. When published in hearing forums, deaf poets were shackled to the identity of deaf poet – a commodity, oddity and curiosity – rather than a poet who was deaf. For example, James Nack’s poem, “Spring is Coming,” – a poem that makes repeated references to the sounds of spring including “birds…chirping” and “insects humming” (line 2) – was published in the New York Tribune in 1845. The paper attributed the poem to Nack with the byline, “Mr. Nack who is deaf and dumb since his childhood.” This highlighting of Nack’s deafness suggests the unfortunate possibility that it was as important a factor in the publication of his poem as was his skill in writing poetry. Even journals devoted to deaf issues, like the

American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, foregrounded the contrast between the deafness of the poet and the aural resonances of the genre. In the first issue of the Annals, American artist and poet John Carlin’s poem, “The Mute’s Lament,” was prefaced by a lengthy editor’s comment about the “special surprise” excited by a poet who was born deaf. The editor declared, “We

46 should almost as soon expect a man born blind to become a landscape painter, as one born deaf to produce poetry of even tolerable merit” (14). The editor then assured his readers that the poem printed came exactly from Carlin’s “hand” with no editorial correction (15). The editor’s comparison of a deaf poet to a blind landscape painter assumes that realistic landscape painting’s goal of absolute visual fidelity to the original image should be a model for poetry – a model that suggests that the aim of written poetry is to capture speech and sound with aural fidelity. The editor also prefaced Carlin’s “The Mute’s Lament” by assuring the reader that though the poem was free verse, Carlin also wrote in regular rhyme and meter. In prefacing deaf poetry, these editors foregrounded the apparent disjunction between deafness and poetry.

But is it accurate to suggest that all Victorian poets and critics believed that sound and orality were inextricably linked to Victorian poetry? Yopie Prins has argued that Victorians saw the “voice” in poetry as only a metaphor – a metaphor that contemporary critics insist on understanding literally. She asks, “[w]hat is the voice we are looking for, or think we hear when we read a Victorian poem?” (“Voice Inverse,” 44). In fact no clear consensus has emerged in

Victorian poetry criticism about how Victorian poets understood the function of sound and orality in their poetry. As Carol Christ notes in her survey of Victorian poetics, “Victorian poetry is so diverse and eclectic that it is difficult to make a single characterization of its style” (9). Joseph

Bristow agrees with Christ, especially when comparing Victorian poets to their Romantic forbearers. He writes, “the period 1790-1820 conveniently brings together a number of

‘Romantic’ poets whose biographies, aesthetic choices and actual works are closely interconnected” (2). In comparison to the Romantics who “produced a number of critical documents that spoke purposefully of a self-conscious project to make a break with eighteenth- century empiricism by focusing in the authenticity, autonomy, and creativity of the poetic mind”

(2), Victorian poets are a rather unwieldy and indefinable group. For Bristow, “a multiplicity of

47 styles and remarkable formal innovation distinguish the Victorian poets but their work can appear directionless” (3). The lack of critical definition of how Victorian poets as a whole considered their formal choices and innovations partly reflects what I see as a Victorian ambivalence about the essentiality of sound to poetry. While some Victorian critics and writers considered sound an essential element of poetry, others wished for it to be so but in the very act of that wishing acknowledged that sound was only adjunctive.

A tension exists in Victorian conceptions of sound in poetry that mirrors Poe’s vacillation when he calls sound both essential and supplementary. On one hand, there are those, like John

Keble, who insist on sound’s centrality to poetry. In his Lectures on Poetry delivered from 1832 to 1841 at Oxford University, Keble argues,

I will not now take pains to consider what poetry fully means: even were I able to define

it exactly, this is not the fitting opportunity: there are two points only, and points which

no one will traverse, which I should wish to be allowed to assume as axiomatic; the first,

that poetry of whatever kind, is, in one way or other, closely associated with measure and

a definite rhythm of sound: the second, that its chief aim is to recall, to renew, and bring

vividly before us pictures of absent objects. (21)

Keble cannot arrive at a definition of poetry aside from its “close association with measure and a definite rhythm of sound.”

The predominant construction of the relationship of sound and poetry that appears in

Victorian poetry theory is the idea that the sounds of words read aloud can convey more than the words printed on the page. This strain of thinking adheres to the importance of sound in poetry and reveals related anxieties about when sound may be absent from a reader’s experience of poetry. In “On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred

Tennyson,” Arthur Henry Hallam emphasizes the role of sound in poetry. He suggests that sound

48 can capture the “innumerable shades of fine emotion in the human heart” that “are too subtle and too rapid to admit of corresponding phrases” (1200). According to Hallam, some poets, including

Dante and Petrarch, “produce two-thirds of their effects by sound. Not that they sacrifice sense to sound, but that sound conveys their meaning where words would not” (1200). While Hallam might suggest that this is true for his friend Tennyson’s work, Tennyson himself is rather more ambivalent about the meaning that can be conveyed through sound rather than words. Tennyson seems to have considered sound essential to his poetry and yet, like Poe, is concerned about the potential extricability of sound from poetry. In his Diary, William Allingham quotes Tennyson’s desire for “some fixed way of indicating a poet’s intention as to the pronunciation of his verses”

(344). According to Allingham, Tennyson said, “’It doesn’t matter so much… in poetry written for the intellect – as much of Browning’s is, perhaps; but in mine its necessary to know how to sound it properly’”(344). While Tennyson acknowledges that sound, or at least the writer’s idea of the oral pronunciation of his written words, is not absolutely necessary to all poetry, he affirms its absolute essentiality to his own. Furthermore, this statement attributed to Tennyson suggests that he understands that written poetry does not transparently or necessarily communicate sound.

Instead, readers require authorial guidance in order to properly read and understand this particular form of poetry.

Here Tennyson also creates a dichotomy between “intellectual poetry” and other poetry such as his own, which is related to each form of poetry’s dependence on sound. This distinction between intellect and emotion in relation to sound appears in various other places in nineteenth- century culture. For example in his theory of the origins of music, Herbert Spencer declares,

[a]ll speech is compounded of two elements, the words and the tones in which they are

uttered – the signs of ideas and the signs of feelings. While certain articulations express

49 the thought, certain modulations express the more or less of pain or pleasure which the

thought gives. (379)

In this formulation, words themselves are signs of ideas whereas the sounds of the words are the signs of feeling. It is perhaps this formulation that informs the Tennysonian position that intellectual poetry like Browning’s does not need to be read in a particular fashion because it is the ideas conveyed by words that matter most. In his own poetry, Tennyson – and Hallam – might suggest, the sounds of words read aloud denote the emotional register of the poem.

“Spasmodic” poet Alexander Smith makes a similar point in his earlier “The Philosophy of Poetry” published in Blackwoods Magazine in 1835 where he argues that the distinction between poetry and prose lies in pronunciation and utterance (quoted in Bristow 45). Smith writes,

it is well known that emotions express themselves in different tones and inflections of

voice from those that are used to communicate mere processes of thought ….Our feelings

are conveyed in a melodious succession of tones, and in a measured flow of words; our

thoughts … are conveyed in irregular periods, and at harsh intervals of time. Blank verse

and rhyme are but more artificial dispositions of the natural expressions of feeling.

(Bristow 47)

This construction of poetry, or at least some poetry, as a vehicle for feeling that required sound in order to be read effectively seems to be an inheritance of a Wordsworthian conception of poetry as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling” which relied upon the impress of the senses.

However, in reference to John Stuart Mill’s construction of poetry in 1833 as that which is

“overheard” rather than “heard,” Bristow argues, “[f]or recent commentators Mill’s interests in the automatic translating of feeling into words in poetry looks historically belated” (5). As

Bristow notes, Victorian poets like Browning and Tennyson were less interested in the emotional

50 authenticity of their “speakers” soundful words than in the impossibility of transparency in language. Bristow writes, “[t]he poets, on the one hand, were fascinated by the duplicity of their speakers (such as Porphyria’s Lover and Ulysses) while Mill and a number of theorists, on the other, were claiming that poetry expressed emotional truth: something sincere” (5). While this construction of Victorian sound in poetry as a vehicle for emotional truth may seem rather

“belated,” it nonetheless informed the work of some of the most canonical Victorian poets.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, known for his unique theories about sound and stress in poetry, demonstrated a similar investment as Tennyson in how his readers read his poetry.31 He

repeatedly emphasized in his letters that rather than “reading, as one commonly reads whether

prose or verse, with the eyes,” a reader should “take breath and read it with the ears, as I always

wish to be read” (Hopkins, 22 April 1879, 79). He wrote to Robert Bridges,

To do the [The Loss of the] Eurydice any kind of justice you must not slovenly read it

with the eyes but with your ears, as if the paper were declaiming it at you. For instance

the line, “she had come from a cruise training seamen” read without stress and declaim is

mere Lloyd’s shipping intelligence; properly read it is quite a different thing. Stress is the

life of it. (21 May 1878, 51-2)

While Hopkins’s image of a sheet of paper “declaiming” The Loss of the Eurydice at its readers

seems humorous, it is an entirely fitting image for this sound-based construction of poetry. This

idea of written poetry requires the inert written word to be animated into human speech before the

poetry achieves its goal. Furthermore, here Hopkins, like Tennyson, acknowledges that

Victorians commonly read written poetry “with the eyes” rather than through “breath” and “the

31 For more on Hopkins’s ideas about the role of sound in his poetry, see chapter four of Griffiths’s The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry as well Walter Ong’s essay “Hopkins’ Sprung Rhythm and the Life of English Poetry” in Weyand’s Immortal Diamond: Studies in Gerard Manley Hopkins while keeping in mind each of these critics tendency to celebrate the orality of poetry in what I see as a phonocentric way (as

51 ears” as he hoped they would. While Hopkins believes “stress is the life” of a poem, he also worries that this stress cannot be accurately captured except through being read aloud in a particular way. Hopkins, like other Victorian poets, did not have faith that sound is intrinsic to written poetry. This is the irony of the sound theory of poetry: the very poets who are most invested in the essentiality of sound to poetry do not trust their readers to sound it out properly thereby revealing their fear that sound really is extrinsic to written poetry.

This relationship between sense and sound has been a fruitful field of study for scholars of nineteenth-century poetry and has produced theories that complicate the relationship between the voice and the written poem. Prins’s study of metrical theory in the Victorian period has suggested a new way of considering sound in poetry. For example she argues,

the relationship between these ‘material’ forms of language – how a poem materializes

in sound and how it materializes on the page – proves to be a central concern in Victorian

metrical theory as it develops an account of meter that is neither an imitation of voice nor

a script for voice but a formal mediation that makes ‘voice’ a function of writing. (90)

For Prins, Victorian metre is about space and visuality rather than sound and orality. The written poem produces this idea of voice, albeit a written “voice,” rather than the opposite. Prins’s work on Victorian metre thereby troubles any straightforward conception of the relationship between written poetry and the sound of the human voice. Prins especially wishes to challenge the critical practice that looks for a “voice” in Victorian poetry. She criticizes Eric Griffiths’s approach, for example, because of its desire to retain orality in written poetry ( “Voice Inverse” 45).

I would like to pause here and engage with Griffiths’s contentions in his book The Printed

Voice of Victorian Poetry (1989). While I appreciate that Griffiths, like Armstrong and Prins,

I will argue in this chapter). Perhaps Hopkins’s focus on the stress and sound in poetry is what draws critics like Ong and Griffiths to his work in the first place. 52 attends to the complexities of the relationship between speech and writing in Victorian poetry, his argument is based on a very particular, and problematic, configuration of that relationship. He writes,

Whatever else poetry may be, it is certainly a use of language that works with the sound of

words, and so the absence of clearly indicated sound from the silence of the written word

creates a double nature in printed poetry, making it both itself and something other – a text of

hints at voicing, whose centre in utterance lies outside itself, and also an achieved pattern on

the page, salvaged from the evanescence of the voice in air. (60)

Griffiths’s definition of poetry sounds much like Keble’s, and his inheritance of Victorian ideas extends even further. He privileges the voice, and its ephemerality, in a similar way as Victorian philologists and Oralists. For Griffiths, this spoken voice, “more richly than writing, conveys…much of the illocutionary force of any utterance” and it is for that reason that “the reader must inform writing with a sense of the writer it calls up – an ideal body, a plausible voice” (2). Griffiths sees the voice as superior to writing in its communicative abilities; his entire book is informed by his notion of the “loose fit of writing on speech” (66). Essentially Griffiths maintains writing’s inability to express or capture the full plenitude of the spoken word. Griffiths sees these “problems of translating the intended music of a voice into the scant notation of the written word” (61-2) as productive because they allow the reader a part to play in poetic interpretation and utterance. While Griffiths’s suggestion that in the nexus of bodies and language, the body can contribute to expression is a useful way of understanding forms of embodied language like speech and sign, his privileging of speech over writing, and his

53 assumption that writing’s function in poetry is to transcribe speech in the first place, is extremely phonocentric.32

Griffiths argues, “literature aspires to re-create in a sublimed atmosphere the conditions

of speech; most of the literature we know, though coming to us in print, envisages and reaches

towards a rediscovery of some characters of speech. To do so, it searches out from

print…prosodic features, tones of absent voice” (36). To clarify, one main reason Griffiths

considers speech superior to writing is related to these “prosodic features.” Griffiths defines these

as “the significant features of the voice in the spoken form of the language: pitch, pace, volume,

pronunciation, stress, juncture and intonation” (18). Because writing lacks these “prosodic

features,” Griffiths argues that it is less successful in communication.

In order to substantiate his claim about the essentiality of these prosodic features to the

meaning of words, Griffiths invokes, strangely enough, orally-trained deaf people. He writes,

Those who in fact have never heard English, or any other language, spoken – I mean the

deaf – can learn and understand language, but their production of the languages they

learn is marked by a general deficiency in the ‘prosodic features’ other speakers produce,

with consequences for the intelligibility of what they say. (19)

In his elision of language and speech (where “production of language” becomes “what they say”

later in the sentence), Griffiths is not referring to all deaf people in general. Instead, he uses the

example of deaf people who were orally-trained under an oppressive system that forced deaf

32 To clarify, when Griffiths uses the term “printed voice,” he means, rather than a physical voice, some kind of “imagined voice”: writing is an act of supplication to an imagined voice. Sometimes the voice writing asks is baffled, choked, actually unvoiceable by any physical voice, so many-angled and disparate are the things which written works may be saying all at once. But even to know that one has lost one’s voice, or that one’s voice can do no good at some point, is an effect of voice, something that only those who have a voice, and listen to others’ voices, can feel. (13) This statement of Griffiths that emphasizes the importance of readers having a voice and hearing other people’s voices excludes deaf people entirely from poetry. 54 children to speak. In order to support his defense of speech’s superiority, Griffiths cites a study about the speech of 192 deaf students. This study was published in 1942 when the Oralist system of deaf education, instituted in the nineteenth century, was in full swing. The study considered the relationship between the intelligibility of the sentences spoken by these deaf students and the errors they made in articulation and rhythm. The study found that the more errors the students made in “prosodic features,” the less intelligible their speech (19). Griffiths presents this study and then argues, “this instance of a practical connection between the prosodic features of a language and intelligibility demonstrates a link between what might be thought of as the ‘form’ and the ‘content’ of an utterance, a link existing in the material medium of the language” (19-20).

Essentially, Griffiths uses deaf children, who are being forced to speak (within an education system that traces its origins to the Oralist movement’s privileging of speech), in order to privilege speech by arguing that the sound-features of language/speech (his elision) are essential to the intelligibility of an utterance.

Contemporary educators of deaf children, historians, disability studies scholars, linguists, and the Deaf community in general would respond to this 1942 study by noting its ideological origin in Oralism’s forcible teaching of speech and denial of sign language to deaf people. The failures of intelligibility in this case would not reflect on the inability of the deaf students to master the prosodic features of English nor be used to celebrate speech. Instead, this study demonstrates the deficiencies of a system that elevated speech above any other form of language.

A more appropriate response to this type of study would be to criticize its Oralist bent and highlight the problems with a culture that forces deaf people to speak when they would sign.

Griffiths’s assertion that speech communicates better than writing, even intimating that understanding the spoken form of a language is essential to understanding its written form (19), is

55 his original phonocentrism. His only evidence is derived from the products of Oralist education.

Griffiths’s circular logic uses evidence gleaned from a phonocentric system in order to defend phonocentrism.

Griffiths’s book, one of the major monographs on the role of sound in Victorian poetry, demonstrates that the Victorian elevation of orality, often at the expense of deaf people, still informs contemporary critical practices. I use Griffiths’s example in order to draw attention to the new perspective that a Deaf Studies approach offers to sound theories of poetry as well as the elevation of the oral. While I certainly do not mean to argue that aural considerations should be entirely divorced from the ideas of poetry, I want to call attention to the limitations of this sound- based theory of poetry. This theory excludes much of the poetry created by deaf people. It is a definition of poetry that is incomplete. Some space must be cleared in the field of literary study for nineteenth-century poetry that works outside of the sound-based paradigm. The poetry written by deaf people during the Victorian period can help us explore not only how the Victorians thought of poetry, but also how we think about the relationship between writing, speech, sound and poetry today. Finally, Griffiths’s problematic argument draws attention to the importance of interrogating our ideas about the definition of language because these constructions of language are essential to theorizing poetry.

One explanation for the belief that a deaf poet was a contradiction in terms was the existence of these sound-based definitions of poetry but there are additional reasons that need to be unearthed. Just as Griffiths’s ideas about the role of sound in poetry rely upon his privileging of speech, the larger Victorian skepticism about poetry written by the deaf is also traceable to the particular ideas of language, and especially the overvaluing of speech and the denigration of sign language, that I explored in the introduction. To recap, various nineteenth-century scholars of language asserted incorrectly that signed languages were not actually languages and furthermore,

56 they often equated “language” with speech. Those who addressed signed languages, including famous philologist F.Max Muller and prominent Oralist educator Thomas Arnold, also argued that sign was incapable of communicating abstraction. For them, signing deaf people are unable to think abstractly because their thinking is rooted in the concreteness of the physical sign.

Finally, Oralist educators believed that the use of sign language prevented the acquisition of written English.

These three beliefs about sign language’s deficiencies – that it is closer to gesture than it is to “language,” that it is incapable of describing the abstract, and that it interfered with proficiency in English – rendered deaf poetry impossible. According to these beliefs about language, a deaf person who communicated primarily in sign language should not be able to possess the abilities necessary to composing poetry in English. Their language of the body precluded the creation of poetry from the mind. It is important to remember, then, that in addition to his or her inability to hear, it was a deaf poet’s inability to speak that made his or her poetic ability seem implausible. In addition to having to prove that he or she could write English poetry without being able to hear sound, a nineteenth-century deaf poet would also have demonstrate to that he or she could write poetry as a signer who did not speak.

The Reach and Response of Deaf poetry

While deaf poetry was considered an absurdity by nineteenth-century hearing culture, it was actually a popular and important genre within British and North American deaf communities.

In “Poetry of the Deaf” Gallaudet notes that “the deaf, in no inconsiderable numbers, have essayed to mount on the wing of poetic expression” (87). Gallaudet also explains his belief that the numbers of deaf poets would continue to increase since “among the students of the College for Deaf-Mutes at Washington, compositions in verse are not uncommon, and there are those of

57 their number who will no doubt be hereafter known as poets (“Poetry of the Deaf” 90). Most of the major nineteenth-century periodicals in English created by, and for, deaf people, including the

American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb and The British Deaf-Mute, published poetry written by their deaf readers in a regular poetry column as did many of the “little papers” produced by deaf schools.33 Deaf poets also published their work in hearing forums including various magazines, newspapers, and anthologies of poetry. About a dozen American and British deaf poets who used sign language or to communicate published one or more volumes of poetry over the course of the nineteenth-century.

Aside from two recent and important contributions by Christopher Krentz and by Jane

Vallier and Judy Yaeger Jones, 34 this nineteenth-century deaf poetry has not been addressed in

any sustained manner by literary critics or by historians studying deafness. The dearth of critical

attention to nineteenth-century deaf poetry belies its importance not only in expanding

paradigmatic definitions of poetry but also in drawing attention to the struggle of the deaf

community for self-determination and language rights. Deaf poetry was one tool used by those

who wanted to defend the abilities and the rights of deaf people against the Oralist ideology that

declared that signing deaf people would be unable to succeed in their use of language and

therefore in their lives. The deaf poets I consider in this chapter offer various explanations for

33 “The Little Papers,” or the “Little Paper Family,” refers to the newspapers published by American residential deaf schools; these papers, as John Vickrey Van Cleve and Barry Crouch note, were “ubiquitous” by the end of the nineteenth-century (98). The Little Papers are significant in the history of deaf culture and deaf education. The production of these papers served a vocational function in training deaf students to be printers since printing was one of the most popular occupations for deaf men in America (98). As Van Cleve and Crouch note, these papers also “served as the cultural connections that established and maintained group cohesion” (98). For more on the Little Papers and the role that periodicals by and for deaf people played in both the sign language debates and the formation of the American deaf community see Chapter 9, “Cultural Connections,” in Van Cleve and Crouch’s A Place of their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America. 34 Judy Yaeger Jones and Jane E. Vallier have edited a collection of Laura Redden Searing’s poetry: Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored (2003). Christopher Krentz has edited A

58 their desire to write poetry and very few state overtly that they mean for their work to provide evidence for their abilities and to defend their right to sign. Regardless of their intentions, however, I argue that the poetry of the deaf, through illuminating the tenets of phonocentric thought that should make it an impossibility challenges the claims underpinning the Oralist program. I do not mean to suggest that there is any clear evidence that these poems written by deaf individuals shifted the phonocentric constructions of poetry nor that they were instrumental in making political gains for deaf communities. Unfortunately, the subversive potential of the poetry of the deaf was neutralized for various reasons that I will enumerate. However, I maintain that we can now look back and read this poetry as a strategy used in the sign language debates because of its interrogation of the sound-based construction of poetry and its affirmation of the poetic skills of the deaf.

Some deaf poets clearly did write poetry in order to refute the idea that it was absurd for them to do so. William Henry Simpson, a British teacher of deaf children, credits Kitto’s

“erroneous impression” (Simpson xii) that the difficulties facing an aspiring deaf poet are

“insuperable,” (Kitto 168) with goading him to publish his poetry. In the preface to his book of poetry, Daydreams of the Deaf (1858), Simpson begins by agreeing with – and partially plagiarizing – Kitto, but then disputes the “insuperability” of the obstacles to a deaf poet when he explains that in deaf people,

the absence of oral guidance, and that perfect knowledge of quantity and rhyme, essential

to harmonious verse, must surround them with difficulties and tend to prevent the

attainment of any great excellence in the cultivation of the muses and yet not be so much

so as to form an ‘insuperable’ obstacle to a persevering mind. (Simpson xii)

Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816-1864 (2000). Both these books are published by Press. 59 Simpson explicitly constructs his book of poetry as a refutation of Kitto’s claim that people who are deaf cannot write poetry. However, Simpson also shares Kitto’s ambivalence about deaf poetic achievement: he does affirm Kitto’s point that deafness “tend[s] to prevent the attainment of any great excellence” in poetry. Does this mean that Simpson believes that people who are deaf can write poetry but just not excellent poetry? Does Simpson, a deaf man, consider his own poetry excellent? Simpson, like Kitto and Poe, vacillates on the importance of sound to poetry.

However, for Simpson, at least, deaf poetry is not an absurdity.

In other instances, deaf poetry’s interrogation of phonocentrism was clearly unintentional since some deaf poets were hardly strident advocates for deaf rights. For example, American poet John Carlin, though never orally trained himself, supported oral training and made derogatory comments about the capabilities of deaf people. Christopher Krentz explains Carlin’s strange negativity towards his fellow deaf Americans by suggesting that Carlin “appears to have internalized traditional negative attitudes so completely that his work overflows with sentimental self-pity and woe…such dejection is perhaps understandable given the barriers that Carlin, a gifted deaf man, must have encountered in ante-bellum America” (xxvi). Kitto, who became deaf as a young child and who, as we noted, believed that deaf people could not write poetry, was also quite insulting at times when discussing individuals who were born deaf. Neither Kitto nor Carlin were model supporters of the deaf community that they were a part of and yet each man, through writing poetry, unintentionally refuted their own claims about the inferiority of deaf people.

In other cases, such as the two poems, “Holy Home” and “Light and Darkness,” written by deaf-blind American Laura Bridgman, deaf poems were published mainly as a curiosity, which drained them of some of their subversive potential. In “Light and Darkness,” Bridgman explores these two extremes of visual experience in highly metaphorical terms.

Light represents day.

60 Light is more brilliant than ruby, even diamond.

Light is whiter than snow.

Darkness is night like.

It looks as black as iron.

Darkness is a sorrow.

Joy is a thrilling rapture.

Light yields a shooting joy through the human (heart).

Light is as sweet as honey, but

Darkness is bitter as salt, and more than vinegar.

Light is finer than gold and even finest gold.

Joy is a real light.

Joy is a blazing flame.

Darkness is frosty.

A good sleep is a white curtain,

A bad sleep is a black curtain. (Lamson 366)

Bridgman’s poem points to her absorption of the rhetoric of the dichotomy of light and dark where darkness represents the negative, the evil, the absence. These terms were experientially meaningless to Bridgman’s daily experience for light and dark would have had no effect on her personal navigation of the world. However, through her reading experiences and her communication with others, she absorbed the cultural construction that considered the darkness – and perhaps even the blindness that is associated with darkness – as a “sorrow.” Where seeing people may understand evil through the metaphor of darkness, Bridgman reverses the tenor and vehicle of the metaphor to understand darkness through the notion of evil.

61 Bridgman’s poem employs sensory imagery of vision, taste, and touch. Her use of visual description is understandable since her topics of light and darkness are visual phenomena;

Bridgman would have absorbed this vocabulary of the visual through her experiences with language.35 While she then uses the language of taste in describing light as sweet and dark as bitter, these terms are again metaphorical descriptions of positive and negative attributes rather than about the actual experience of tasting light and dark. The place where Bridgman is perhaps less metaphorical in describing her sensory impressions is in linking light to the warmth of a flame and darkness to frostiness. As an individual who navigated her world by touch, Bridgman would primarily experience the light produced by the sun and by the flames of lamps and fires in terms of warmth. Bridgman’s seemingly synaesthesic representations of light and darkness reveal what is sometimes imperceptible when we consider poetry. Descriptions of sensory experience are often more about metaphor and cultural understandings of what constitutes poetic language than they are about actual sensory experience. I will return to this argument below when I explore how the deaf poets employ sound imagery in their poetry.

While Bridgman’s poetry does not adhere to a fixed pattern of rhyme or metre, it does have a very clearly laid out rhythm. The structure of “Light and Darkness” alternates between descriptions of light and dark and dwells near the end on the intertwining of light and joy. Where light “yields a shooting joy through the human heart” (8), joy itself is “a real light (12)” She uses a parallel couplet structure in places like the last two lines where “A good sleep is a white curtain,/ A bad sleep is a black curtain.” While Bridgman carefully composed these English

35 Jim Swan makes this same point about Helen Keller’s writing: The world as language comes to Helen largely out of books. Coaxed to write what she ‘sees,’ she comes to ‘see’ what she writes, which is the imagery and phrasing of nineteenth-century children’s stories written in the tradition of Romantic landscape description….Scenes are remembered directly as language, and her experience of the worlds as touch, taste and smell is largely muted by the visual and auditory force of the language she adapts herself to. (330).

62 words that she could not hear or see into a rhythmic pattern in order to bring light and darkness into direct comparison with each other, adherents to sound-based theories of poetry refused to consider her efforts legitimate poetry.

Those who wrote about Bridgman’s poetry engaged in linguistic contortions in order to describe it in a phonocentric landscape of poetry. These commentators struggled to indicate that

Bridgman’s writing both was and was not poetry. In her book Life and Education of Laura

Dewey Bridgman, the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Girl (1890), one of Bridgman’s teachers, Mary

Swift Lamson, details Laura’s educational progress in diary form. At the very end of her book,

Lamson writes, “[Bridgman] has written, within a few years, two compositions which she calls

‘poems’” (365, emphasis mine). Lamson refuses to call them “poems” herself; instead she relies upon quotation marks to qualify Bridgman’s label. In their book Laura Bridgman: Dr Howe’s

Famous Pupil and What he Taught Her (1904), Maud Howe and Florence Howe Hall, the daughters of Bridgman’s famous teacher Samuel Gridley Howe, use the same awkward qualifier to introduce Bridgman’s poetry. In their book they provide an example of “those compositions which she called poems” (289, emphasis mine). They argue that Bridgman had been

"unsuccessfully" taught the "rules of versification" because "there is neither rhyme nor rhythm in her poetry; and yet she was not wrong in calling these effusions poems, for they surely express poetical ideas” (289). For the Howe sisters, poetry requires particular fixed patterns of rhyme and metre. However, while refusing to use the term “poem,” they affirm the accuracy of Bridgman’s appellation because of its appropriateness to the ideas expressed in the poems. Their inconsistency stems in part from their adherence to the sound-based theory of poetry. How much does the fact that the writing is an effusion – an expression of the self – as well as its inclusion of

See Swan’s article for a fascinating exploration of the relationship between sensory experience, language, and authorship as they appeared in Helen Keller’s writing. 63 “poetical ideas” matter when deciding its poetical status? While the Howes do not define poetry for their readers, they do emphasize that Bridgman’s writing is valuable only insofar as it reveals something of Bridgman’s disabilities. They write, “the interest excited by [Bridgman’s] writings is essentially non-literary, it is human and psychological. Having no conception of the value of sound, the quality which we call style was not be hoped for in anything she could write” (290).

Despite their assertion that there is no room for literary interest in Bridgman’s poetry, the Howes append an essay about “The Writings of Laura Bridgman” to the end of their book. This essay is written not by a literary critic but by a psychologist, E.C. Sanford, who argues, “a word upon

Laura Bridgman’s ‘poems’ is sufficient” (353). Like Lamson, and the Howe sisters, Sanford distances himself from the use of the term poetry for Bridgman’s poems. He highlights the speciousness of the label through enclosing it in quotation marks. He dismisses the poems through indicating that they can be dealt with in only “a word”; it appears that this word is

“‘poem’” but only insofar as it is qualified by its enclosure in quotation marks.

Even Gallaudet, the promoter and defender of deaf poetry, sidesteps the use of the term

“poetry” when referring to Bridgman’s poetry. In his article on the “Poetry of the Deaf,” he writes, “it is a fact that Laura Bridgman, the mere mention of whose name touches a chord of sympathy in every heart, has lately, in the evening of her days, given expression to her reflections in a form that is highly poetic, even though her lines do not follow the modern models of versification” (90). The sentimental tone of Gallaudet’s introduction, typical of writings about

Bridgman, coupled with his refusal to refer to her poetry as “poetry” in favor of the term

“reflections in a form that is highly poetic,” demonstrate that even he holds to the necessity of fixed patterns of versification. In fact, every single poem he quotes in his article on “Poetry of the

Deaf,” aside from Bridgman’s, has a very regular pattern of rhyme and meter even though the poets he quotes from did not always write such tightly rhymed and regularly metered poems.

64 These responses to Bridgman’s poetry demonstrate that the subversive potential of deaf poetry could be diluted through its framing and presentation.

Another explanation for deaf poetry’s inability to dismantle the assumption that deaf poetry was an impossibility relates to its audience. Most deaf poets published their work in forums for deaf audiences, such as deaf journals and newspapers. Other deaf poets, as Gallaudet notes, were students and professors working at the National Deaf-Mute College in Washington

D.C.. At this college, the existence of a deaf poet was rather commonplace. In fact, public presentations of deaf poetry were often used to mark important events at the College.

While deaf poetry was not always able to widely disrupt conventional ideas of sound in poetry, some deaf poets explicitly considered their poetry a form of resistance to beliefs about their inferiority as deaf people and users of signed languages. In 1870 Laura C. Redden Searing wrote a prose-poem, “The Realm of Singing: An Autobiographical Allegory,” which explicitly defends deaf poetic endeavors. The allegory in this poem concerns a bird with “crippled” wings who wishes to sing with the other birds sitting on the “tree of poetry” in “The Realm of Singing” but is prevented from flying to the higher branches because of her “crippled” wings. By titling this allegorical world “the realm of singing,” Searing invokes the oral connotations of poetry and the common conflation of song and poem. What is striking about Searing’s poem is not that she constructs the production of poetry as a largely oral exercise, but rather that she explicitly decouples the bird’s disability from the bird’s ability to sing. In this allegorical world, the bird is not deaf but instead has “crippled” wings, which do not interfere in the least with her ability to sing. The suggestion in this “autobiographical allegory” is that Searing’s deafness is as irrelevant to her ability as a poet as the bird’s “crippled” wings are to her ability to sing.

The real difficulty the bird faces in the realm of singing is the inaccurate prejudice of her listeners about how her “crippled wings” will affect her singing. Searing writes that those who

65 pass by the tree admire the bird’s song until they notice her wings and reply, “‘What have we here? A crippled bird that tries to sing? Such a thing was never heard of before. It is impossible for her to sing correctly under such circumstances and we were certainly mistaken in thinking that there was anything in such songs. Our ears have deceived us’” (208). Searing emphasizes that it is the listener’s “ears” that have deceived them into underestimating those who do not hear.

In response to her critics who assert that she cannot sing, the bird replies, “‘lameness doesn’t affect my voice…I know it doesn’t because they listened to me and called it singing, till they discovered I was crippled in the wings’” (209). Searing suggests that it is only after people find out she is deaf that they look back and find the errors in her verse – errors which she explicitly attributes to lack of study rather than her deafness (or allegorically, her “crippled wings”). It is because of this lack of study that “some notes were sung at random and sometimes she made queer work of it all” rather than because of her inability to hear. Searing then invokes the term that we have been attuned to throughout this chapter; she refers to the bird’s “absurd singing” (209). By naming her poetry “absurd singing” is Searing deliberately invoking the inharmonious? Regardless of her intention, lurking beneath her defense of the “crippled” bird, or the deaf poet, is an assertion of the political importance of these absurd verses – of these verses that are inaudible to the ear rather than insufferable to the ear. These notes may be “random” and

“queer” but, as Searing repeatedly notes, they randomness and queerness is not a result of the bird’s physical abilities (208).

Searing reveals the political positioning of her poetry at the end of the poem. The bird decides to sing of her struggles to ‘the sick, the sad, the maimed, the feeble, the betrayed and the lonely ones” (212). In fact, she refuses the invitation of the birds higher in the tree of poetry to join them. The bird decides that it is her calling to stay “down low” and sing to “sweeten [the] sorrow” of those who, like herself, have been trampled by the world. Her absurd, inaudible

66 melodies are best suited to the plight of “the weariest of all the world’s wayfarers.” Searing’s bird deliberately rejects the standards of song in the “Realm of Singing” and chooses instead to honor her “absurd singing” and those who respect it.

The conditions and format of the publication of deaf poetry also suggest the political objectives of some nineteenth-century deaf poets. Many books of poetry by deaf writers were accompanied by prefatory material that treated issues related to deaf education, Oralism, and sign language. For example, American deaf writer John R. Burnet’s book of poetry has a frontispiece with the image of the manual alphabet, which Burnet explains, was included so as “to enable any person to acquire the art of talking with the fingers in a few hours.” His book is not only a vehicle that celebrates the role of sign language in education, as we shall see when we turn to look at his poems more closely, but also is an educational text for the propagation of sign among his readers.

Furthermore, Burnet explains in his preface that the title of his book, Tales of the Deaf and Dumb with Miscellaneous Poems, which indicates its fictional slant, “may make it necessary to inform the reader that nearly two thirds of its contents consist of facts and documents” about “the principles, history, and present state of the art of instructing the deaf and dumb, statistics of the deaf and dumb and anecdotes of deaf and dumb persons” (3). So while Burnet’s book was marketed as fiction, the bulk of the text focuses on the political realities of deafness. Though

Burnet acknowledges that, “the poetical pieces at the end of the volume might appear to more advantage if published separately,” he expresses hope that they won’t be overlooked in the present work (4). The inclusion of this information about the lived realities of deaf people, as well as the specific focus on the various methods of educating the deaf, are appropriate to

Burnet’s target audience: “the educated deaf and dumb, and those who take an interest in the education of this unfortunate class” (3). This suggests that Burnet is attempting to reach two very disparate audiences with his work. The image of the sign alphabet and the information about

67 deafness seem aimed at those who are unfamiliar with deafness rather than deaf people themselves. The poetry itself seems suitable for both audiences. It is a testament to deaf people’s abilities aimed at hearing people as well as a form of literary entertainment for deaf people themselves. Burnet’s goal is to simultaneously educate his audience and celebrate the Manualist system of deaf education. He considers the publication of his poetry as one tool he can use to reach his aim.

Simpson, who taught at the Old Kent Road deaf school in London, also paired his poetry with an introductory preface on the social conditions of deaf people. He aimed “to draw attention to the real condition of [the very peculiar class of mankind to which I belong], and to correct the erroneous impressions and prejudices that exist regarding them” (v). Clearly his book, like

Burnet’s, is meant to educate hearing people about the lives and abilities of deaf people. While

Simpson is interested in education, he does not entirely agree with Burnet’s wholehearted advocacy of the manual system. Simpson outlines the various methods of teaching deaf children that are available as well as celebrates the advances made in the oral teaching of deaf students.

This is a rather contradictory perspective for Simpson to offer because, as a deaf man, it is likely that he would lose his job if his school became completely Oralist. This was the circumstance encountered thirty years later by Jane Elizabeth Groom, whose plan for the emigration of the deaf from England will be considered in chapter four. When the London deaf schools moved towards full Oralist teaching, Groom, as a deaf woman who could not teach articulation, was fired by the school board. However, while Simpson supports the teaching of writing and speech in his preface, his poems are celebrations of signed languages. Simpson declares that his “fingers’ ends with nimble skill/ the want of vocal converse fill” (“Recollections of Hearing” l.59-60). While

Simpson may not have been opposed to speech instruction, his appreciation for sign language suggests that he would have been opposed to the teaching of speech exclusively. Simpson would

68 probably have described himself as a supporter of the Combined system. Like Gallaudet’s reading of a sonnet while testifying at the Royal Commission in defense of sign language, this appending of political treatise on sign language to poetry written in English by signers demonstrates that these writers saw their poetry as integral to their defense of sign and their textual resistance to the

Oralist program.

The Genre of Sounds Unheard: Reconfiguring Sound in Poetry When Gallaudet presented the written copy of his article on “Poetry of the Deaf” to the

Royal Commission, he read one of these poems aloud: Amos G. Draper’s sonnet “Memories of

Sound.” In “Memories of Sound,” “the speaker” describes various sounds that he was able to hear before his deafness including “the buzz of bees” (8) and “the melody of rain-drops as they fall” (9). This poem, and its reference to the sounds that the “speaker” can no longer hear, is part of what I consider an entire subgenre of deaf poetry. Every single one of the eight nineteenth- century deaf poets I am discussing in this chapter wrote a poem describing sounds that “the speaker” can no longer hear. In cases where “the speaker” was deaf from birth, the poems describe sounds that he or she has never heard.36 Why are “sounds unheard” poems so prominent in nineteenth-century deaf poetry? How and why might a deaf poet describe the sounds that he or she has never experienced? How might this poem describing sound, as well as the sounds unheard genre as a whole, contribute to Gallaudet’s aim of defending the rights of deaf people to reject the

Oralist program?

The frequent appearance of the sounds unheard genre in nineteenth-century deaf poetry signals an interest in the intersections between sound and poetry. As we have seen, deaf poets

36 These eight poems are Burnet’s “Lines Written After A First Visit to the Passaic Falls, at the age of nineteen, (since corrected.), Carlin’s “The Mute’s Lament,” Draper’s “Memories of Sound,” Angie A.

69 were writing in a cultural climate that denied them poetic abilities because of the belief that their lack of experience with sound and speech rendered them poetically unfit. The sounds unheard genre provides an example of the investigation and interrogation of the sound-based theory of poetry that locates sound in the oral experience of written poetry: that is, in the sounds of the written words as they are read aloud. Through considering the language these poets use to describe the sounds they cannot hear, as well as through attending to the frequent appearance of descriptions of vocal sounds in these poems, I will argue that these deaf poets present an alternative model for understanding the relationship between sound and poetry.

It may seem paradoxical that a person who is deaf can describe the sounds that he or she has never heard. This paradox is another element of the contradiction of deaf poetry as it appears in a phonocentric cultural landscape: one of its principal subgenres highlights its own “apparent absurdity.” However, an elucidation and clarification of the qualities of poetic language lies at the centre of the sounds unheard genre. The poets underscore how they, as well as hearing poets, are bound by a conventional discourse of how to render aural experiences into language. Their poetry foregrounds their familiarity with this discourse while omitting the sensory experience itself. The eight examples of this genre under consideration are remarkably similar in how they catalogue sounds unheard. Formally, they present long, descriptive lists of a variety of sounds.

Seven of the eight poems refer to birdsong, six of eight refer to wind, six of eight to music, five of eight specifically to musical instruments and five of eight to the human voice. Why is there so much overlap in the precise sounds each poet mentions? The human voice may be an obvious sound for these poets to mourn because often it was a means of communication among the poets’ family and friends, and because its absence, as we have seen, led to prejudice against the deaf

Fuller’s “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy,” Kitto’s “Mary,” Mary Toles Peet’s “Thoughts on Music,” Searing’s “Ten Years of Silence,” and Simpson’s “Recollections of Hearing.” 70 community. But why do the majority include birdsong or wind? Why do each of these poems, by eight different poets divided by decade, gender, exposure to sign language, onset age of deafness and nationality, read so very similarly to each other?

Not only do the choices of which sounds to select for mentioning parallel each other in these poems, but also the actual language used to describe each sound recurs again and again.

Each one of the four poets who include a large body of water such as the ocean or the sea characterize it as “roaring.” Each of the three poets who mention an organ describe it as

“pealing.” Each of the three poets who refer to a smaller body of water, either a “stream” or a

“rill,” refer to its “murmuring.” Furthermore, while not all the descriptions of particular sounds appear in two or more poems, the various words that are used to describe each type of sound are very particularly crafted to conventional descriptions that appear over and over again in texts written by those who can hear. The rain “patters” while the wind “whispers,” “sighs,” or “howls.”

Bees are described as “buzzing” or “humming” but never as “crying,” “singing,” “cooing,”

“trilling,” or “warbling” like the birds. How would Carlin, deaf since birth, who has never heard a stream, decide whether to describe it as “murmuring” (1-2) or “roaring”?

Carlin, like most deaf people, was exposed to the vocabulary used to describe different types of sound through the writing and signing of others – through his comprehension of the conventional meanings of words rather than the sounds of an object. One does not need to have ever heard a bird in order to describe “the linnet’s dulcet tone” (Carlin 4) but only to be familiar with the meanings of “dulcet” and “tone.” Descriptions of sound, for a poet like Carlin, are accessible through reading, writing, and signing without recourse to hearing. Deaf poets who may not have access to the sensory experience of sound demonstrate in these poems that they have access to the discursive experience of sound. These Sounds Unheard poems highlight how sound is an experience mediated through language, which is not only true for those who cannot hear.

71 The myth of the immediacy and interiority of hearing and speech depends upon the idea that hearing is somehow less mediated than other forms of sensory information retrieval and processing. These poems demonstrate that the sensory experience of sound becomes meaningful as it appears in language. The apparent paradox of these poems that describe sounds unheard clarifies the fact that sensory information is bound up in discourse and processed through language.

Furthermore, the frequent references to birdsong, music, and wind in these poems reveal the importance of poetic tropes: these are all conventional figure of lyric address. These poets are not necessarily referencing the aural sensory experience of birdsong or wind but instead the metaphorical valence of these objects as poetic tropes. These deaf poets thereby illuminate what is sometimes taken for granted about poetry in general: poetry – in this case, a particular

Romantically-influenced sentimental poetry – is a discourse which relies on previous incarnations of poetry and language rather than the immediate impress of the senses.

The second element of the model of sound and poetry proffered by deaf poetry relates more specifically to orality. While Kitto initially describes the ocean’s roar in his poem “Mary,”

he goes on to subsume all the sounds he has described into the fraught concept of voice. He

writes,

And so beneath o’ershadowing trees,

I’ve heard leaves rustle in the breeze,

Which brought me the melodious tale

Of all the vocal nightingale.

Or else the cushat’s coo of pride

Over his new mated bride; --

Yes: I have heard thee – Nature, thee,

72 In all thy thousand voices speak,

Which now are silent all to me: -- (45-53).

Not only does Kitto attribute a “voice” to the nightingale, but he also categorizes all the sounds he has described throughout this poem – all the sounds of nature – as Nature’s “thousand voices.”

Kitto has used writing to describe sounds he cannot hear. He then names these sounds speech.

The idea of the voice is not absent from this poem but instead is rendered in writing. While Kitto cannot hear and does not speak, he can describe sounds and call them “voices” in the written body of his poem.

In her “Thoughts on Music,” American poet Mary Toles Peet also uses the concept of a higher “voice” which encapsulates all sounds. Peet lists various sounds she cannot hear like the

“lark’s glad trill” and “the evening zephyr’s notes” in order to build up to the idea that in

“Nature’s thousand tones” there echoes one “voice,” presumably the voice of God. While both

Kitto and Peet may elevate orality through subsuming all the sounds they cannot hear into the category of the voice, they do so through writing. Their writing produces the “voice” in contrast to the opposite, more commonly held, phonocentric idea that the voice pre-exists, and produces, writing.

This interest in orality and the voice appear in this genre of unheard sound poetry again and again, from descriptions of human voices in most of the poems to the appearance of the

“storm cloud’s voice” (Peet) and the “woodlands, vocal with merry tones” (Carlin). In Simpson’s

“Recollections of Hearing,” the “speaker” asserts, “nature now remains to me/ comparatively dumb” (l.51-2). In the genre of sounds unheard poetry, the various unheard sounds around the

“speaker” are transformed, through the writing of the poem, into orality. Voices, animate and inanimate, dominate the phonic space of the world inside these poems, emphasizing not only the theme of the deaf and mute “speaker” of the poem’s alienation from orality, but also the

73 “speaker’s” and poet’s interest in the intersection between orality and written poetry. In these poems, orality does not exist as a precondition to the writing of the poem or a necessary way of experiencing the poem, that is, by reading it aloud, but rather as a written element within the world of the poem. Orality exists only in and through writing in this poetry – a reversal of the typical understanding of a written poem as created and experienced through the oral sounding of words. Here, it is not literacy, but orality that is, in Derrida’s words, the “derivative, accidental, particular, exterior, doubling the signifier” (29) in contrast to the phonocentric cultural beliefs which consider the oral pre-existing and generative.

This strong focus on orality may appear to reinforce the importance of voice in written poetry. This is true on one level, and understandably so, as these poets were living in a phonocentric and audist culture that discriminated against them in many ways because they did not hear and speak. These poets were constrained not only by the cultural ideology that disparaged those who did not speak but also by the poetic ideology that imagined poetry as an essentially oral exercise. While the poetry written by deaf people strains against this definition by replacing the voice with writing and emphasizing that poetry was accessible to those without hearing and speech, it was still limited by the cultural celebration of the voice. These poets ambivalently resist the hegemony of orality by simultaneously maintaining a voice in their poetry and underscoring how that voice is a silent construct of print. The particular construction of orality as a product of writing emerging from this absurd poetry reveals the contradictions at the heart of the idea that written poetry must be an oral and aural endeavor. These poets reveal that the “voice” of a poem is usually metaphorical, and this metaphor is as equally available to a deaf poet as to a hearing poet.

Furthermore, while nineteenth-century deaf poets could not completely escape poetry’s generic reliance on orality, they created a position for themselves within this by writing and

74 calling their writing “speech.” While many of these poems, “The Mute’s Lament” for example, seem to mourn the loss of hearing, the creators of these lamenting “speakers” were all educated, contributing, and politically active members of the deaf community. The mournful tone of many of these sounds unheard poems is always accompanied by a celebration of writing and an assertion of a deaf person’s right to poetry. For example, in “The Castle of Silence,” Peet’s

“speaker” humbly approaches the “shrine” of the “radiant muse of song” (1-2) and suggests,

… though no sound my voice may wake…

Perchance my hand may touch the lyre,

And bid some chord to thrill,

And though the minstrel’s home-land be

The realm of silence, still may she

Bring soul-gifts, at thy will. (3,6-10, italics in original).

Here Peet replaces a voice with her hand, with its access to both writing and signing, as the instrument of poetic creation. Though a dweller of the “realm of silence,” rather than Searing’s

“realm of singing,” Peet asserts her right to lyric poetry. Her poetry, and the entire body of sounds unheard poetry, foregrounds the fact that orality is neither a pre-condition for poetry nor for literacy.

To summarize, then, the genre of sounds unheard poetry posits an alternative model of the relationship between sound and poetry. The first tenet of the model is that sound can be understood as a discursive experience rather than an auditory one. This is an important fact when these poets are being told that it impossible for them to write poetry because they cannot hear the sounds of the words they are writing. These poets suggest that while they may not have access to the sounds of words, they have access to the words of sound. The second tenet of the model is that writing can create speech. This tenet contravenes much nineteenth-century – and

75 contemporary – thought about the speech/writing binary in both poetry and language. In this alternative model, the hegemony of the voice is displaced since it is present in deaf poetry only as it is described in writing. While sound-based theories of poetry centre on the oral experience of written poetry, this alternative model presented by deaf poetry, as exemplified by the genre of sounds unheard poems, embraces the written words of sound.37 As Burnet notes in “…Passaic

Falls,” it is through writing “alone the world is known to me,/ by thee alone my thoughts have

learn’d to roam/ Beyond the narrow bound of what I see/ feel, taste or smell” (50-3). For Burnet,

and these other deaf poets, writing permits an experience of the world of sound and a chance to

posit a new understanding of the relationship between writing, speech, sound and poetry.

Various nineteenth-century writers and theorists of poetry agreed that poetry was outside

of the scope of a deaf person’s ability because of the believed inextricability of sound and poetry.

However, deaf poets and the poetry they produced challenge this limited view of the relationship

of sound to written poetry: these deaf poets produced volumes and volumes of work. Some of

these widely published poets were either born deaf or became deaf quite young, and so for them

the notion that the written text of the poem derives from, in Griffiths’s words, “the intended

music of a voice” (61-2) is inaccurate. Prins asks “How can we reverse our tendency to read these

poems as the utterance of a speaker, the representation of speech, the performance of song?” (44).

I contend that one approach to reversing this tendency is to consider the poems written by deaf

poets which are not representations of speech or performances of song, and which, instead, self-

consciously highlight the contradictions inherent in this understanding of poetry. Prins describes

the “by now predictable debate in which ‘voice’ and ‘writing’ are each in turn idealized” using

37 This is not to argue that deaf poets entirely rejected the sound-based model of poetry. After all, many of their poems have very regular patterns of metre and rhyme. I want to suggest that through reading deaf poetry closely we can see that these deaf poets are offering alternative ways of understanding the intersections between writing, speech and sound. 76 Griffiths and Derrida as examples of the two poles (46).38 I do not intend to invert the binary of phonocentrism and argue that because writing can create orality, it should be the celebrated term.

Deaf poetry does not resolve the debate between writing and voice but instead, demonstrates the problems with the polarization in the first place. This dichotomization not only leaves sign language, as a mode of language, completely out of the equation, but also cannot fully account for our cultural understandings of poetry. While I do not want to suggest that sound should always be divorced from considerations of what it means to read and write poetry, the example of the poetry written by the deaf points to the limitations in a theory of poetry that is buttressed by an idea of the primacy of sound and the pre-existence of orality. For deaf poets, poetry is not just a

“tuneful art,” and critical understandings of poetry can benefit from addressing this poetry written by people without the same conception of sound as the hearing population.39

Celebrating Sign Language Through Written Poetry

In opposition to the common alignment of language with speech in nineteenth-century culture, many deaf signers understood that signed languages were sufficient forms of language. In addition to phonocentric ideas about poetry, the cultural skepticism about the poetic abilities of deaf people can also be attributed to Victorian misunderstandings of the properties of signed languages. The poetry written by signing deaf individuals disputes the hearing community’s

38 I have reservations about some critics’ accusations that Derrida privileges writing and simply reverses the speech and writing binary. For example, Sterne argues that Derridean “deconstruction inverts, inhabits, and re-animates the sound/vision binary, privileging writing over speech and refusing both speech-based metaphysics and presence-based positive assertions” (17-8). Undermining the dominance of speech is not the same as privileging writing unless you maintain the speech/writing binary. When Derrida uses “writing” as a more expansive term in Of Grammatology, he is not referring to the same narrow notion of writing (as a derivative of speech) that exists in the speech/writing binary. 39 Contemporary American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) poetry by poets who are deaf extends the boundaries of the definition of poetry even further. This body of poetry, which adopts terminology including rhythm and rhyme, from written and oral poetry to refer to elements of a signed

77 beliefs about the characteristics of sign language. We can read these poems as challenges to phonocentric logic because they displace the authority granted to speech by emphasizing the communicative potential of the non-verbal and extra-oral. By and large, the poetry written by nineteenth-century deaf poets celebrates forms of communication outside of speech, even while the speakers sometimes bemoan their inability to hear and speak. In order to explore this displacement of the oral in favor of other forms of communication, I will consider Kitto’s poem

“Mary,” Searing’s “My Story,” and Burnet’s “Emma.” While each of these poets had different personal views on the merits of sign language, they were united in their attention to the communicative potential of the non-oral.

The “speaker” of Kitto’s ten-stanza poem “Mary,” who bemoans the loss of his hearing and the “long silence” in which he has lived his life, celebrates the superior communicative abilities of the non-verbal. In this poem, part of the sounds unheard subgenre, the “speaker” describes the sounds of all the things he cannot hear, “from the organ’s rolling peal/ To the gay burst or mournful wail/ of harp, and psaltery, and lute” (l. 31-33). However, halfway through the poem in stanza six, there is a turn, where, “gilded by [Mary’s] eye/ Griefs melt away, and fall in streams/

Of hope into the land of dreams” (62-64). The poem then becomes a celebration of Mary’s eye and its ability to communicate with the “speaker,” who claims that he would not “exchange”

“[o]ne sparkle of [Mary’s] eye/….for all the gems/ That shine in kingly diadems,/ Or spices of rich Araby” (l.95-98).

The “speaker” asserts that he values Mary’s eyes because of their ability to communicate thoughts, hopes and feelings to him since “the human voice divine/ Falls not on this cold sense of mine” (l.67-8). Kitto writes:

poem, is almost always completely divorced not only from sound but also from writing. The poetry is created and presented in sign language and is reproduced through video. 78 But Mary, when I look on thee

All things beside neglected lie,

There is a deep eloquence to me

In the bright sparkle of thine eye.

How sweetly can their beamings roll

Volumes of meaning to my soul,

How long – how vainly all – might words

Express what one quick glance affords.

So spirits talk perhaps when they

Their feelings and their thoughts convey,

Till heart to heart, and soul to soul

Is in one moment opened all. (83-94)

While earlier the “speaker” characterizes the human voice as divine, in this stanza, he visualizes

“spirits” communicating through these non-verbal means rather than through words, lending an

otherworldliness or mysticism to this form of intercourse. Words are inefficient compared to the

communicative powers of “one quick glance.” Kitto’s celebration of the way that lovers can

communicate outside of words borrows from a larger strain of romantic love poetry that asserts

the extra-linguistic powers of communication that exist between lovers and the insufficiency of

words to capture love. For example, in Sonnets From the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning draws upon this convention of love poetry. In Sonnet 13, the “speaker” assures her lover that she cannot “fashion into speech/ The love I bear thee” (1-2). Instead she asks her lover to “let the silence of my womanhood/ Commend my woman-love to thy belief” (9-10) because of the impossibility of capturing her feelings in words. In Sonnet 39, the “speaker” moves from expression beyond words to reception of the extra-verbal. She describes her lover’s power to

79 “look through and beneath” (2) the surface into her “soul’s true face” (4). In both of these examples, which we may take as representative of a certain strain of describing romantic communication, words are insufficient for communication which must instead be accomplished through visual communication. However, in Kitto’s use of this construction, he draws upon the rhetoric of silent communication between lovers in order to apply it to his particular circumstance as a deaf man who cannot hear his Mary’s voice but can read his Mary’s eye.

Kitto’s “speaker” aligns Mary with the natural world through using the word “thee” to refer both to Nature in the beginning and to Mary near the end of the poem without distinguishing between them. The poem seems addressed to both, and where the “thousand voices” of “thee –

Nature…” “[w]hich now are silent all to me” (l.51, 52, 53) end, “one sparkle of [Mary’s] eye” resumes the thread of communication. The conflation of Nature’s voices and Mary’s eye aligns this non-verbal human communication with the Nature, and the sounds of nature, that the

“speaker” celebrates. This insistence on the naturalness of non-verbal communication reflects one strand of Manualist discourse that constructed signs as “natural” to the deaf. In fact signed languages were often referred to in North America as “the Natural Language of Signs.” As

Baynton notes in Forbidden Signs, both the Oralist and the Manualist sides of the debate mobilized the notion of the naturalness of sign language in support of their argument, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century. While the Oralists used their belief in the link between sign and nature to establish that sign was a more “primitive” form of communication than speech or writing, the Manualists reversed this binary to celebrate sign’s naturalness. Some Manualists romanticized sign communication, believing that the body could communicate outside of what they considered the culturally constructed “artificiality” of spoken and written languages (109).40

40 For more on how the “naturalness” or “unnaturalness” of signed languages became a battleground in the nineteenth-century sign language debates see Baynton’s excellent book, especially chapters four and five. 80 While Kitto endorsed sign language use among those born deaf, calling it their “natural language” (Kitto 111), he personally found it “unprofitable and annoying” because he had “the strongest aversion to modes of intercourse which attract the attention and curiosity of others”

(110). He believed that gestural signs invited stares while he was in society. Instead, he relied upon fingerspelling – which can be performed more subtly – to communicate and almost entirely eschewed speech (97, 130). Like Burnet, Kitto includes illustrations of the manual alphabet, both the one handed alphabet used in North America and the two-handed alphabet used in England.

Kitto enumerates the benefits of knowing the manual alphabets and encourages his readers to learn to use them (99). This reliance on a non-verbal form of communication attuned him to the avenues of communication, whether facial or dactylological,41 that existed outside of the verbal.42

Searing, who also argued that sign language was “the natural language of the mute,” (“A

Few Words” 130) wrote a poem, “My Story,” that shares the same focus as “Mary” on

communication outside of the oral and aural. “My Story” was published in Searing’s book of

American Civil War poetry Idylls of Battle. In this poem, the “speaker” of “My Story,” describes

her experience with deafness and then compares her story with “A nation’s tears! A nation’s

pains!/ The record of a nation’s loss” (l. 49-50). By the end of the poem, the “speaker” refocuses

her pain and tears away from her “lighter cross” (52) of deafness towards the suffering of her

country:

Henceforth, thou dear, bereaved land!

I keep with thee thy vigil night;

My prayers, my tears, are all for thee,--

41 Fingerspelling was often referred to in the nineteenth century as “dactylology” 42 By aligning facial expression, or the expression of Mary’s eye, with a celebration of signed languages here, I do not mean to insinuate that signed languages are simply instinctual gestures or to diminish the linguistic sophistication of signed languages. My argument is not that sign language is like facial

81 God and the deathless Right! (l.53-56 )

However, the first twelve stanzas of the fourteen-stanza poem do not mention the war and focus instead on the “speaker’s” pains, struggles and hopes regarding her deafness. In their construction of face reading as a compensation for the inability to hear and speak, and their reliance on hand imagery, these stanzas attend to the non-oral aspects of communication. The

“speaker” primarily experiences the world through her vision, which allows her to “read” thoughts and feelings in the faces and eyes around her. She constructs her skill at reading faces as a product of her deafness:

I learned to read in every face

The deep emotions of the heart;

For Nature to the stricken one

Had given this simple art.

The world of sound was not for me;

But then I sought in friendly eyes

A soothing for my bitter loss,

When memories would rise.

And I was happy as a child,

If I could read a friendly thought

In the warm sunshine of a face,

The which my trust had wrought. (17-28)

expression or gesture, but simply that Kitto recognizes, and celebrates, the ability of humans to communicate in means that are non-oral whether linguistic or extra-linguistic. 82 Here, as in Kitto’s “Mary,” eyes communicate with eyes and faces are texts to be read. This construction of faces as texts to be read, by individuals who are deaf, appears throughout the writings of these deaf poets. Kitto, for example, argues that because the deaf do not have the ability to judge a person’s character by his or her “tone of voice and manner of speech,” “every one who is deaf must become a physiognomist” (61).

Of course deaf poets did not invent this construction of faces as texts to be read. These poets participate in what Deidre Lynch has called “the Victorians’ fascination with the insights to be obtained from the sight of another’s countenance” (229) in order to suggest that visual communication trumps oral communication in its efficiency and its revelation of truth. Various

Victorian hearing poets also deploy this physiognomic logic in their poetry including, for example, Robert Browning. In “Fra Lippo Lippi,” the “speaker” explains that his marginalization as a poor boy on the streets taught him to read faces and therefore to become a great artist: “When a boy starves in the streets….Why soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the looks of things” (112, 124-5). “How it Strikes a Contemporary” is rife with paranoia about surveillance and the poet “as a recording chief-inquisitor” (39) who wanders the streets “looking [the world] full in the face” (11). “My Last Duchess” famously treats the speciousness of reading faces and the gendered danger of a woman’s face revealing too much or too little about her thoughts and feelings. The Duke emphasizes that the Duchess’s portrait was painted by Fra Pandolf:

…for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

83 How such a glance came there…. (6- 12)

In each of these examples, face reading is somewhat threatening in its ability to reveal what the object of the reading may wish to hide. In the examples of “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “My Last

Duchess” specifically, this readability and transparency of the surfaces of individuals reinforces the dramatic monologue’s generic ability to reveal secrets implicitly while the subject dissembles explicitly. The reader of the poem becomes a poetic physiognomist of sorts, able to read the truth of the “speaker” outside of the words that the “speaker” utters.

While face reading and physiognomy are a nineteenth-century cultural phenomenon, it is important to note that deaf poets who rely on non-oral communication and describe themselves as visually oriented claim a different relationship to this face reading than hearing people, even hearing artists and poets.43 For Kitto and Searing, who figure this reading of faces as a form of compensation for their deafness, deaf people are better physiognomists than hearing people. In

Searing’s poem, the “speaker’s” skill at reading faces and at visual communication, are presented as a byproduct of the “bitter” loss of hearing and speech. While nature is not appealed to directly as an interlocutor as it is in Kitto’s poem, in “My Story,” nature still provides compensation for the loss of hearing. In “Mary,” the lost sounds of Nature are replaced by the visual communication between the speaker and Mary (where Mary herself is elided with Nature). As in

Kitto’s poem, Nature “give[s]” “this simple art” of communicating extra-verbally with loved ones. These poets thereby appropriate the cultural authority of the rhetoric of physiognomy in order to validate non-oral methods of communication.

In addition to her eyes, the “speaker” of “My Story” uses her hands to negotiate and communicate with the world around her – through the sense of touch and the use of space. The

43 See chapter three for more discussion of physiognomy and deafness.

84 speaker refers to hands three times within the first four stanzas. In the first, she “grasp[s] the hand” of her interlocutor (l.1). In the second stanza, she describes her deafness as the “hand of

God” falling “heavily/ upon [her]” (l.6-7). In the fourth stanza, she tells of how her,

…poor life, so silence-bound,

Reached blindly out its helpless hands,

Craving the love and tenderness

Which every soul demands. (l. 13-16)

This focus on hands as the medium of intercourse between the “speaker” and her “interlocutor,” those around her, and even her God, is not surprising in a “speaker” who is deaf and who likely uses sign language to communicate, as the poet herself did. Both hands and eyes are figured as ways to relate to the world around her.

In explicitly celebrating sign language, Burnet’s poem “Emma” also stresses the value of communication outside of orality. The narrative poem, from Burnet’s book Tales of the Deaf and

Dumb (1835), is about a young deaf girl’s journey from isolation to intellectual enrichment and community through learning sign language and attending a deaf school. The poem is unequivocally supportive of the education of deaf students through this “new language, – all their own,/ where mind was visible, – and knowledge shone” (l.308-9 ). At this deaf school, “kind hearts from kind faces beam’d” (l.320) and feelings “gush[ed] forth,” (l.334) through “speaking limbs and face divine” (l.330). In attributing speech to signing limbs, Burnet parallels the communicative powers of sign language and speech. As in the poems “Mary,” and “My Story,” the visibility of knowledge, mind, and feelings on and through faces and limbs, supports the communicative potential of the visual.

Furthermore, the imagery in the section of the poem that deals with Emma’s learning of this new language and knowledge is notably spatial:

85 Here does her teacher’s skilful hand unroll

The curtain that hung around her darken’d soul,--

Revealing all the secret springs that move

The once mysterious scene, around, above. (l. 336-9 )

This italicized Here is repeated three times in this section about Emma’s education. This deixis emphasizes the physical space of the residential school. Burnet’s focus on spatiality continues with the metaphor of the teacher’s hand physically unrolling the curtain to reveal the scene in the space “around” and “above” Emma. Emma’s education is described again and again in imagery of space and motion – it allows her to “spurn this clog of clay and wander free/Through distant ages, o’er far land and sea (l. 342-3). Her experience of life before learning sign language is compared to being mired in clay whereas sign language allows unfettered movement through space and frees Emma from her “once cag’d and insulated mind” (l.324).

Burnet uses spatial and visual imagery in an especially provocative manner when discussing Emma’s religious education:

Her teacher, -- pointing to the skies,--

Unrolls the sacred volume to her eyes,--

….

The teacher stands, to pray or teach, and all

The eyes around drink in the thoughts that fall,

Not from the breathing lips,-- and tuneful tongue,--

But from the hand with graceful gesture flung.

The feelings that burn deep in his own breast

Ask not the aid of words to touch the rest;

But from his speaking limbs and changing face,--

86 In all the thousand forms of motions grace,

Mind emanates, in coruscations, fraught

With all the thousand varied shades of thought. (l. 348- 369)

Emma’s teacher imparts the doctrine of Christianity to his students visually through his facial and bodily movement including pointing to the sky and his “thousand forms of motions grace.”

Emma’s new conceptions of the “scene, around, above” her, through learning sign language, is directly aligned with her education in Christianity because in both cases her teacher “unrolls” something: the curtain around her when she learns sign (l.336) and the “charter of her immortality” during her religious instruction (l.349).

Burnet’s explicit linking of sign language to religion is a political move that was made by many advocates of Manualism who were responding to the idea that deaf people were shut out from Christian salvation. As Baynton notes, at the time that Burnet was writing “Emma,”

“deafness was most often described as an affliction that isolated the individual from the Christian community. Its tragedy was that deaf people lived beyond the reach of the gospel” (15). Sterne explains that this idea derived in part from,

the long-standing spirit/letter distinction in Christian spiritualism. The spirit is

living and lifegiving – it leads to salvation. The letter is dead and inert – it leads to

damnation. Spirit and letter have sensory analogues: hearing leads the soul to spirit, sight

leads a soul to the letter. A theory of religious communication that posits sound as life-

giving spirit can be traced back to the Gospel of John and the writings of Saint

Augustine. (16)44

44 Sterne discusses this spirit/letter distinction in order to explain his conception of the “audiovisual litany” that I referred to in my introduction. He explains that this “hearing-spirit/sight-letter framework finds its most coherent contemporary statement in the work of Walter Ong, whose later writing (especially Orality and Literacy) is still widely cited as an authoritative description of the phenomenology and psychology of sound” (16). I agree strongly with Sterne’s assessment and criticism of Ong and his assertion that it is 87 Sterne explains that Saint Augustine “literali[zed] the dictum, ‘Faith comes by hearing’” (347)45 which positioned deaf people as outsiders to Christianity for centuries.46

However, in “Emma,” faith does not come by hearing, but by seeing. Burnet directly

confronts his culture’s constructions of faith and deafness through celebrating religious

instruction as a visual enterprise accessible to deaf people. Burnet was one of many supporters of

Manualism who defended the right of deaf people to sign by arguing that it allowed them access

to Christian thought and doctrine. For example, Reverend Thomas H. Gallaudet, a founder of

deaf education in the United States (and E.M. Gallaudet’s father), considered oral training a “long

and laborious process, even in the comparatively few cases of complete success.” Conversely, he

described signed languages as languages in which “the deaf-mute can intelligibly conduct his

private devotions and join in social religious exercises with his fellow pupils” (quoted in Baynton

18).47 Burnet takes this notion a step further by arguing that religion is more successfully taught in sign than in speech.48 Emma’s religious instruction is “not in a cloak of words obscur’d,

confined--/ Here free conceptions flash from mind to mind” (l.370-1). Burnet justifies sign

language through its ability to teach Christian doctrine, the same doctrine that had been used in

the past to exclude deaf people from the salvation offered to all humanity. He employs the

language of stasis and movement, where spoken words trap ideas and sign language frees them to

important to consider the “connections between [Ong’s] ideas on sound and his theological writings” (Sterne 16). See Sterne, pages 13 to 19, for more on the audiovisual litany and Walter Ong. 45 Interpretations of St. Augustine vary. See Branson and Miller p.67-68 for a different interpretation of St. Augustine’s position on hearing and faith. 46 I agree very strongly with Sterne that “it is time for scholars of sound to recognize [the work done by scholars and activists challenging these caricatures of the deaf], engage its spirit and substance, and let go of the Augustinian baggage that we have been carrying around with our theories of speech and hearing” (347). I hope that my project takes up Sterne’s call to arms and challenges problematic configurations of speech and hearing that are still rampant in the field of literary studies. 47 For a further discussion on the role of religion in the sign language debates, see Baynton’s Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign Against Sign Language 48 In his poem “Recollections of Hearing,” Simpson makes a similar argument about his privileged access to religion or God because of his deafness. He writes that because of his deafness, he can “hear the ‘still small voice’/ that bids my heart and soul rejoice” (l.71-2). 88 move through space. He also reverses the terms of the audio/visual binary that links the audible, or the vocal, with evanescence and impermanence and the visual with the material and the concrete. In Emma, Burnet emphasizes that sign language permits religious education, which is generally considered to be a very abstract topic. Demonstrating that the abstract principles of

Christianity can be imparted through signs more fittingly than through speech challenges the notion that signing cannot represent abstract or metaphysical thought.

In opposition to the discourse of their cultures which posited the superiority of the oral, sometimes to the point where language becomes equated with speech, Kitto, Searing and Burnet all celebrate the avenues of communication that exist outside of oral and aural language. They describe the communication that occurs through visual readings of the face and body, and often imagine this skill at reading faces as compensation for the loss of their hearing. Burnet, and to some extent Searing, also describes the communicative potential of motion and space through his employment of spatial imagery.

While reading facial expression and the motion of the body through space can be characterized as an intuitive understanding of what we now would call “body language,” I believe that the attention to facial expression and spatiality in these poems reveals something even more interesting about this non-verbal communication. Linguists now know what nineteenth-century users of signed languages had not yet linguistically theorized: facial expression and spatial motion of the arms are integral parts of the grammar of signed languages. In contemporary signed languages like British Sign Language or American Sign Language, the component parts of one sign are hand shape, movement, , orientation and non-manual signals (facial expression) (Valli et al. 17). In these signed languages, facial expression and arm movement are not merely incidental or extra-linguistic but are essential elements of the meaning of a sign. The ability to read faces and attend to the motion of the hands and arms is less a compensation for

89 deafness – which is how it is constructed by many of these poets – than a reflection of the actual linguistic properties of the language being used by Searing, Burnet, and, to a lesser extent, Kitto.

By celebrating the communicative powers of signed languages and even suggesting that this visual language of “speaking limbs” was superior to speech in its communicative capacities, nineteenth-century deaf poets used their poetry to resist Oralist constructions of signed languages as limiting to their users.

While most nineteenth-century deaf poets celebrated the properties of signed languages in their written poetry, some nineteenth-century deaf poets actually created sign poetry. Though evidence for nineteenth-century sign language poetry is limited, there are indications that sign poetry was an element of the culture of poetry in nineteenth-century deaf communities. As noted above, at public school exhibitions deaf students presented signed readings including bible verses, poetry and other readings typically used in elocutionary exercises. For example, at the closing exercises of the New York Institution of the Deaf and Dumb in 1859, a deaf student “recited”

Coleridge’s “Mont Blanc” in signs, which “elicited a great deal of applause” from the audience

(“Institution”). Then, Mary Toles Peet, who had graduated from the institution six years earlier, presented her original composition “The Castle of Silence” in signs. The reporter for the New

York Times declared that her “words were fitted together…euphoniously” and applauded her muse (“Institution”).49

Searing publicly signed her own poem “A Farewell” at her 1858 graduation from the

Missouri School for the Deaf (Jones and Vallier 29). There are also reports of other people

presenting Searing’s poems in sign. At the dedication of the statue of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

49 There are many reports of deaf people signing their own or other people’s poetry at the public exhibitions of deaf schools or at graduation exercises. Another example appears in the New York Times of June 27, 1872. At these closing exercises of the New York institution, a student signed Oliver Wendell Holmes’s “The Voiceless.” The reporter describes the sentimental performance in detail and then writes

90 in 1889, Searing’s poem, “Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet,” was presented in both Sign Language and in oral English by a signer and a speaker respectively (Jones and Vallier 74). Krentz has noted that at this historic moment of erecting a monument to T.H. Gallaudet, “deaf Americans showed just how self-respecting and independent they were” (xxvii); surely one demonstration of the self-respect of this community was their desire to create and present poetry in what most of them considered their natural language. The simultaneous presentation of Searing’s poem in signed and spoken language affirmed the communicative and expressive capabilities of signed languages while also demonstrating Searing’s skill in written English.

The Contradiction of Deaf poetry and the Contradictions in Phonocentrism

Now that I have argued that deaf poetry interrogates phonocentric understandings of both poetry and sign language, I would like to extend my argument further to suggest that deaf poets mobilized the concept of the absurdity of deaf poetry in order to reveal the contradictions inherent in phonocentrism itself. One important way that they revealed these contradictions was through their use of a figure that appears in many deaf poems – the figure of the speaking mute. After all, it is in this figure that we find the root of the absurdity of deaf poetry. If poetry is figured as oral, and the deaf are outside of orality, then the idea of a deaf poet is a paradox. Through a close reading of Angie Fuller’s “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy,” Carlin’s “The Mute’s Lament,” and

Burnet’s “Lines Written After a First Visit to Passaic falls at the Age of Nineteen (since corrected.),” I argue that that deaf poets exploited the apparent contradiction of deaf poetry in order to paradoxically assert a “voice” in their phonocentric cultures.

that the young signer exited the stage to “plaudits [that] were almost deafening in vehemence” (“Our Deaf Mutes”). 91 Each of these poems emphasizes its “speaker’s” alienation from the world due to his or her inability to speak. This alienation is described as a state of being simultaneously an insider and an outsider to the speaking world. The “speaker” of Fuller’s “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy” describes herself as “an alien though at home,/ an exile even in my native land” (1-2) because of her inability to hear the sounds around her and to speak. Burnet’s “speaker” exhibits the same discomfort with general social intercourse, describing his “commerce” with the world as “small”

(57). Much of the poem describes his time working and thinking alone by Passaic Falls, but it also emphasizes that the “speaker” is not wholly outside human society. Burnet’s poem is dedicated to his few friends who sign. He asserts that his “happiest hours were spent in social glee,/ When words could tremble on the finger’s touch” (63-4). In the world to which Burnet’s

“speaker” is an outsider, everything, including Passaic Falls itself, can speak. The falls are described as speaking in a “roar” (14) and the birds there as expressing themselves in a “softer melody” in contrast to the silent poet who sits among them unhearing (17-8).

The “speaker” of Carlin’s “The Mute’s Lament” shares this sense of alienation with these other “speakers,” describing himself as “a silent exile on this earth;/ As in his dreary cell one doomed for life,/ my tongue is mute, and closed ear heedeth not” (1-3). The “speaker” contrasts his cell-like muteness, where he is at once a part of, and outside, the sound-filled world around him, with all the voices he can neither hear nor replicate including streamlets “vocal with merry tones” (7-9), the melodies of birds (10-14), the “deep pause of maiden’s pensive song” (17), the

“orator’s exciting strains” (21), and the “balmy words of God’s own messenger” (27). While the

“speaker” bemoans his inability to speak, he also, paradoxically, claims a voice for himself through this poem.

Carlin, Burnet and Fuller each construct their poetry as speech, and as full of sound, while each of their “speakers” simultaneously bemoans his or her alienation from the world of

92 speech. The titles of Carlin’s “The Mute’s Lament” and Fuller’s “The Semi-mute’s Soliloquy” self-consciously rely on this contradiction of deaf poetry. The titular soliloquizing or lamenting indicates a claiming of a “voice”/voice for those who, outside of this written poetry, would not, quite literally, have one. By definition, a mute cannot speak, except of course, through becoming the “speaker” of a poem. A mute can lament or soliloquize only through writing – through accessing genres of writing that call themselves speech. The “speaker” of a written poem is able to access a voice because of the definition of poetry that invests it with orality. Carlin’s title,

“The Mute’s Lament,” explicitly refers to the paradox of deaf poetry that I have described. How can a mute lament? How can a mute access the orality and aurality suggested by the term

“lament,” which the OED defines as “a song of grief,” “an elegy,” or “a dirge performed at a death or burial”? Carlin accesses the oral resonances of the genre through writing. Fuller’s “The

Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy” also self-consciously understands itself as an oral exercise while drawing attention to the same paradox of a speaking mute.

Almost every deaf poet discussed in this chapter explicitly invokes the oral connotations of the poem they are writing, from Searing, whose poem about Keats has the refrain, “O rare, sweet singer!,” to Burnet, whose mute “speaker” in “Passaic Falls” describes himself as “singing”

(69) “lays” (2, 65) as part of the “bard[ic]” tradition (68). The contributors to poetry columns in deaf periodicals often anonymously styled themselves along the lines of “Singing-Mute” (“Only

A Few,” 10) with this paradox in mind. However, just as these speakers are both inside and outside their hearing-dominated societies – exiles in their native land – so too are they inside and outside orality when attempting to access it through poetry. In “Passaic Falls,” Burnet makes the paradox of deaf poetry clear when he praises writing: “ears to the deaf thou art, speech to the dumb” (49). While Burnet may be referring to writing in general, I suggest we read his statement as especially pertinent to poetry. But again, while these poets explicitly construct their poetry as

93 oral, they just as consistently highlight the “apparent absurdity” of this orality’s origin in a mute

“speaker.”

There is a secondary dimension to the way that these poets mobilize the absurdity of deaf poetry and of mute soliloquizing. Isobel Armstrong has argued that, “poets resort to songs and speech, as if to foreground the act of reading a secondary text, for the song is not sung but read, and the speech is not spoken but written” (12). Through emphasizing that their lamenting, soliloquizing, and speaking are actually silent, these poets draw their readers’ attentions to the fact that written poetry can be divorced from orality. Though deaf and “mute,” these poets can access written poetry. These poets thereby highlight the contradictions inherent in the sound- based theory of poetry that was held by their contemporaries. Poetry, as it was produced and disseminated in the nineteenth-century, was most often written. And for the deaf, the oral and the aural were absent from this written text.

In the context of the nineteenth-century sign language debates, it is understandable that

Gallaudet read Draper’s sonnet aloud to the Royal Commission in order to defend the rights of deaf people to use sign language. First, through reading a sonnet, he was able to alleviate the concerns of the commissioners that English skills could be gained only through speech. In his testimony Gallaudet explained,

in manual schools where thoroughly competent and judicious teachers are employed the

use of signs is not only found to be no impediment in the acquisition of the power of

using language idiomatically, but is found to be a great help in reaching that end.

(“Testimony” 461)

Here Gallaudet advances the argument, made by many supporters of the combined system, that sign literacy permits English literacy. Rather than harming English language skills, the use of signs allows students to better succeed in all areas of their study for various reasons including the

94 fact that signs are used “for the purpose of explanation” (“Testimony” 461) and that not as much time is wasted in articulation and lip-reading lessons as is in a Pure Oral school.50

Beyond drawing attention to the baggage of orality poetry carries, and demonstrating

their skill with the English language, these deaf poets also highlighted the contradictions inherent

in phonocentrism. Through celebrating the communicative potential outside of speech, their

poetry displaced the hegemony of the oral. Even more importantly, their insistence on sign

language’s linguistic and communicative validity and their proffering of sign language as a third

term in the oral-written binary challenges this foundational binary of phonocentrism.

Furthermore, as we saw from the theories of Thomas Arnold and Max Müller, in this binary,

writing was understood as secondary to speech. In Derrida’s terms, a phonocentric culture

considers writing derivative:

because representative signifier of the first signifier, representation of the self-present

voice, of the immediate, natural, and direct signification of the meaning (of the signified,

of the concept, of the ideal object or what have you). (30)

Writing is always produced through speech in a phonocentric formulation. How then can deaf

people write without speaking? This perceived impossibility of literacy without orality informs

Müller’s insistence that deaf people cannot be educated to be more than mimics of those who can

speak. In opposition to this phonocentrism, deaf poets often located their writing skills precisely

in their lack of speech. Searing, for example, stopped speaking soon after losing her hearing at the

age of 13 because her speech “brought shocked looks and cruel commentary” from her family

50 I want to draw attention, once again, to the fact that Gallaudet is a supporter of the combined system so as not to overstate his support of the use of sign in deaf education. Gallaudet supported the use of oral training, where possible, alongside fingerspelling, writing and signing. What distinguished supporters of the combined system from Oralists is not that they were against oral training but rather that they were against the enforcement of oral training for all students as well as the elimination of sign language altogether. In the 1860’s, E.M.Gallaudet did speak out against the overuse of signs in the classroom as well

95 (Yaeger Jones 2). Searing wrote, “soon my school slate and chalk, or pencil and paper became my main method to communicate with others. It was as if I were born with a pen and paper in hand in which to express my thoughts” (qtd in Yaeger Jones 3). Rather than represent speech, writing replaces speech for these deaf poets. Deaf poetry’s insistence on literacy without orality not only refutes the claims of Oralism, but also challenges the false binary of speech and writing.

Throughout this chapter I have argued that two ideologies – Oralism and the belief that deaf people were incapable of writing poetry – shared the same roots: a phonocentric culture that elevated speech above all other forms of language. Through asserting their poetic abilities, reconfiguring the relationship between sound, speech and poetry, celebrating communication outside of orality, and exploiting the cultural idealization of speech, these deaf poets interrogated the phonocentric roots of the system that oppressed them. Deaf poetry was one of the tools used by the deaf community, and its supporters, to disrupt the false binary of speech/writing that excluded deaf people. Most importantly, deaf poets used their poetry to assert their right to language in whatever form they chose.

which he felt would hinder the English skills though he explains that this was only in reference to a specific case (“Testimony” 461). 96 Chapter 2 “Human in Shape, But Only Half Human in Attributes”: Sign Language, Evolutionary Theory and the Animal-Human Divide

While deaf poets attempted to challenge the foundational phonocentric binary of speech and writing through their poetry, the cultural centrality of speech had various other nineteenth- century manifestations including its cultural use as evidence of human uniqueness. While the belief that, in Rousseau’s words, “speech distinguishes man among the animals” (1) has a long history, in the decades following Darwin’s publication of his theory of evolution in 1859, this issue became an even more fraught battleground for beliefs about language origins, ability, and the parameters of the human. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as the boundary between the animal and the human seemed increasingly unstable, many pointed to language to buttress the uniqueness and superiority of human beings. In almost every case, these theorists equated language with speech. In this chapter, I will examine an important element of this intersection of theories of evolution and philology: the situation of deaf people – individuals who troubled the definition of humans as “the speaking animal.”

In this chapter I argue that the construction of signed languages as more embodied than speech played a large role in the evolutionary debates around language. Through examining the

Whitney- Müller philological debates, the construction of sign language as threatening the distinction between humans and animals in Rudyard Kipling’s story “Bertran and Bimi,” and the

Oralist construction of sign as a language of animals, I contend that the evolutionary debates and the sign language debates were each deployed in arguments about the other. For this reason, an understanding of Victorian constructions of signed languages is essential to any analysis of the nineteenth-century philological element of the evolution debates. Finally, I argue in this chapter 97 that the construction of signed languages as more embodied than speech meant that deaf people were increasingly forced to relinquish signed languages to maintain the animal-human boundary.

Both sides of the evolutionary debate constructed signed languages as less than fully human, and the image of signed languages as languages of monkeys or apes appears in various guises in

Victorian culture. In this intersection of evolution and the language use of deaf people that took place in the last decades of the nineteenth century, we find curious and contradictory constructions of signed languages: as threats to the hegemony of humanity, dangerous intermediaries between human and non-human animals, and evolutionary vestiges. The perceived corporeality of sign seemed troubling to many Victorians in its potential to erase the line that separated humans from other animals.

The degree to which language could be considered a guarantee of human superiority over other species was an important focal point in the post-Darwinian debates about evolution.

Victorian England and North America were consumed with understanding and consolidating the unique place of humans in the natural world. As Martin Danahay and Deborah Denenholz Morse argue in Victorian Animal Dreams, “the effect of Darwin’s ideas was both to make the human more animal and the animal more human, destabilizing boundaries in both directions” (2). After

Darwin’s assertion that humans shared their ancestry with all of the earth’s life forms, a rigorous search began for evidence that distinguished humans from other animals and for the validity of human domination of the planet. The potential dethroning of humanity from the top of the – human-created – species hierarchy led to a flurry of new scientific, theological, and cultural theories about what might separate humans from other animals and justify human dominion of the planet.

Many scientists looked to differences or similarities in the physical bodies of humans and their nearest primate relatives as a way to affirm or deny the theory of evolution. For example, in

98 the 1860s a public debate erupted between famous scientists Richard Owen and Thomas Henry

Huxley over the distinctness of the human brain.51 As Jessica Straley explains,

Owen had argued that the unique possession of three cerebral features – the

“hippocampus minor,” the posterior cornu, and the third lobe – distinguished human

beings from apes sufficiently enough to justify our inclusion in a separate sub-class….

But after studies revealed the same structures in simian brains, Huxley repeatedly

challenged Owen in print and speech, insisting in 1863 that the discovery proved beyond

any doubt “the impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes.”

(Straley 583)

These attempts to pinpoint minute physical differences between the features of humans and those

of their simian cousins were myriad, and were even a source of humor for some Victorians.

Gregory Radick notes that “the arcana of brain folds and skull angles were spilling onto the pages

of the Athenaeum, Punch, and other popular periodicals” (15).

This interest in the potential corporeal clues to human evolution or uniqueness also

appeared in Victorian fiction. For example, Charles Kingsley satirizes the hippocampus debate in

The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby:52

You may think that there are other more important differences between you and an ape,

such as being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and say

your prayers, and other little matters of that kind: but that is a child’s fancy, my dear.

Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test. If you have a

51 Radick argues that Paul Du Chaillu’s exhibition of gorillas in London, the famous debate between Owen and Huxley, and Max Müller’s lectures, which all took place in 1861, were part of the same interest in the relationship between human and non-human animals. He suggests that these three events “forever linked Darwinism and the apes, well before Charles Darwin himself linked them in The Descent of Man (1871) (16). 52 See Straley for more on Kingsley’s beliefs about evolution, the influence of Herbert Spencer’s theory of re-capitulation, and Kingsley’s construction of the role of literature in education. 99 hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet,

and were more apish than the apes of all aperies…always remember that the one true,

certain, final, and all-important difference between you and an ape is, that you have a

hippopotamus major in your brain and it has none. (139-40)

As this passage from The Water Babies demonstrates, Kingsley challenged the relevance of small

anatomical differences like the presence or absence of a fold in the brain as markers of human

uniqueness.53 However, Kingsley, like many of his contemporaries, believed that qualities such as

morality, religion, the presence of a soul, and, most importantly for my purposes, speech, were

valid markers of human uniqueness and superiority. These intangible or immaterial features were

evidently more convincing than minor material differences in the brain structures of humans and

great apes. Kingsley was not alone in his focus on speech, specifically, as a feature of human

uniqueness. As historian Stephen Alter suggests, language was one of the key battlegrounds

between science and religion as they attempted to delineate the place of the human in a post-

Darwinian world (4). Douglas Baynton argues that after evolution challenged traditional Christian

beliefs about the unique place of humans in nature, “explanations for that uniqueness were

adjusted to meet new realities.” (50). “[B]y the late nineteenth century,” according to Baynton,

53 Kingsley’s argument here echoes F. Max Müller’s argument. The men were close to each other owing to Müller’s marriage to Kingsley’s wife’s niece in 1859. However, in 1859, Kingsley also wrote a letter of support to Darwin about On the Origin of Species: if you be right, I must give up much that I have believed and written. In that I care little. Let God be true, and every man a liar!…. From two common superstitions, at least, I shall be free while judging of your book: — (1.) I have long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species. (2.) I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought. Be it as it may, I shall prize your book…. (Kingsley, Letter, 18 November 1859) It is in his second point especially that we see Kingsley gesture towards reconciling his belief in the uniqueness of human capabilities, his religious beliefs, and Darwin’s theory of evolution. 100 “the most common explanation for why humans were fundamentally different from other animals

was no longer that they possessed a soul but that they possessed speech” (50).54 But how did the theory that speech was a barrier between humans and the great apes account for those humans who did not speak? How were signed languages understood in this account that linked speech to humanity itself?

Audism, Phonocentrism, and Animal “Language”

The idea that language is the mark of human uniqueness carries with it potential ideological fallacies that can lead to audism and speciesism. Dirksen Bauman writes:

Invariably the most divisive difference between human and animal is traditionally

thought to be language. Although bees may dance and parrots talk, it is often assumed

that there is a qualitative difference between these systems of communication and the

highly developed grammatical systems of human languages. (242)

In “Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression,” Bauman demonstrates how narrow definitions of language contribute to marginalizing people who do not communicate according to the “norms” of orality and aurality. As Bauman explains, “in itself, saying that language is a distinctly human trait does not lead to audism. Yet once language is elevated to the status defining the human characteristic, how we define language has enormous implications” (242).

While I entirely agree with Bauman’s stress on the importance of the definition of the term

“language,” I do have reservations about his acceptance of the argument that “language is a distinctly human trait.” While this belief may not constitute audism, it may constitute speciesism.

54 For an extended discussion of what Baynton sees as a shift from the soul to speech as the marker of human uniqueness see Baynton 48-55. I owe much of my thinking and my evidence to Baynton’s careful research and his attention to the nineteenth-century characterization of signed languages as lower on the evolutionary scale than speech. 101 While the nineteenth-century Oralist rhetoric of signed languages as animal languages

has been previously considered – most extensively by Baynton – I would like to examine the

issue more critically by employing an Animal Studies approach. That is, instead of unconsciously

accepting that the nineteenth-century construction of signed languages as ape languages was a

way to denigrate sign, perhaps we should ask what beliefs about the relationship between humans

and animals underpin our desire to reject this construction. What kinds of authority and

ideological investments are necessary for distinguishing Bauman’s “qualitative difference”

between human and animal communication or between the concepts of “language” and

“communication”? What does it mean for many scientists, and Western culture at large, to deny

that animals use language? More importantly, has “language” been defined as that form of

communication accessible to human beings but not to other animals? That is, if an animal can

communicate in a certain mode, is that mode thereby not sophisticated or complex enough to be

considered “language”? Finally, if it is true that “language” refers to a mode of communication

accessible to human beings but not to animals, what does that suggest about signed languages,

languages whose use by primates, while controversial, has been documented by various

scientists.55

Over the course of the myriad primate language experiments that have taken place in the

West (including some in the nineteenth century),56 some researchers have pointed to the success

of primates like Koko the gorilla or the chimp in using a modified form of signs.57 While

55 See Fouts and Turkel Mills’s Next of Kin for Fouts’s experience working with Washoe and his defense of Washoe’s linguistic abilities. 56 See Radick’s fascinating book on the nineteenth-century primate speech experiments undertaken by the eccentric researcher R.L. Garner. 57 While primates may not have the physiology required for speech, they do have similar hands to humans. Signed languages are therefore a more suitable human language for the use of primates than speech. In their book about teaching signed languages to chimps, Fouts and Turkel Mills argue that the problem with early primate language experiments was that “the researchers had all equated language with speech” (25). Fouts 102 I do not have the space or expertise to adjudicate the issue of primate language, I do want to interrogate what our investment may be in this question. Primate language use is controversial and important specifically because humans have invested “language” with a strange boundary- defining power. What would it mean if we discovered that great apes could be taught to use a grammatical language like American Sign Language? How would such a discovery affect human and animal power relations? How would it change cultural understandings of signed languages and their fitness for human use? What these questions gesture towards are potential and speculative interrelations between the definition of “language,” the animal-human binary, and the marginalization of signed languages.

In “The Animal that Therefore I am: More to Follow,” Jacques Derrida addresses these issues without explicitly examining the example of signed languages. He accuses humans of committing the error of assuming that language is only that form of communication used by humans. While he is cautious not to give his cat “words which it has no need of” by

“overinterpret[ing] what the cat might be saying to me, in its own way, what it might be suggesting or simply signifying in a language of mute traces, that is to say without any words”

and Turkel Mills explain that a chimp’s physiology is unsuited to speech and that in the wild they are generally silent. Instead, chimps tend to mimic human actions rather than human words (26). See Fouts and Turkel Mills and Radick for more on current experiments with primate language. Darwin also notes the similarity in hand design and functioning between humans and primates in The Descent of Man. He writes that the use of hands to “make almost anything which a civilised man can make” was important to a “man-like animal.” Darwin then suggests, The structure of the hand in this respect may be compared with that of the vocal organs, which in the apes are used for uttering various signal cries, or, as in one genus, musical cadences; but in man the closely similar vocal organs have become adapted through the inherited effects of use for the utterance of articulate language. Turning now to the nearest allies of men, and therefore to the best representatives of our early progenitors, we find that the hands of the Quadrumana are constructed on the same general pattern as our own, but are far less perfectly adapted for diversified uses (69). Darwin discusses how primates use their hands at length and speculates about whether human-type hands would be more useful to primates. He discusses the advantages of human bipedalism in freeing the hands for other uses and asserts, “Man could not have attained his present dominant position in the world without the use of his hands, which are so admirably adapted to act in obedience to his will” (71). 103 (387), he also chastises those humans who believe that a cat may not be communicating at all.

Derrida asks:

But in forbidding myself thus to assign, interpret or project, must I conversely give in to the

other violence or stupidity [bêtise], that which would consist in suspending one's

compassion and in depriving the animal of every power of manifestation, of the desire to

manifest to me anything at all, and even to manifest to me in some way its experience of

my language, of my words and of my nudity? (387, emphasis in original)

Here Derrida highlights the issue of distinguishing between “manifestations” and “words” in order to illuminate how humans need to be aware of their ideological investments when defining

“language” and using it as a boundary between humans and other animals. However, Derrida also resists simply attributing language to animals as a solution to this tradition of averring human hegemony through language. Instead, he asks that we “acced[e] to a thinking, however fabulous and chimerical it might be, that thinks the absence of the name and of the word otherwise, as something other than a privation” (416). That is, because we humans sign, speak, and write, we attribute an importance to “language” that may be self-aggrandizing and hegemonic. Instead,

Derrida suggests that we humans recognize the “manifestations” of various animals without logocentrically giving them “words which [they] have no need of.” With this qualification in mind, this chapter follows Derrida’s interest in the relationship between language and species.

How do beliefs about humanity and animality intersect with beliefs about language? I will also ask a second question that Derrida does not address: How did that intersection, as it existed in the

Victorian period, inform and influence the nineteenth-century sign language debates?

Signed Languages as Threats to Human Hegemony

The perceived position of signed languages in the interstices between human speech and animal corporeal communication played an important role in both the philological element of the 104 evolutionary debates and the sign language debates. In Language, Science and Popular Fiction in

the Victorian Fin-de-Siécle (2006), Christine Ferguson explores Victorian cultural anxieties

around language as a defining mark of humanity. She argues that there was “a prevalent Victorian

crisis about the meaning, value and future of language as a human species characteristic, one that

escalated in the final decades of the nineteenth century to emerge in a wide range of disciplines

and cultural arenas” (1). Ferguson explains that as part of the theorization of evolution,

“biologists and anthropologists such as Darwin and Lubbock discussed the boundaries of

language itself, speculating on its origins and the kinds of activities (gesture, grunting,

monosyllabic utterance) and users (animals, savages, deaf-mutes) it might include” (21). As

various critics and historians including Ferguson, Jonathan Rée, and Jan Branson and Don Miller

have noted, the study of human languages – their qualities, origins, development, and limits –

became a topic of public dissemination and interest as the nineteenth century progressed.

Evidence of this “unprecedented popularization of linguistic discourse” (Ferguson 3) can be

located in developments including the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, philological

debates occurring in periodicals aimed at general audiences (Ferguson 3), and, I would like to

suggest, the public interest in the sign language debates.

As philology and language origins became topics of public interest and consumption, so

too did the sign language debates. Signing deaf people have historically been a site of

experimentation and negotiation for theories of language and their status as test cases was even

more significant in the Victorian period where public awareness of signed languages and deaf

communities was greater than ever before. Letters to the editor between well-known deaf figures

who sparred on the issue of Oralism were printed in mass-circulating newspapers.58 The Times

58 In 1882 The Times printed an exchange of Letters to the Editor between two prominent deaf men, Francis Maginn and Abraham Farrar. Maginn, who argued on the side of sign language, wrote, “it is 105 sent a reporter to the 1880 Milan Congress of Educators of the Deaf where Oralism was pronounced the superior method of deaf communication and education. In fact, as Rée notes, The

Times supported the Oralist system in its pages and portrayed it as an inheritance from early

British educators of deaf children who also used speech training (Rée 226).

One of the most famous incarnations of the emerging public interest in philological concerns – as well as the role of deaf language use in these concerns – was the popular success of

F. Max Müller, and the public interest in his debate with William Dwight Whitney. This debate centered on the relationship between speech, reason and the human body.59 Müller, Victorian

England’s most famous and celebrated philologist, was an opponent of Darwinian evolution.60 He gave a series of well-attended public lectures at the Royal Institution in 1861, and then again in

1863, in which he attempted to use philological evidence to disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. Later published as Lectures on the Science of Language, these talks were attended by leading figures in Victorian science and culture including Alfred Tennyson

utterly impossible for the congenital mutes to receive a sound and thorough education on the oral method when the use of the finger and the sign language is prohibited and suppressed.” In reply, Abraham Farrar, a deaf man trained in Oralism and exhibited by Thomas Arnold, wrote, “we must get rid of the ignis fatuus of the whole controversy – the naturalness of signs for the deaf. They are acquired, and are only natural in the sense of being a habit. Spoken language also becomes a habit when acquired in childhood, and it is, moreover, more consonant with nature, and no one would say that it is not infinitely more advantageous.” Maginn replied again to Farrar in the June 6 issue of The Times. 59 For a more detailed account of these debates see Radick (who focuses on Müller) and Alter (who focuses on Whitney). 60 For more on Müller’s career and theories see Dowling’s interesting article “Victorian Oxford and the Science of Language.” I am concerned, however, about the phonocentrism of Dowling’s conclusion, which seems to echo Müller’s own phonocentrism. She writes, If we find it difficult to share the Victorian excitement over these lectures, that is perhaps because we now decipher the frozen or mummified form of the written lectures instead of experiencing them aurally, as Müller’s vast audiences did. For literature was recovered as speech in Müller’s original lectures, living as it was spoken, linking his Victorian listeners in an invisible, imperishable chain – aere perennius – to the first man in his primitive and perfect state. While Max Müller spoke, and while his audiences listened, the science of language became the physical science of man’s immortal breath.” (175) I find it strange that Dowling seems to partly attribute the lack of scholarly interest in Müller’s work to the fact that it is not accompanied by his oral delivery. Clearly Müller believed that speech was the legitimate

106 and John Stuart Mill. After the first round of these popular sessions, Queen Victoria even invited

Müller to lecture for her privately (Ferguson 73).

In his lectures, we see Müller’s investment in the supposed immateriality of speech and

therefore its suitability for distinguishing humans from other animals. During the ninth lecture of

his 1861 series, Müller famously pronounced,

the one great barrier between the brute and man is Language. Man speaks, and no brute has

ever uttered a word. Language is our Rubicon, and no brute will dare to cross it. This is our

matter of fact to those who speak of development, who think they discover the rudiments at

least of all human faculties in apes, and who would fain keep open the possibility that man

is only a more favored beast, the triumphant conqueror in the primeval struggle for life.

Language is something more palpable than a fold of the brain, or an angle of the skull. It

admits of no caviling, and no process of natural selection will ever distill significant words

out of the notes of birds or the cries of beasts. (356-7)

This passage is striking for reasons beyond Müller’s bombastic rhetoric – a quality of his writing

that his detractors were always certain to remark upon.61 The most important insight it affords

into Müller’s theory of language appears in the first two sentences where he elides the word

“language” with “speech.” For Müller, language is speech, and furthermore, speech is a

form of language and that writing was an ossification of living, breathing orality, but it appears here that Dowling affirms Müller’s phonocentric approach to language as well. 61 For example, Müller’s longtime adversary, William Dwight Whitney wrote in “Darwinism and Language,”: “[i]t is never entirely easy to reduce to a skeleton of logical statement a discussion as carried on by Müller, because he is careless of logical sequence and connection, preferring to pour himself out, as it were, over his subject, in a gush of genial assertion and interesting illustration” (63). Ferguson suggests that this riposte to Müller was typical: “[w]hat seems to have outraged Müller’s peers more than the sheer audacity of his ideas were the political and social implications of the dramatic prose style that had rendered his work so popular to mass audiences” (29). Dowling makes a similar argument in “Victorian Oxford and the Science of Language.” Dowling suggests that Müller “obtained his great popular success – and at the same time his professional failure – by being quite unscientific about language” (160). In referring to his own work, Müller humorously wrote, “I am the son of a poet, and I have tried very hard all my life not to

107 necessary corollary to thought.62 Müller’s infamous pronouncement, “without speech, no reason, without reason, no speech” (Lectures 1863 69), links rational thought explicitly to speech and thereby denies it to all animals and to humans who do not speak. For Müller, the very fact that humans can speak was evidence that Darwinian evolution and its assertion of the common ancestry of humans and animals was incorrect. Speech, for Müller, was a reflection of a God- given and uniquely human ability. While many had argued for reason or speech as the mark of the human, Müller bound them inextricably.

Furthermore, Müller argues that “significant words” – meaning human speech – will never evolve from animal calls, without acknowledging that animals may be communicating on their own terms. Müllerian philology is a clear example of how definitions of language have been used to shore up human rule over other animals. As Derrida notes, this form of logocentrism seeks to deny the capacities of animals by applying a phonocentric framework to definitions of language and communication. This approach, which links speech to power, disenfranchises deaf people and animals in a similar fashion. A phonocentric culture perceives those who do not speak – whether human or non-human animals – as inferior to speaking humans. In this sense, Deaf Studies and

Animal Studies could be allied in their desire to challenge phonocentrism and its establishment of hierarchies based on speech.

Ferguson reads the contradictions of this passage as signaling Müller’s anxiety about whether or not speech can legitimately be considered a distinctive human quality (1). She notes that Müller’s invocation of the Rubicon suggests the “inevitability” of the crossing of the river

be a poet myself…. In my own very prosaic work I have had to suffer all my life from suppressed poetry as one suffers from suppressed gout” (quoted in Dowling 175). 62 Gregory Radick explains Müller’s philological theory as follows: According to Müller, human words are composed of irreducible roots, all of which express concepts. Because, he went on, concepts are constitutive of reason, and there is no evidence for animal reason, nor any possibility that concepts might have arisen gradually out of the sense

108 rather than its “impossibility” (1). Furthermore, she highlights Müller’s strange use of the word

“dare” when he argues that “no brute will dare to cross” this Rubicon of speech which suggests animals may be capable of doing so if only they chose (1). For Ferguson, Müller’s contradictions reflect an underlying Victorian distrust in the legitimacy of speech as a unique human attribute, even among those most stridently defending the barrier of language.

More importantly, this passage also demonstrates Müller’s desire to transfer the defining qualities of humanity from the body towards something metaphysical or supernatural. Referring to the debates around the hippocampus minor, Müller refutes the idea that a “fold of the brain” could ever be a significant enough reflection of the great gulf of language that separates humans from “brutes.” Instead Müller argues for the immateriality of the human faculty of language as though it exists outside of the purview of corporeality. However, once again, his rhetoric simultaneously produces ambivalence around this idea. Müller aims to disassociate language from the materiality of the physical body and yet he also argues that it is something “more palpable than a fold of the brain.” The OED defines “palpable” as “that which may be touched, felt, or handled.” At its root, palpability refers to the tangibility of materiality. Where exactly does Müller locate this palpability of language? How can he simultaneously construct it as more palpable than the brain and skull and yet also more immaterial? In disconnecting language from the body, Müller’s goal is to align language with a rarer supernatural origin. Müller thereby characterizes speech as a uniquely human power that could not be a product of evolution.

However, his ambivalent rhetoric, which simultaneously seeks palpability and immateriality, reveals that, despite his insistence to the contrary, he does “feel somewhat uneasy at having the gorilla so close on our heels” (Lectures 1861 340).

impressions filling animal minds, the concept-expressing roots must have come into being in full conceptual flower among the first humans. (4) 109 Darwin, on the other hand, asserted that his theory of evolution fully accounted for human language. While he did not confront language specifically in On The Origin of Species,

Darwin did address the objections of anti-evolutionary philologists in The Descent of Man (1871).

Like other supporters of evolutionary theory including Huxley,63 Darwin did not disagree with

Müller’s assessment that language was a human quality, but he did refute Müller’s position on the origins of human language. In The Descent of Man, Darwin explains that after reading theorists from both sides of the language origin debates, including “the celebrated lectures of Prof. Max

Müller,”64 he “cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries, aided by signs and gestures” (109). Language fitted neatly into Darwin’s theory of evolution, natural selection and sexual selection; it evolved from instinctive and imitative utterances to a language system of more complexity. For Darwin, “there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties” (86). He argues, “Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be admitted that Reason stands at the summit. Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning” (96).

63 In Evidence As To Man’s Place in Nature (1863), Huxley argues that after evolutionary theory is finally accepted, “[o]ur reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that Man is, in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; for he alone possesses the marvelous endowment of intelligible and rational speech” (132). Huxley is careful, though, not to eliminate other animals from the potential possession of speech when he writes that, like Georges Cuvier, he believes “that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not)” (120). The idea that speech can be the distinctive marker of humanity while potentially not being a quality that only humanity possesses does seem somewhat contradictory. Huxley seems to defend his position of human superiority through speech because he believes speech allowed us to build a body of collective knowledge and culture by “slowly accumulat[ing] and organis[ing] the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of every individual life in other animals” (132). 64 Darwin wrote a cordial letter to Müller directly to outline his position on the origins of language: As far as language is concerned I am not worthy to be your adversary, as I know extremely little about it, and that little learnt from very few books. I should have been glad to have avoided the whole subject, but was compelled to take it up as well as I could. He who is fully convinced, as I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from inarticulate cries and he is therefore hardly a fair judge of the arguments opposed to the belief. (Darwin, Letter to F. Max Müller, 3 July 1873) 110 However, Müller was one of those few who disputed the possession of reason by animals.

While Müller was careful to distinguish reason from “mental activity” in general when talking about animals and about deaf people, he asserted that reason was inextricably tied to articulate speech: “language is the outward sign and realisation of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of abstraction, but which is better known to us by the homely name of reason” (Lectures

1861 342). Müller neither denies that animals communicate (340-1), nor that they have some mental activity. However, he does insist that their lack of articulate speech precludes reason. For

Darwin, like Müller, “the habitual use of articulate language is… peculiar to man” though

Darwin does give multiple examples of other animals using language (106-7, emphasis mine).

However, overall, when it comes to language, Darwin argues, “the lower animals differ from man solely in his almost infinitely larger power of associating together the most diversified sounds and ideas, and this obviously depends on the high development of his mental powers” (108). Darwin believed that the difference in the linguistic abilities of humans and animals was a difference of degree rather than kind.

Because Darwin, as he remarked in a letter to Müller, “[knew] extremely little about

[language]…but was compelled to take it up as well as [he] could” (Darwin, Letter), he relies on other philologists to support his evolutionary position on language origins. His most notable ally was the American philologist, and long-time adversary of Müller, William Dwight Whitney. In his book on Whitney, Alter explains, “Whitney and Charles Darwin themselves entered into a trans-Atlantic partnership. Whitney defended Darwin against attacks from Max Müller, and

Darwin cited works by Whitney in the revised (1874) edition of his Descent of Man” (5).

Whitney was already engaged in a long and public debate with Müller about language origins and evolutionary theory over the course of the 1860s and 1870s. In defense of Darwin’s theory of

111 evolution, Whitney pointed to various paradoxes inherent in Müller’s strange alignment of speech and reason and insisted that questions about evolution were better left to biologists than philologists (88). While Whitney did not dispute that language was “a true barrier” between animals and humans, (83) he suggested that it was only one of many differences between humans and other animals. He points to the instability of using speech as the argument disproving evolution as speech was, for Whitney, one of the least remarkable evolutionary developments in comparison to other qualities including, for example, mobility (66). Overall, Whitney, like

Darwin, sees the difference “between man and ape as…a mere difference of degree” (65). Most importantly, Whitney was extremely critical of Müller’s conflation both of speech and reason and speech and language – conflations that led to what Whitney considered ridiculous paradoxes in

Müller’s logic.

As a central focus of this public philological debate, both Müller and Whitney mobilized the example of signing deaf people as evidence. The importance of deaf people’s language use in these famous debates has not previously been addressed despite the fact that the philologists used deaf people as limit cases to their arguments. In his 1863 lectures at the Royal Institution, Müller argued that deaf people, lacking speech, generally lacked reason as well:

to a certain extent all the deaf and dumb people that live in the society of other men catch

something of the rational behaviour of their neighbours…. But this is no objection to our

general argument. The deaf and dumb are taught by those who possess both these general

ideas and their phonetic embodiments, elaborated by successive generations of rational

men. They are taught to think the thoughts of others, and if they cannot pronounce their

words, they lay hold of these thoughts by other signs…. These signs, however, are not the

signs of things or their conceptions as words are: they are the signs of signs. (74-5).

Müller could not comfortably fit deaf signers into his theories of human language. While Müller

112 aligned speech with reason and with humanity itself, he could not easily argue that deaf people were inhuman. He therefore simply denied them rational thought. Müller also denied the linguistic capacities of signed languages by constructing them as simply signs of spoken languages rather than languages in themselves. The resulting image is a deaf person mimicking the words of others and approaching reason only through borrowing the thoughts of people who speak. Unlike Whitney, who foregrounded the conventional relationship between the signifier and signified, Müller’s theory was buttressed by the notion that spoken words are inherently imbued with the concept they denote.

Whitney used the example of deaf people to deal the primary blow to Müller’s entire theory of language. Where Müller saw deaf people as markers of absence, Whitney used the reality of their presence to topple the foundations of Müller’s scholarship. Whitney suggested that

Müller’s conflation of speech and reason led to some of his “‘worst paradoxes,’” namely “‘that deaf-mutes do not become possessed of reason until they learn to twist their fingers into imitation of spoken words’” (quoted in Darwin, Descent 111). Darwin reproduced Whitney’s riposte to

Müller in his 1874 edition of The Descent of Man to contest Müller’s “insist[ence] that the use of language implies the power of forming general concepts; and that as no animals are supposed to possess this power, an impossible barrier is formed between them and man” (111). Whitney and

Darwin were responding not only to Müller’s edict about speech and reason in general but also his explicit and ignorant treatment of the intellectual capabilities of deaf people. Whitney writes,

“Müller has repeatedly maintained that the [deaf-mute] does not posses reason, and I have always thought it a complete reductio ad absurdum of his theory of language and reason; nothing can be right which conducts us to such a paradox as that” (76). Like the paradox I explored in chapter one of the belief that deaf people could not write poetry while they clearly did produce poetry,

Müller’s paradoxical theory of language that bound speech to reason had to ignore the actual

113 capacities of deaf people.

Furthermore, each philologist’s arguments revolved around how closely speech was linked to the corporeal. Whitney explicitly dissociates speech from language by arguing that speech is no different than others forms of communication in expressing thought. According to Whitney, “a conception, a judgment, a volition, a fancy, is an act of the mind, while a word is an act of the body just as much as is a gesture, or a grimace” (78). In opposition to Müller’s attempts to decouple the physical body and speech, Whitney insists on the embodied nature of speech.

Whitney points to the grand misunderstanding of language that is the topic of this dissertation – the belief that signed languages are more corporeal than speech – when, in fact, as Whitney notes, speech and sign are both “act[s] of the body.” By highlighting the simple truth that speech and gesture are equally modes of physical expression, Whitney deflates Müller’s grand rhetoric and his lofty romanticization of the supernatural qualities of speech.

Like Whitney, Darwin de-romanticizes speech and de-legitimizes its connection to thought in The Descent of Man. Darwin explains that the widespread use of speech in human communication can be explained according to evolutionary theory: “We might have used our fingers as efficient instruments, for a person with practice can report to a deaf man every word of a speech rapidly delivered at a public meeting; but the loss of our hands, whilst thus employed, would have been a serious inconvenience” (112). Darwin uncovers the fact that there is no necessary relationship between speech and thought and refuses to denigrate signed languages as somehow inferior to speech. For Darwin, it was convenience, rather than the innate qualities of the two modes of language, which led to speech becoming the predominant form of human communication.

Deaf people and educators of deaf children understood the important role that sign language played in these debates over the definition of language. For instance, in 1874, Warring

114 Wilkinson, the principal of the California Institution for deaf children, spoke to a gathering of

University of California students. According to a report published in San Francisco’s Evening

Bulletin, and republished for deaf audiences in the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb,

Wilkinson also used the examples of deaf signers to disprove Müller’s conception of language.

Like Whitney, Wilkinson argued:

The deaf-mute is a standing protest against Max Müller’s theory of primitive speech.

That generally ingenious philologist suggests that man had a creative faculty which gave

to each conception, as it thrilled through his brain for the first time, a phonetic

expression, and that this faculty became extinct when its necessity ceased. But the deaf-

mute thinks, and his thoughts do not thrill in phonetic expression (“Mr. Wilkinson on the

Sign-Language” 133)

Reports of speeches like Wilkinson’s, along with articles about philology, and letters to the editor about philological issues, appear frequently in deaf periodicals of the nineteenth century. The writers and readers of these periodicals recognized that the debates around human language and the origins of language affected their daily lives, partly because of how Oralists, as I will demonstrate below, mobilized philological arguments about the superiority of speech.

In their responses to Müller and to the strain of linguistic thought he represented, both

Darwin and Whitney dispute Müller’s attempts to move speech from the province of the body towards immaterialism and supernaturalism. They both underscore how speech, no less than signed languages, gestures and grimaces, is a mode of material bodily communication. For both

Darwin and Whitney, signed languages and speech have equal linguistic capabilities. Signs are simply less “convenient” in their use of the hands as opposed to the mouth for communication

(Darwin, Descent 112, Whitney 85). This legitimizing of the linguistic validity of signed languages was certainly progressive in these two thinkers who were facing a philological

115 establishment that, as we have seen in other chapters, denigrated signed languages as inferior forms of communication.

He talked through dose fingers”: Signed Languages as Dangerous Intermediaries between

Humans and Animals

In attributing both signed languages and speech to bodily manifestations of communication, Whitney and Darwin were exacerbating anxieties felt by anti-evolutionary philologists like Müller about the body and its potential to link the human and the animal. In

Damned for their Difference, Jan Branson and Don Miller argue that “the particular disabling effects of being labeled as a “Deaf Mute” were influenced… by Cartesian theories of the duality of mind and body that were linked to the binary opposition of the human and the animal” (25).

This ideological link between humanity and the mind and animality and the body has a long history. But, in the throes of evolutionary debates, Victorian anti-evolutionists who wished to maintain these dichotomies attempted to elevate speech to the human/mind side of the dichotomous system rather than the animal/body side. This explains Müller’s insistence that language did not derive from material facts of human physiology including brain folds and skull angles. For Müller, the materiality of the body – and the communication he saw linked to it, namely signed languages – seemed to be a shared possession with animals, but the human mind and its reflection in speech needed to be a uniquely human trait. Sign languages, then, in their perceived physicality and materiality, threatened the intellectual and linguistic superiority of humans for those, like Müller, who insisted on human hegemony and uniqueness.

Müller was certainly not alone in understanding signed languages as a troubling linguistic form linked more fully to the animal body than to the human mind. There was a pervasive nineteenth-century cultural construction of signers as apes and apes as signers. Like the

116 mobilization of the example of deaf people in the Müller-Whitney philological debates, this construction of signer as ape was another way that evolutionary debates and sign language debates coincided, conflicted, and were used to reinforce each other. In exploring the representations of the ape as signer and the signer as ape that appeared in the years following the publication of On the Origin of Species, we can locate specifically Victorian anxieties about the animal-human boundary.

Rudyard Kipling’s horrifying story “Bertran and Bimi” published in 1891 in Life’s

Handicap provides a salient example of the threatening destabilization of the species binary presented by signed languages. As demonstrated in other of his works, including The Jungle

Book, Kipling was interested in the interactions between animals and humans as well as the role of language in those interactions. In “Bertran and Bimi,” the German narrator – Hans Breitmann

– tells the tale of a man named Bertran who treats his Orangutan Bimi as though Bimi “was child und brother und opera comique all round to Bertran” (261). Bimi sleeps in a bed, smokes cigars and walks hand in hand with Bertran. Even more “horrible” for Hans is the fact that Bimi can use and understand language. “He was not a beast;” explains Hans, “he was a man, und he talked to

Bertran, und Bertran comprehend” (262). How Bimi “talks” to Bertran is not revealed until later in the story when Bimi, angry at Hans, grabs Hans by the back of the neck: “’Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of Bimi. Mein Got! I tell you dot he talked through dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all gomplete” (262) Bimi threatens Hans’s life through the deaf and dumb alphabet and then he looks into Hans’s face “shust to see if I understood his talk so well as he understood mine” (263). The perception that sign is a language tied to corporeality is underscored in this moment where Bimi literally signs on Hans’s body and Hans experiences this communication through the touch of his body to the ape’s.

117 Hans is critical of the way Bertran treats Bimi as an equal and the story vindicates Hans’s assessment of the dangers of erasing the boundary between the human and the ape. When

Bertran marries, Bimi is so jealous of Bertran’s new wife that he tears her apart with the same hands that earlier threatened Hans’s life. Bertran and Bimi then fight each other and they both die in the process. In her reading of this gruesome story, Ferguson has suggested that

“communication with humans has fatally imbued the creature with ‘too much ego in his Cosmos’

(240) causing it to see itself as a human and resent its displacement by an interloper” (118). In fact, the very possibility of a jealous primate is affirmed in Darwin’s The Descent of Man. In arguing for the emotional and rational capabilities of animals, Darwin notes: “Most of the more complex emotions are common to the higher animals and ourselves. Every one has seen how jealous a dog is of his master’s affection, if lavished on any other creature; and I have observed the same fact with monkeys. This shews that animals not only love, but have desire to be loved”

(92). Darwin provides these examples of complex animal emotion as evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other animals. Kipling’s use of a jealous primate may not only signal that

Bimi himself considers himself an equal to his human Bertran but may also highlight Bimi’s shared evolutionary origins with Bertran.

In this tale, sign language is constructed as a mode of animal communication, and in fact, is referred to as “talking” by the narrator who thereby effaces the difference between sign and human speech. Furthermore, sign language is constructed as communication that can link the animal to the human allowing them each to “talk” to the other. When Bimi threatens Hans’s life in sign, the fact that this ape can use sign language seems to be as troubling to Hans as the murderous message that the ape transmits. In this story, a signing animal is a threatening animal.

Beyond Bimi, the story is filled with animals who talk from “chattering” and “yelling” apes to cows who low “in exactly the same key” as human speech (259-60). Not only is the sonic

118 register of the text filled with communicating animals, but humans can also communicate in the language of animals. Hans, for example, can imitate “a snake’s hiss, so perfect[ly]” that his interlocutor jumps up in fear and the orang-outang in the nearby cage “quak[es] in an ecstasy of pure terror” (260). In eliding the modes of human and animal communication, Kipling underscores the vulnerability of language as a fortification for human hegemony.

Beyond questioning the viability of language as a mark of human uniqueness, Kipling’s story also highlights the unstable position of the ape in species hierarchies. While Hans declares that Bimi is not “a beast” but a man, he also attends to the interstitial space this signing ape occupies when he states that Bimi had “half of a human soul in his belly” (263). Earlier in the text, in describing another ape in a cage as “yelling like a soul in purgatory” (260), Kipling invokes the transitionality of the halfway place of purgatory. Purgatory is also a residence of the soul, which is an attribute, like speech, that has historically been used to distinguish humans from animals. By aligning a vocalizing ape with a soul in purgatory, Kipling dismisses the two major markers of human uniqueness. Hans says that monkeys and apes “half der imperfect soul, which is midway arrested in development – und too much ego (261)” The ape, in this story, is constructed as something halfway between a beast and a man, stuck in a purgatory where he has access to human language but not to human status. The example of Kipling’s ape reinforces the

Donna Harraway’s argument in Primate Visions that “monkeys and apes have a privileged relation to nature and culture for western people: simians occupy the border zones between those potent mythic poles” (1). The in-between position of the ape who is neither all nature nor all culture, all speech nor all silence, all beast nor all human is the perfect vehicle for examining the human/animal boundary and the role of language in maintaining its integrity.

The existence of this ape in the interstices of human and animal disrupts the binary itself

– and it is this that seems to be so troubling to Hans. Hans declares that orangutans have “too

119 much ego in [their] Cosmos” (261) and that Bimi’s downfall is that he “thought he was a man”

(261) because he was permitted to live and use language like a human being. This recognition of the potential equality of apes and humans may be Hans’s downfall as well. After all, Hans tells the story of Bertran and Bimi to another man as they are on a ship transporting a caged orangutan to be exhibited in England. Hans, a trapper of animals to be sold to dealers, is firmly invested in his right as a human to exploit animals for his own gain. This world where animals sound like humans, humans sound like animals, and they can both communicate freely across the species boundary seems to threaten Hans’s belief in his right to dominion over animals. In “Bertran and

Bimi” human existence is threatened, quite literally, by a signing ape. In addition to overtly affirming evolutionary thought through suggesting that apes are half-developed humans,

Kipling’s story highlights the anxieties evoked by the recognition of the permeability of the boundary between human and non-human animals.

The permeability of the species boundary that Kipling illuminates, and the anxieties which it exacerbated about “man’s place in nature,” affected deaf people intimately in the final four decades of the nineteenth century. Various historians and critics have addressed this rhetoric that constructs deaf people as, in Lennard Davis’s words, “more animal, less human, than the norm” (82). Davis, Bauman, Baynton, Rée, Harlan Lane, and Branson and Miller65 have all noted this construction and have likened it to the construction of other marginalized groups including

Africans, Indigenous Americans, women, and poor people as somehow closer to animality than to the humanity supposedly embodied by white men. Bauman and Baynton have both argued that

“the metaphorics of deaf-as-animal became especially widespread in the aftermath of Darwin’s theory of evolution” (Bauman 243). This metaphor worked partly by linking speech to humanity

120 and thereby constructing signed languages as animal languages. This construction of deaf people

as somehow bridging the gap between humans and animals did pre-exist Darwinian theories of

evolution, but in the post-Darwin period, this intermediary position was more threatening to

theories of human hegemony, especially if human superiority was buttressed by the faculty of

speech.

Because of this construction of speech as a human language and sign as an animal

language, Baynton notes that the growth of evolutionary thought in nineteenth-century America

was a key contributing factor to the growth of Oralism through the century. In Forbidden Signs,

Baynton contrasts the beliefs of educators of deaf children in the pre- and post-evolutionary

periods in order to demonstrate that the idea that gesture may have preceded speech in human

development had a different cultural resonance after 1859:

To the manualist generation, "original language" meant "closer to the Creation." It would

hold quite different connotations for post-Darwin oralists, for whom it meant, instead,

closer to the apes. Humanity had risen rather than fallen, according to the theory of

evolution, and was the end product of history rather than its beginning. In an evolutionary

age, language was no longer an attribute inherent in the human soul, one of an indivisible

cluster of abilities that included reason, imagination, and the conscience, conferred by God

at the Creation. It was, instead, a distinct ability achieved through a process of evolution

from animal ancestors. (40)

I have reservations about Baynton’s alignment of Manualist and Oralist positions to the pre- and

post- Darwinian periods. If Darwinism was neatly aligned with Oralism, then how can we

explain those Oralists who were stridently against speech before Darwin’s theory of evolution?

65 These ideas seem to inform all of these texts but in particular see Davis 73-99, Bauman’s entire article, Baynton 36-55, Rée 271-308, most of Lane’s When the Mind Hears, and the introduction to Branson and 121 Furthermore, Baynton’s theory does not account for those Oralist-supporters, like Max Müller,

who did not believe in evolution and denigrated sign nonetheless. The same questions remain for

Manualist supporters who continued to defend deaf people’s right to signed languages in the post-

Darwin period. I do not at all dispute Baynton’s point that evolutionary theory and its related

offshoots including eugenics and linguistic Darwinism were essential elements of the sign

language debates and strongly influenced the cultural resonances of rhetoric like “natural,”

“universal,” or “original” language. In fact, my own arguments in this chapter and elsewhere are

strongly indebted to Baynton’s arguments and as well as his thoroughly researched book. I hope

that my arguments affirm the same point about the importance of evolutionary theory to the sign

language debates. My concern, however, is with the straightforward temporal alignment of

Manualism with the pre-Darwin period and Oralism with the post-Darwin period. I want to

emphasize that there were Oralists on both sides of the evolutionary divide – that is, both

supporters and opponents of evolutionary theory – because both sides looked to speech as the

mark of the human. Those opposed to evolutionary thought like Müller, and the Oralists he

influenced, constructed speech as the rightful language of humans and evidence for creationism.

As will become clear, those who accepted Darwin’s theory also borrowed the structural logic of

evolution for philological inquiry.

As Baynton, Rée, and Ferguson demonstrate, the theory of evolution contributed to a new

body of philological study known as Linguistic Darwinism. Linguistic Darwinists theorized that

language also undergoes processes of natural selection and evolution. These Linguistic

Darwinists, who constructed speech as the pinnacle of human language, were no less interested

than anti-Darwinists in elevating speech to demarcate the animal-human boundary. Linguistic

Darwinism was also aligned with Social Darwinism. As Ferguson notes, “social Darwinism

Miller. 122 encouraged the easy equation of the savage man with the primeval man” (35) and the same was

true for “savage” languages.66 The Linguistic Darwinist construction of linguistic progress meant that certain languages, especially those belonging to “primitive” peoples including Africans or indigenous North Americans, were simply at an earlier stage of their evolutionary development and were therefore closer to our animal heritage (Baynton 40). Many of these proponents of linguistic Darwinism even proposed that somewhere between the inarticulate cries that Darwin mentions, and the evolved languages of white people in the West, gesture languages were used

(Ferguson 37).

This belief was held by the most famous linguistic Darwinist, Edward Burnet Tylor, a professor of anthropology at Oxford who wished to trace the history and development of primitive cultures and languages. He wanted to study the earliest vestiges of human culture through studying contemporary “primitives,” namely indigenous Americans (Rée 283). Tylor believed that language evolved from gesture to speech to writing. For Tylor, abstraction in language and physical gesture were inversely related and therefore “the first form of language was a universal gestural one, still used by savages, children and the deaf and dumb” (Ferguson

37). Ferguson suggests that Tylor’s argument is that “language, if yet incapable of totally divorcing itself from physical support, becomes grander, more dignified and more complex as it becomes less dependent on the body” (38). Tylor was not alone in this understanding of language and in fact was a leader in the field of linguistic Darwinism. According to Ferguson, in the linguistic Darwinist understanding of language:

66 In his resistance to social and linguistic Darwinism, Müller was more progressive than many pro-Darwin philologists. As Ferguson notes, “Müller was particularly aggrieved by the contemporary anthropological descriptions of both savage people and savage languages as petrified relics from an earlier and less intellectually advanced phase of human evolution” (33). Ferguson makes the important point that Müller’s investment in the human-animal binary was not tied to racism, and that, in fact, “Müller’s Christian-based philology used speciesism to combat racism” (33). This belief is in opposition to Darwin, for example,

123 [p]rimitive languages were said to combine the gestural and the concrete…Civilized

intellects, by contrast trafficked in abstract concepts of universal laws, religion, and

morality, and thus required a more complex and immaterial linguistic currency – verbal and

written words, signs that represented what the body could not. (39)

This ideology ignores the fact that the body can produce signs that are complex through a visual-

spatial language. It also effaces speech’s own relationship to the body. While the field of

philology as a whole was slowly transitioning towards the concept of Saussurian signification, as

demonstrated by Whitney, Linguistic Darwinists held to the audiovisual litany and granted speech

special status in its perceived immateriality.

Once again deaf people became test cases for linguistic theories in the post-Darwin period.

Because Tylor was unable to undertake research in North and South America, he decided to study

British deaf children in order to learn more about the gestural language systems of early human

history (Rée 284). For Tylor, the rudiments of spoken language could be found in the gestures of

deaf people. Tylor gave up this research quickly because he believed that deaf people’s language

use had been tainted through their communication with hearing teachers and their literacy in

English. Like Müller, who suggested that deaf people could “catch something of the rational

behavior of their neighbors” through being “taught to think the thoughts of others” (Lectures

1863 74-5), Tylor sees deaf people and the language they use as contaminated through their

second language of English and the society they live in. The purity he seeks in his conception of

sign as a proto-language is irretrievable, not least because it does not exist. In search of

primitivism, Tylor finds only a complex language used by sophisticated thinkers and

communicators. Despite Tylor’s difficulties in aligning the language use of deaf British children

whose writing and rhetoric seem to be far more racist than speciesist. See Ferguson 33-34 for more on the relationship between speciesism and racism in Victorian philology. 124 to his belief in the primitivism of indigenous American language, he maintained his linguistic

Darwinist ideology. This strange alignment of apes or pre-humans, indigenous peoples, and deaf

children was one that relied upon Linguistic Darwinist principles that constructed a hierarchy of

language forms beginning with primitive signs and crowning with writing and Western literacy.

Oralist educators of deaf children paradoxically mobilized both the anti-Darwinist

philosophy of Müller and the linguistic Darwinist framework of Tylor simultaneously, because

both approaches elevated speech. Many Oralists, including Thomas Arnold, Britain’s most

successful Oralist educator, cited Müller’s exhortations on the humanizing qualities of speech in

their work and borrowed his elevated rhetoric. Arnold, for example, quoted Müller often and

used his ideas about the relationship between speech and thought and their qualities of

immateriality. In a teacher’s manual about deaf education, Arnold wrote that the human voice

“has certainly more than a chance relation to thought, Its use of air and sound, the former

necessary to life and the latter the least material of qualities, is finely adapted to the swift and

changeful nature of thought” (Exposition, 11-12). Arnold, who worked for decades with deaf children, never explicitly argued that they were incapable of reason altogether as Müller did.

However, he did assert that speech was better suited to the expression of abstract thought.

Abstraction in thought, we should note, is Müller’s definition of reason so Arnold may not be deviating far from Müller’s conception of the limited capabilities of deaf signers. Arnold argues that signs “have failed to become a sufficient instrument of thought” because they cannot

“express abstractions, purely mental states, operations, and intuitions. As none of these can be reduced to a material form, it is impossible to figure them by signs” (Exposition 5-6).

On the other hand, Arnold also employed Linguistic Darwinist discourse as part of his strategy of eradicating signed languages. For example, Arnold believed that as languages evolve,

“the pantomimic fade[s] away” (Manual 135). In addition, Arnold argued, “to return to signs

125 would be to withhold from the learner all that culture has done for our artificial language, and make him think like a savage” (Manual 135). For Arnold, savage thinking is rooted in the primitivism of corporeal communication, which eventually evolved into the superior immateriality of human speech.

Arnold was not alone in mobilizing linguistic Darwinism to justify the Oralist program.

As Baynton argues, for Oralists and much of nineteenth-century culture, “to be human was to speak. To sign was to step downward in the scale of being” (55). Baynton points to Susanna

Hull, a prominent British Oralist who trained Alexander Graham Bell, who argues that sign language reverts deaf people “’in the world's history to the infancy of our race’… Since it was the language of ‘American Indians and other savage tribes,’ she asked, ‘shall sons and daughters of this nineteenth century be content with this?”’ (quoted in Baynton 43). Baynton demonstrates that this rhetoric of linguistic Darwinism was extraordinarily widespread in America in the last decades of the nineteenth-century:

The theory that speech supplanted sign language in an evolutionary competition was so

common that the oralist Emma Garrett could make an elliptical reference to it as early as

1883 and assume her readers would understand the allusion: “If speech is better for hearing

people than barbaric signs,” she wrote, “it is better for the deaf; being the ‘fittest, it has

survived.” (Baynton 43)

Oralists who mobilized this construction of speech as more fully evolved than signed languages borrowed directly from Darwinian constructs like natural selection and the “survival of the fittest” in order to justify their Oralist goals.

For this reason, one of the most common Oralist complaints about signed languages in the post-Darwin period was that they were a form of communication akin to an animal language.

Baynton provides multiple examples of this rhetoric of the signer as animal. For example, Lewis

126 Dudley, a founder of the major Oralist school in the United States, declared that deaf children who sign are “’human in shape, but only half human in attributes’” (quoted in Baynton 52). To support his Oralist program, Dudley, who worked with deaf people and therefore had daily proof that they reasoned despite Müller’s claims to the contrary, looked elsewhere to locate the dividing line between humans and other animals. Decoupling speech from reason, he argued, “the faculty of speech more than the faculty of reason puts mankind at a distance from the lower animals’”

(quoted in Baynton 53). Like Bimi who was halfway to being human through using sign language, deaf children are halfway regressing to the level of the beast if they do not speak. The signing animal and the signing human are somehow both “human in shape but only half human in attributes.” As Baynton notes, Oralists accused signers of engaging in “‘monkey-like grimaces and antics,’” “‘grimac[ing] and gesticulat[ing] and jump[ing]’” and in being “‘apish’” by

“’talking on their fingers’” (quoted in Baynton 52-54). At the Yorkshire Residential School, deaf children who were not improving in their speech would be sent to the “monkey class” where signs were still used (Rée 225-6). Sarah Porter, a Manualist teacher of deaf children in

Washington D.C. noted that the objection that signers resemble monkeys was false but is nevertheless “incessant[ly] repeated” (Porter 171). By drawing on evolutionary theory to suggest that signed languages were more primitive, or more suited to animals than humans, Oralists mobilized the extreme cultural anxieties around the animal/human divide to achieve their pedagogical goals. Furthermore, the images of apes as signers and signers as apes that recur in

Victorian texts suggest that deaf people and their language use were an important battleground for debates about evolution and the parameters of the human.

In this chapter, I have argued that during the last four decades of the nineteenth century, deaf people were caught in an evolutionary double bind. Whether or not people accepted that humans shared a common ancestry with other animals, the strange alignment of speech with

127 humanity meant that deaf people needed to speak in order to substantiate speciesist attempts to justify human dominion over the earth. Both sides of the evolutionary debate subscribed to what

Lennard Davis calls one of the “foundational ableist myths of our culture: that the norm for humans is to speak and hear, to engage in communication through speaking and hearing” (15).

Because both pro- and anti-evolutionists had new anxieties about the dissolving boundary between humans and other animals, the speciesism and audism inherent in declaring that speech was the most human mode of language persisted not despite, but because of, Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. Both sides of the evolutionary debate found common ground in their shared construction of signing deaf people as bridging the gap between the human and the animal because of the common perception that sign was more closely linked to the materiality of the body than speech. The fears occasioned by this construction meant that cultural attempts to define the human did so at the expense of deaf people who were increasingly forced to give up their languages to maintain the species binary.

128 Chapter 3 Ventriloquizing the Deaf Heroine in Wilkie Collins’s Hide and Seek

In Harriet Martineau’s novel Principle and Practice; or the Orphan Family (1827),

Charles Forsyth bemoans the general lack of realism in fictional depictions of disability:

‘Blindness is frequently made interesting in books; deafness seldom or never. There are

interesting and poetical associations connected with blindness; ridiculous, low, or

common ones only with deafness. A blind heroine is charming; but would not all the

world laugh at the very idea of a deaf one?’ (122-3)

Deafness, as Martineau’s novel suggests, is not a form of disability or difference that has

typically been romanticized in fiction. Other conditions – including blindness, varied physical

impairments, or general invalidism – appear frequently in Victorian novels. In fact, Victorian

novels are rife with what we would now call “disabled” characters – including heroes and

heroines who have disabilities.67 However, remarkably few of these characters are deaf. While

Martineau wrote her novel early in the nineteenth century, the Victorian literature that followed did not alter the truth of her observations. While some forms of disability, illness, and impairment render a Victorian heroine an object of interest, tenderness, and romance, deafness seems to be immune to this fictional construction. Of the many Victorian novels to feature a heroine who might be considered disabled, only Wilkie Collins’s Hide and Seek (1854) has a deaf

67 A few of the many examples of disabled characters in Victorian fiction include Rochester in Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Rosanna Spearman in Collins’s The Moonstone, Lucilla Finch in Collins’s Poor Miss Finch, Jenny Wren in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, Olive in Craik’s Olive, and Philip Wakem in Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. See the appendix to Martha Stoddard Holmes’s Fictions of Affliction for a comprehensive list of disabled characters in Victorian fiction. 129 heroine. How can we explain the remarkable dearth of deaf characters in Victorian fiction? Why

is it that the idea of a deaf heroine must be, in Martineau’s words, “ridiculous”?

This chapter will analyze Collins’s Hide and Seek in order to discover why a deaf heroine is featured so rarely in Victorian novels that consistently make use of other forms of physical difference to develop plot, affect, and romance. My approach to considering a fictional absence may seem somewhat counterintuitive. However, attending to the only Victorian novel to feature a deaf heroine permits an analysis of the subtle narrative difficulties that appear in Collins’s attempt to represent a deaf heroine “simply and exactly after nature – or, in other words, to exhibit the peculiar effects produced by the loss of the senses of hearing and speaking on the disposition of the person so afflicted” (Collins 431). Through examining Collins’s approach to writing about a heroine who does not speak, I argue that it is a deaf woman’s relationship to language that disqualifies her from conventional Victorian heroinism. The fact that she signs and does not speak poses obstacles to the genre of the Victorian novel, precluding her effective integration into Victorian fiction. While the Victorian novel has robust conventions for representing spoken language and representing non-linguistic bodily expression, Collins seems unable to forge a unity of these two discourses in order to represent signed languages. In Hide and Seek, the narrator becomes a ventriloquist of sorts by making the deaf heroine’s body speak rather than allowing her to represent herself through a signed language.

Part of my analysis in this chapter involves comparing Collins’s representation of a deaf heroine, Madonna Blyth, to his representation of a blind heroine, Lucilla Finch, in his later novel

Poor Miss Finch. The danger with this type of comparison is that it suggests there is a straightforward parallel between deafness and blindness. I do not mean to suggest that deaf people and blind people have similar experiences of disability aside from the difference in which sense is impaired. It is not my intention to conflate deafness with blindness but rather to attempt

130 to understand why there are dozens of blind characters in Victorian fiction but only one signing

deaf heroine. In Fictions of Affliction, Martha Stoddard Holmes lists dozens of novels that feature

blind characters, including novels by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell,

Charles Kingsley, Dinah Mulock Craik, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson,

Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle (198). Conversely, Hide and Seek is

the only Victorian novel to feature a signing deaf character.68 Furthermore, because I am

interested in the relative representation of signed languages and spoken languages, comparing

two heroines who would have been understood as “disabled,” one who speaks and one who does

not, can be extraordinarily illuminating. While Collins himself draws some parallels between

Madonna and Lucilla, their involvement in the novels that represent them and in the outcome of

their stories is drastically different. I contend that this is partly attributable to the fact that

Madonna does not speak.

Partial deafness versus deaf-mutism:

Before proceeding to Hide and Seek, I would like to highlight an essential qualification to my argument about the curious absence of deaf characters in Victorian fiction. My argument encompasses only characters that Victorians would have referred to as “deaf and dumb” or “deaf- mute.” We must distinguish those who experience some deafness (generally due to aging), but

68 The other characters Holmes lists under “Deaf characters” are not signing deaf characters. She lists the Deaf Gentleman and Baby Turveydrop from Dickens’s Master Humphrey’s Clock and Bleak House, respectively, who do not sign in the texts. Sophy Marigold in Dickens’s short story “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions” is a signing deaf character whom I discuss further in chapter four. However, as this is a story rather than a novel, I do not include it in this chapter’s analysis. Holmes also includes Detective Peters from Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Trail of the Serpent and The Lodger from Collins’s The Guilty River. Detective Peters is not deaf but is mute and uses signs and writing to communicate. The Lodger became deaf in adulthood and does not sign. 131 still speak from those characters who are Deaf and use signed languages.69 In her various treatments of deafness, Martineau, who experienced deafness personally and would identify as deaf rather than Deaf, argues that “nothing can be more different than the two cases usually are”

(“Letter” 174). For example, in Principle and Practice, when Charles declares that it is “unjust” that a deaf heroine would be ridiculous while a blind heroine is charming, his interlocutor

Monteath replies: “‘Do you mean partial or total blindness and deafness? A heroine totally blind is thought more interesting than one partially deaf: but would not a deaf and dumb person make a better figure than one extremely short-sighted?’” (123). Charles laughs and replies, “’They are both as far from picturesque as need be, certainly…but I still think blindness has the advantage in exciting interest’” (123). Charles and Monteath suggest here that “partial” deafness or blindness is a cause for mirth while total blindness or deafness “is thought more interesting” or would

“make a better figure.” This speculation, as we shall see, is borne out in nineteenth-century fiction.

In addition to distinguishing between various levels of impairment, Martineau also distinguishes between various disabilities. In Household Education (1861), she returns to the question of deafness versus blindness that she introduced in Principle and Practice in order to suggest that degrees of impairment are significant:

the case of the deaf is unquestionably the worst of the two, when the deficiency is from

birth. The subsequent loss of either sense is quite a different matter. Then, blindness is

the severest privation of the two, from its compulsory idleness, and total exclusion from

69 This is still an important distinction in contemporary Deaf communities and in Deaf studies, which is commonly signaled through the use of “Deaf” or “deaf”. The upper-case D “Deaf” generally denotes people who are culturally Deaf and use signed languages to communicate. The lower-case d “deaf” refers to the audiological condition of deafness and would generally be applied to those individuals who do not sign and do not identify with any form of Deaf community or Deaf culture. If we were to apply this distinction anachronistically to Victorian fiction, Deaf characters are almost entirely absent while deaf characters actually appear quite frequently. 132 the objects of the lost sense, while the deaf can always be busy in mind and hands, and

retain the most important part of the world of sound in written or printed speech. It is the

privation of language which makes the case of those born deaf worse than that of the born

blind. Those born deaf are dumb. (110)

For Martineau, impairments to linguistic ability render deafness more pitiable than blindness when the disability has existed since birth. Martineau’s assessment relies upon a troubling belief about the inextricability of language and speech. She also links writing to speech when she argues that those who become deaf “retain the most important part of the world of sound in written or printed speech.” Here, writing is not an independent mode of language but is only

“printed speech.” This construction of writing as derivative, a perfect example of Derridean phonocentrism, mars Martineau’s understanding of the capabilities of deaf people who do not speak. For Martineau, the perceived absence of access to speech – whether the speech of others or one’s own – renders the situation of those born deaf more pitiable than those who, like her, have been deafened later in life. John Kitto also examines the “comparative condition” of deafness and blindness. In fact, he devotes an entire chapter in his Lost Senses: Deafness and

Blindness to the question and concludes, like Martineau, that the condition of deaf people is more unfortunate than the condition of blind people. Kitto declares that blind people have the advantage of deaf people because they have the “full enjoyment of society, from which the other is excluded” (6) and have access to language, which Kitto understands here as speech (13). For

Kitto, deaf people are cut off from social intercourse with their hearing society and from the knowledge that can be gained from this society, which means that deaf people are “in a condition of general inferiority of intellectual resources to the blind” (13).

133 Martineau continues by repeating the common argument that individuals born deaf will never be able to use language properly or think abstractly. She writes that those born deaf and dumb,

are rendered incapable of any high degree of intellectual and moral cultivation, by being

cut off from all adequate knowledge of the meaning of language, and from the full

reception of most abstract ideas….There is every reason to believe that the most highly

educated deaf and dumb persons, who use language readily and prettily, have yet very

narrow and superficial minds – from language not being to them natural speech,

incessantly bringing them into communication with other minds, but a lesson taught as

we teach blind children about colours, which they may speak about without making

mistakes, but can never understand. (110-11)70

Martineau underscores that it is communication between minds that is facilitated through speech and barred through signs. In addition to conflating speech and language, Martineau also articulates the cultural construction of speech as inextricably linked with reason or thought. As I noted in my introduction, this construction is pervasive in nineteenth-century British and North

American cultures.

70 This dismissal, by the partially-deaf or the later-deafened, of the capabilities of those born deaf, also appears in the work of the other major British deaf writer of the nineteenth-century, John Kitto. Kitto’s Lost Senses, as I will explain below, was a major source for Collins’s Hide and Seek. While not as dismissive as Martineau, Kitto suggests, [s]igns must in all cases be an imperfect vehicle for the communication of abstract ideas; and we see the proof of this in the distressing dearth of matter in the letters and other writings of the deaf- mutes who have learned the use of the written language through the medium of signs. In ideas they are not necessarily deficient, unless so far as a deficiency arises from the want of real education and substantial reading. But they want the power of expression. (122) For both Martineau and Kitto, the perceived weaknesses of those born deaf arise from their lack of speech. This perception is founded on Martineau and Kitto’s reluctance to believe that a signed language could be equal to a spoken language. Kitto did not like to use signs and described them as the tool of uneducated people. He asserted that they are the “natural” language of deaf people who were born deaf (111). He typically relied on the sign alphabet to communicate.

134 Martineau, who noticed her growing deafness around the age of twelve (Autobiography,

55) and mostly used speech to communicate, seemed afraid of becoming a “ridiculous” figure. In her “Letter to the Deaf”(1834), she exhorts her “fellow-sufferers” (174), (from which she explicitly excludes people born deaf), to remember, “we must submit to be usually insignificant, and sometimes ridiculous” (176). For Martineau, the principle that should guide the actions of these deaf people is “to give the least possible pain to others” (175) through a series of measures including: exhibiting a friendly countenance when in society (176), waiting to be addressed by others instead of initiating conversation (177), and never asking other people what the company’s conversation is about (176). Martineau is strident about this last point:

Have we not seen – it sickens me to think of it – restless, inquisitive, deaf people, who

will have every insignificant thing repeated to them, to their own incessant

disappointment, and the suffering of every body about them, whom they make, by their

appeals, almost as ridiculous as themselves. I never could tolerate the idea of any

approach to the condition of one of these. (176)

It is in this “ridiculous” situation that so sickened Martineau that we most often find Victorian fictional representations of deafness.

Victorian fiction is overpopulated with non-signing deaf people. These constructions of deafness are, in almost every case, ageist and ableist jokes directed at people who have become deaf rather than people born deaf. This stock comic character does not sign or associate with other deaf people but instead is culturally hearing while experiencing deafness. As Holmes notes,

Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens were the two “most prolific producers of disabled characters in Victorian literature” (74); in their work this deafened character appears frequently. This character appears in Dickens’s fiction from Wemmick’s “Aged” father, in Great Expectations,

135 with whom communication is reduced to nodding (230-1),71 to Mrs. Wardle, “the deaf old lady,” in The Pickwick Papers, who must have secrets shouted into her ear (93). An early example from

Jane Austen’s Emma is Mrs. Bates, whose daughter, Miss Bates declares, “My mother’s deafness is very trifling you see – just nothing at all. By only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over, she is sure to hear” (9).

As we will see, Collins treats this laughable figure of the deafened older person quite differently than he does Madonna in Hide and Seek, who becomes deaf as a child and does not speak. In Collins’s Armadale, for example, Samuel Pentecost’s mother’s deafness is ridiculed:

An old lady afflicted with deafness, whose one inexhaustible subject of interest is the

subject of her son, and who (on the happily rare occasions when that son opens his lips)

asks everybody eagerly, "What does my boy say?" is a person to be pitied in respect of

her infirmities, and a person to be admired in respect of her maternal devotedness, but not

a person, if the thing could possibly be avoided, to take to a picnic. Such a man,

nevertheless, was the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, and such a woman was the Reverend

Samuel's mother; and in the dearth of any other producible guests, there they were,

engaged to eat, drink, and be merry for the day at Mr. Armadale's pleasure party to the

Norfolk Broads. (119)

71 The editor of a deaf periodical, The Deaf-Mutes Journal, invokes this episode in Dickens to defend deaf people against the charge of “deaf clannishness” that I discuss in chapter four. He wrote, It is questionable whether the deaf-mutes avoid the society of hearing persons, as a general rule. They simply do not force themselves where they feel that their society would be uncongenial. Is there a deaf-mute of intelligence who has not experienced, when in a mixed society of hearing persons, the feeling that his presence was completely ignored…As in the case of the poor old deaf father of ‘Wemmick’ in Dickens’ story of ‘Great Expectations,’ some of the more sympathetic might ‘tip him a nod’ occasionally, just to keep him in good humor; but the general talk of the company must remain to the deaf-mute a matter of conjecture.” (quoted in “The Tendency”) This situation that deaf people face in hearing company arises in Hide and Seek, not as a comic matter, but instead as an affective one. The narrator explains that Lavvie Blyth is so attentive to Madonna’s needs and so desirous that Madonna never be left out of conversation, that she kindly and constantly interprets all that is going on in a room into the manual alphabet for Madonna (Collins 144). 136 While Collins maintains that an aging deaf woman can be “pitied” and “admired,” he notes it in the form of a humorous digression. The reader does not admire or pity Reverend Samuel’s mother here but instead laughs at her and her apparent unfitness for social engagements.

Each of these examples involves a character who was deafened as part of the aging process. These characters would not identify with a deaf community nor use signed languages.

While they are simultaneously constructed as objects of pity and humor, they are not perceived as radical Others to normalcy. Most importantly, they still speak like people who hear. Davis suggests that deafness is ridiculed in literature, especially when the deaf character is marginal, because “since language is seen as human, as ‘us,’ the deaf are seen as ‘not us’” (113). I would like to suggest another reading of the comic deaf character. Because we all share this aging process, the deaf elder taps into ideas of universality rather than difference. It is for this reason that the deaf elder can be an object of ageist humor within the pity whereas ridiculing a child who had been born deaf would be unimaginable. The universality of the aging process and its results seems to preclude the affective response that typically accompanies representations of disability.

Davis also suggests the comic deaf character represents “the ostracism of the deafened moment, the ridiculing of inability to hear” because deafness “violates the rules of ‘speech’ in the novel”

(115). However, I want to emphasize that they are still a part of the hearing and speaking world around them. As a narrative tool, this type of deafness is deployed for humor and poses no narrative difficulties because, while these deaf elders cannot hear as well as those around them, they certainly can speak. The profusion of this character in Victorian fiction points to the ease in which he or she can be imagined as a part of “normal” society, albeit a marginalized person in that society rather than the hero or heroine of a novel. For my purposes, it also demonstrates that it is less a character’s deafness that is a problem for novelistic representation than his or her inability to speak. Characters who do not hear abound in Victorian novels but Madonna in Hide

137 and Seek is the only deaf character who signs. My concern in this chapter is with how signing deaf people, who even more intensely “violate the rules of ‘speech’ in the novel” (Davis 115), are incorporated into novelistic representation

In order to answer this question, I will turn to the one and only deaf heroine of a

Victorian novel: Madonna in Collins’s Hide and Seek, a novel that has not garnered much attention either in our own time or in Collins’s day. In fact, because of the poor sales of his first edition, Collins released a revised second edition of the novel in 1861. In the preface to this revised edition, Collins attributes its sluggish sales to its being published at the start of the

Crimean war. Collins explained that “[a]ll England felt the absorbing interest of watching that serious national event; and new books – some of them books of far higher pretensions than mine

– found the minds of readers in general pre-occupied or indifferent” (3). It is this 1861 edition that most critics use for their readings of the novel and I will follow that practice.

The main action of the novel centers on the intertwined mysteries of the parentage of a young girl named Madonna and the death of the sister of a rough looking man named Mat.

Madonna’s known story begins when Mrs. Peckover, an itinerant circus worker, discovers a young woman struggling along a road holding an infant. The young woman dies without leaving many clues to her identity and Mrs. Peckover then raises the baby, Mary, as her own child. Mary soon becomes a performer in the abusive Mr. Jubber’s circus and becomes deaf as a result of accidentally falling from a horse during a performance. Mary then performs card tricks as the

`“Mysterious Deaf and Dumb Foundling” in the circus. One audience member, the painter

Valentine Blyth, is captivated by the beautiful child and, upon discovering that Jubber beats her, convinces the Peckovers to relinquish Mary to the care of himself and his invalid wife Lavvie.

Valentine and Lavvie care for Mary, whom they name Madonna for her resemblance to Raphael’s

Madonnas, as their own daughter. She then grows into a happy member of their household. 138 The second strand of the narrative concerns Zack Thorpe, a young man rebelling against

his father’s rigid evangelical parenting. As a friend of Zack’s mother, Valentine attempts to reign

in Zack’s impulsive conduct and instill in him a love of art. Madonna is clearly in love with Zack

and in return Zack impetuously adores her but seems incapable of thinking steadily about

anything, including love. One night, Zack befriends a stranger, Mat, who has returned from

spending years in the Americas living almost wildly by hunting, sleeping outdoors, and traveling

across the continent. Mat and Zack become close friends though Mat never discloses that his

purpose in coming home is to track what happened to his dear sister Mary who ran away from

home while pregnant. Mary’s pregnancy and death haunt Mat who seeks answers and revenge.

As we might anticipate, Mat’s sister Mary is Madonna’s biological mother, whose

unfortunate story is the result of (incorrectly) believing herself deserted by the man she loved.

Mary leaves her home to avoid tainting her family with her pregnancy and delivers her baby

shortly before dying. This event returns us to the beginning of the story where Mrs. Peckover

adopts the orphaned child. The only mystery yet unsolved is the identity of Madonna’s biological

father. By the end of the novel, Mat discovers that Madonna’s father is, in fact, Zack’s own now-

religious father. Madonna’s affection for Zack must then rapidly transform from erotic into

sisterly love. The solved mystery therefore brings Madonna two family members, her uncle Mat

and her half-brother Zack, both of whom, after living in North America, return to England at the

close of the novel.72

72 This plot detail is one of the most striking changes Collins made to the 1861 edition. In the more melancholy 1854 edition, Mat never returns to England from North America. In the 1861 edition, Mat returns to England with Zack. The 1861 edition of the novel concludes, “The first kiss with which his dead sister’s child welcomed him back, cooled the Tramp’s fever forever, and the Man of many Wanderings rested at last among the friends who loved him, to wander no more” (430). This ending of the novel is happier and more satisfying than the original 1854 ending. In his preface to the 1861 edition, Collins explains that he hopes the new ending is “more satisfactory and more complete than it was in its original form” (6). 139 Madonna’s deafness plays a key role in the novel, but mainly in the realm of plot development. When Mat sneaks into the Blyth household in search of evidence of Madonna’s true parentage, he is not caught because Madonna cannot hear him. Madonna’s deafness also lends a lot of incidental detail to the novel. Collins’s desire to represent a deaf person in a realistic manner means that he attends to minute details of Madonna’s experience in the world, whether her remarkable physiognomic prowess which allows her to accurately judge others or her fear of the dark because it disables her primary sense of vision. Collins also foregrounds the communicative options available to Madonna. Madonna communicates with close friends and family primarily through signs and the sign alphabet. Madonna uses writing to communicate with strangers, usually transcribed on the prettily decorated slate that hangs from her shoulder by a ribbon.

The novel seems to endorse signing by offering a range of reasons why forcing Madonna to speak would have been both cruel and useless. Mrs. Peckover, Madonna’s first guardian, explains that she was initially advised by doctors to force Madonna to keep using her voice even though Madonna hated to do so:

He warned me that she was already losing the wish and the want to speak; and that it

would very soon be little short of absolute pain to her to be made to say even a few

words, but he begged and prayed me not to let my good nature get the better of my

prudence on that account, and not to humor her however I might feel tempted to do so –

for if I did, she would be dumb as well as deaf most certainly. (98)

Mrs. Peckover details her struggles to encourage Madonna to speak before she finally relented.

Mrs. Peckover then recognized that the “dear child seemed to get used to her misfortune except when we tried to make her speak” (98). Madonna’s desire to stop speaking upon becoming deaf parallels Collins’s primary source material, Kitto’s Lost Senses. Kitto notes that after becoming

140 deaf he “felt the strangest possible indisposition to use my vocal organs” (19). However, later in

life Kitto does begin to speak and eventually uses both speech and fingerspelling to communicate.

Strangely, Collins does not have Madonna follow Kitto’s path though he generally borrows

heavily from Kitto’s narrative.73 Madonna neither parrots Kitto’s desire to speak nor his

“abomination” of using signs (Kitto 20).74 Collins further endorses the Manualist position, and assuages Mrs. Peckover’s guilt, by introducing a specialist who disagrees with the original doctor’s recommendation that Madonna should be forced to speak. This Doctor tells Mrs.

Peckover that “people afflicted with such stone deafness as [Madonna’s] didn’t feel the loss of speech; and that they took to making signs, and writing, and such like, quite kindly as a sort of second nature to them” (100). Through introducing this Doctor and presenting Madonna as happiest using signs and writing, Collins explicitly seems to endorse the position, held by most deaf Britons and North Americans, that signed languages were entirely sufficient for communication.

However, Collins’s attempt to align himself progressively with deaf people also poses difficulties for him as a writer. If Madonna does not speak, she is silent in the novel. These issues of speech and silence extend beyond Madonna’s representation to inform the entire novel. In fact,

73 In his note to chapter seven, Collins explains that Kitto’s book was essential to his project of representing deafness realistically in this novel. The book was given to Collins by Charles Dickens. Collins explains, When the idea first occurred to me of representing the character of a “Deaf Mute” as literally as possible according to nature, I found the difficulty of getting at tangible and reliable materials to work from, much greater than I had anticipated; so much greater, indeed, that I believe my design must have been abandoned, if a lucky chance had not thrown in my way Dr. Kitto’s delightful little book, ‘The Lost Senses.’ In the first division of that work, which contains the author’s interesting and touching narrative of his own sensations under the total loss of the sense of hearing, and its consequent effect on the faculties of speech, will be found my authority for most of those traits in Madonna’s character which are especially and immediately connected with the deprivation from which she is represented as suffering. (431) 74 Again, Kitto is not an Oralist despite his feelings about his personal use of signs. When it comes to “deaf-mutes,” a group from which he excludes himself, he acknowledges that signs are a “natural” language (129). 141 Hide and Seek is consumed with anxiety about speech, including who can speak, how they speak, and the value of not speaking. Collins is especially concerned with the damage that can be done through speech and the power that can be achieved through silence. For example, a recurrent theme throughout the novel is Valentine’s fear that Madonna’s history will be discovered through the uncontrollable speech of others. Valentine, who “doubted Mrs. Peckover’s discretion in the government of her tongue,” (163) is terrified that Mrs. Peckover will reveal the secret of

Madonna’s parentage (123). Every single time he encounters Mrs. Peckover, Valentine quizzes her on whether she has kept the secret, to which she indignantly replies, “of course I can hold my tongue” (123). However, as we might guess, Mrs. Peckover cannot hold her tongue. She reveals a small part of Madonna’s history to Zack who then, fortunately, spills the information to the silent and stealthy Mat. This small amount of information enables Mat to eventually piece together the linked mysteries of his sister’s tragedy and Madonna’s parentage.

The detection element of the novel revolves entirely around the inability of some people to “hold their tongues,” and the ability of others to glean information through being silent. In fact, most of the major dramatic scenes in the novel transpire between a character who speaks too much, and therefore demonstrates his or her weakness, and a character who waits in silence and thereby accrues power. When Jubber, the circus master, angrily berates the Rector, Dr. Joyce, for assisting with Valentine’s adoption of Madonna, the Rector sits quietly and allows Jubber to expend his loud profanations. Of their confrontation, Collins writes, “the blackguard and the gentleman looked one another straight in the face. It was the old, invariable struggle, between the quiet firmness of good breeding and the savage obstinacy of bad; and it ended in the old, invariable way. The blackguard flinched first” (108). Jubber flinches by threatening the Rector with a torrent of invectives: he is described as “roaring” with a “gross voice,” “swearing,” and

142 “uttering” fragments of oaths (108-12). The Rector sits silently and then quietly has Jubber escorted out thereby winning the argument.

The positive associations here with “quiet firmness” are echoed in the character of Mat

Grice, the key detective-figure of the novel. Throughout the novel Mat is explicitly constructed as a person whose silence brings him power and information. He is described as “discreet” (297),

“mysterious” (298), “speechless” (310), “immovably serene,” and “quiet” (313) throughout the novel. In key scenes, Mat encourages volubility in other characters, especially Zack and

Valentine, through plying them with alcohol. The information they reveal, in turn, allows him to solve the mystery of the novel, enact his revenge on his sister’s seducer, and find his niece. In this novel, not speaking is a sign of strength rather than inferiority. Mat’s power throughout the novel is explicitly tied to his silence and his reluctance to divulge his thoughts through speech. The novel is therefore self-conscious about the place of speech in the narrative and specifically refuses to value volubility or the ability to speak.

“A Lower degree of Intelligibility”: Courting a Deaf Woman

Madonna is a deaf heroine of a Victorian novel but she is denied the heroine’s typical reward of marriage. Unlike the blind Lucilla Finch who, at the end of Poor Miss Finch, marries the man she loves and had children, Madonna ends the novel a single woman. Why is she tangled in a skewed and sensational courtship plot that terminates with the discovery that her beloved is actually her brother? Madonna’s case reveals that, at the level of plot, a deaf woman character cannot easily be inserted into the narrative arc of a conventional Victorian heroine – courtship, marriage, and maternity – because of cultural constructions of a deaf woman’s communicative abilities. She is the subject of a paradox of desire; her inability to speak is constructed as somewhat desirable in rendering her silent and yet it creates barriers to courtship.

143 In fact, the perceived difficulty of a hearing man courting a deaf woman was a running

joke in Victorian culture. A music hall song written by J. Percy Ashdown and sung by the famous

music hall singer and comedian Charles Coborn, “A Silent Maiden: A Polyglot Song of Love,”

tells the story of a man who, upon seeing a beautiful woman, attempts to woo her by

“murmur[ing]…‘I love you’ in [his] most bewitching style” (Ashdown 5). Upon receiving no

response, he switches to declaring his love in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Irish, Scottish,

Dutch, Russian, Norse and Flemish. He then sings, “Did she understand? Not much./ At last she

took her sun-shade and wrote upon the earth,/ ‘I don’t know what you’re saying for I’m deaf and

dumb from birth!’”(5). In this song, the woman’s deafness is an untraversible impediment to

courtship even though speaking a foreign language like Flemish is not. Sign language is not

simply a different language; it somehow bars communication entirely. The singer never attempts

to express his love in a signed language or in writing but instead launches into his chorus of “yet

oh! she was fair, charmingly fair,/ Sitting beneath the oak,/Her features were fine, her smile was

divine,/ But never a word she spoke” (5, emphasis mine). While the singer suggests that even

despite her deafness the silent maiden is “fair,” his discovery of her deafness and “dumbness”

arrests his attentions to her. The language of love translates to all of the polyglot’s spoken

languages. However, his love is untranslatable across the barrier of deafness and sign language.

Speech is integral to his courting process even if it is foreign speech.

This construction of the uncourtability of a deaf woman by a hearing man also appears in

Hide and Seek.75 Like the Silent Maiden, Madonna has difficulty understanding the

communication of her love-interest Zack. The narrator explains that Zack has only

75 In the other piece of Victorian fiction that features a signing deaf woman, Dickens’s short story “Doctor Marigold,” the intelligibility of courtship is not an issue. Sophy is courted by a deaf man who uses a signed language as she does. As I note in chapter four Sophy’s engagement to her deaf husband is managed quite smoothly but this marriage of two deaf people is beset by other difficulties, namely a cultural fear of the hereditary transmission of deafness to the children of deaf parents. 144 “superficially” (129) learned “the deaf and dumb alphabet.” He therefore directs most of his unintelligible communication to Madonna orally rather than with his fingers (126). For example, in a representative moment, Madonna gives Zack her most beautiful sketch of the Venus de

Medici and communication difficulties ensue. Zack, not understanding that this gift is a token of

Madonna’s love for him, focuses on Madonna’s beauty instead of her talent. He declares that

Madonna is,

‘a deal prettier than any plaster face that ever was made. Your face beats Venus’s

hollow,’ continued Zack, communicating this bluntly sincere compliment to Madonna by

the signs of the deaf and dumb alphabet. She smiled as she watched the motion of his

fingers – perhaps at his mistakes, for he made two in expressing one short sentence of

five words – perhaps at the compliment, homely as it was. (153-4)

The frequent misunderstandings that occur between Zack and Madonna, such as in this example where he neither understands that Madonna has drawn the Venus for him nor that there is more to value in Madonna than her beauty, are symptomatic of their overall difficulties in communicating. Madonna cannot hear Zack speak and Zack can barely sign. In other places in the novel, Zack asks Lavvie Blyth to interpret for him rather than sign to Madonna himself because, as he tells Lavvie, “you never make mistakes in talking on your fingers and I always do”

(155). Unlike Madonna, who, as we shall see, is an expert at reading bodily signs, Zack has neither the linguistic abilities nor the patient skill to communicate with a deaf heroine in sign.

Zack’s impetuousness and active energy, while constructed by the narrative as generally charming and masculine, somehow preclude his successful communication with Madonna. Zack cannot court Madonna because they cannot understand each other. However, Zack does not seem to mind that he cannot clearly understand Madonna’s messages; He mostly attends to her silent beauty. In fact, the narrative frequently pauses to dwell on the silence and the beauty that seem to

145 be inextricably intertwined in Madonna. Even her adoptive parents’ decision to christen her

“Madonna,” because of her resemblance to static and silent images, underscores her position as a

silent – and virginal – object of aesthetic appeal.

It is important to note here that a deaf woman’s inability to speak was constructed as

somewhat attractive in Victorian culture. Another joke about deaf women that recurs in

nineteenth-century culture is the desirability of a deaf wife who does not speak. Jonathan Rée

notes that cultural constructions of muteness are more common for women than for men and that

mute women are constructed as “mak[ing] excellent brides” (92).76 An example of this gender asymmetry appears in the New York Times report of November 16 1883 on Alexander Graham

Bell’s speech about the potential development of a deaf variety of the human race. The reporter attempts to take a comic approach to Bell’s fear mongering about deaf communities by pointing to the desirability of deaf women. The reporter refutes Bell’s prediction of deaf intermarriage and a deaf variety of the human race with this objection: “the trouble is that the deaf-mute communities could not perpetuate their existence without stringent laws against intermarriage with men possessing all their senses. The Deaf-mute maidens would, of course be eagerly sought in marriage by lovers of peace – and especially by widowers” (“A New Species”). Another New

York Times article from 1897 titled “Unintelligible Courtship” describes a breach of promise lawsuit between a deaf couple – one who signs and one who is oral but does not sign – by relying on this misogynism. The reporter writes, “[c]ertainly there are husbands who would be relieved if they could escape from their wives’ views of their behaviour by the simple expedient of looking out of the window, and who would be relieved by a lower degree of intelligibility.” As

76 Rée points to Ben Jonson’s Epicoene; or, the Silent Woman (1609) and Anatole France’s La comédie de celui que épousa une femme muette (1919) as other examples of men desiring mute wives in literature. 146 long as the woman cannot answer back to the word of the patriarchy, as embodied here by her husband, her deafness is a quality valued by a patriarchal desire to “silence” women.

Madonna is caught in this paradox of desire for a deaf woman. She is difficult to court if a hearing man does not choose to sign or write. However, her deafness is romanticized as both contributing to her beauty and fitting her for the role of a wife. Madonna is neither Martineau’s

“ridiculous” figure nor the recurring comic image of the aging deaf woman. In fact, Madonna is idealized, largely through her deafness. This idealization, however, means that she remains a silent work of art rather than a participant in her own life. The novel repeatedly emphasizes that almost every male character who sees Madonna instantly falls in love with her, including, most particularly, the artists that frequent the Blyth household who appreciate her aesthetically (50).

Because Madonna does not communicate with most of these men, we can assume that she is reified as a silent Madonna – a beautiful image on which to gaze rather than with whom to communicate.

However, if Madonna is such an idealized woman, why is her potential marriage plot stymied by the spectre of incest? What does the fact that Madonna is in love with her half-brother suggest about Collins’s assessment of the marital potential of a deaf heroine? Is this situation, and

Madonna’s search for love, pitiable or “ridiculous” as Martineau might aver? Victorian scholars have grappled with this almost-incestuous conclusion in their attempts to understand Collins’s portrayal of disability. In her groundbreaking book on physical disability in Victorian culture,

Holmes addresses the question of why so few disabled heroines are married in the traditional

Victorian marriage plot. Holmes finds that disabled women characters from fiction earlier in the

Victorian period infrequently marry. However, later texts by Dinah Mulock Craik and Charlotte

Yonge do create opportunities for disabled women to marry as long as the women adhere to certain ideals of “passionless” femininity (6). Holmes also underscores that “no matter how close

147 [disabled women] get to the traditional Victorian heroine’s plot of courtship, love and marriage,

disabled women characters almost never become biological parents” (6). Of course, one of the

exceptions to Holmes’s argument, as we will see, is Lucilla Finch. When she turns to Hide and

Seek, Holmes argues:

while the romance never materializes, it is important to note that what officially disables

it is the specter of incest, and not Madonna’s deafness…A more suspicious reading,

however, might propose that incest is brought in as an emergency measure to permit

Collins to escape a real resolution of the situation between Madonna and Zack. Reluctant

to back away from his attempts to create an innovative portrait of both deafness and

disabled women’s ability to play traditional female roles, but concerned about critics’

castigation of the morality of his previous novel, he resorts to a different order of

‘melodramatic machinery’ to resolve the conflict. (83)

Holmes insightfully notes that “[i]ncest…has a moral clarity the issue of a deaf woman’s

marriage lacks. With the unambiguous horror of brother-sister marriage filling the stage, Collins

never has to resolve the more complicated issue of disability, sexuality and marriage” (83).

Holmes’s “more suspicious reading” of the narrative stymieing of Madonna’s potential marriage

draws attention to Collins’s neat sidestepping of the issue of the marriage of a deaf woman. But,

what remains unclear is why Collins chooses incest as a plot device. What effects arise from the

fact that Madonna and Zack become siblings?

In her alternative approach to Hide and Seek, Kate Flint reads the shift from romantic love to familial love in Madonna and Zack as a way for Collins to deconstruct the binary of ability and disability. Responding to Holmes, Flint argues that in his fictional treatment of disability in general, “Collins sets out to show that there is no clear dividing line between the disabled and the normally-bodied, however much appearances may suggest – sometimes

148 startlingly – the contrary” (156). For Flint, Collins’s choice to turn Madonna and Zack into half- siblings is an example of “one of Collins’s favorite structural devices: the double, or twin” (158).

Flint argues. “[t]he revelation of Madonna’s and Zack’s consanguinity is not so much an act of protoeugenics, a keeping apart of the healthy-bodied and the disabled…as it is a means of emphasizing the continuum between the fully able and the impaired” (159). In suggesting that

Collins is less concerned with protoeugenics than he is with deconstructing the binary of ability and disability in order to highlight the continuum of bodily difference, Flint awards Collins a progressive aim in his severing of Madonna and Zack’s potential marriage.

Collins’s approach to marriage in his fiction generally supports Flint’s reading of a sibling relationship as more positive than a marital relationship. In her article about “The

Marriage Plot and its Alternatives” in Collins’s fiction, Carolyn Dever points to Collins’s ambivalence about the traditional courtship plot. Dever finds generally that stronger affective bonds exist between same-sex couples than married heterosexual couples in Collins’s novels.

Dever argues, “the domestic ideal is far from the forefront in a Wilkie Collins text. His novels situate violence and intrigue at the heart of domestic life” (112). Instead, “Marriage, for Collins, is but one mode of love among many. In these novels Collins suggests that heterosexual marriage is just one way, and perhaps not always the best way, to comprehend the lasting power of loving human devotion” (123). If Dever is correct, then are we asking the wrong question of the novel to inquire into why Zack and Madonna are not an eligible match? The novel demonstrates, outside of Valentine and Lavvie’s happy marriage, that heterosexual love leads to disaster. In this novel,

Valentine and Lavvie do have a happy and supportive marriage and it is, interestingly enough, a marriage between an able-bodied man and a disabled woman. However, their marriage is counterbalanced by the other tragedies of heterosexual romantic couplings in the novel.

Madonna’s mother Mary Grice’s romantic relationship tragically leads to her death and

149 Madonna’s abandonment. Zack’s mother, married to the same man who was involved with Mary

Grice, is tied for life to a disgraced and rigid tyrant. The strong relationship that Hide and Seek celebrates at its centre is Mat’s devotion to his sister, which starkly contrasts her lover’s treatment of her. By shifting Zack’s role from Madonna’s potential lover to her brother, is it possible that

Collins is commenting more on the state of marriage than on the threat of a disabled woman’s marriage and reproduction?

We might ask the same questions about childbirth in the novel. Madonna brings joy to her adoptive mothers Lavvie and Mrs. Peckover, who do not have their own biological children, but only tragedy to her biological mother. In questioning our attention to the courtship plot in

Hide and Seek, I want to suggest that not all courtship plots are created equal and we should attend to Collins’s general mistrust of the institution of marriage. While, as Holmes notes, there are almost always proto-eugenicist traces in cultural constructions of disabled women,77 Collins may nonetheless be working to create a progressive construction of a deaf woman. Whether or not we read the ending of this novel as proto-eugenicist, what both Flint and Holmes emphasize is

Collins’s attempts to subvert conventional depictions of disability. For Holmes, Collins radically imagines the possibility of a desiring and desirable woman with disabilities, even if he does not follow through on the promise of her desire until later novels like Poor Miss Finch. For Flint,

Collins’s shifting of Madonna from lover to sister may be even more radical in its attempts to efface the binary between ability and disability.

Madonna’s lack of speaking intersects with her gender in other ways beyond her position in the marriage market. The gendered ideas about the aural and metaphorical valences of a woman’s speech that have informed the critical reception of this novel reveal other ways that

150 Madonna’s “muteness” complicates the role of the Victorian novel’s heroine. Holmes argues

that one of the reasons Mrs. Peckover relents on forcing Madonna to speak is her dismay at the

sound of Madonna’s oral attempts. The first time Madonna speaks after her accident, her voice

sounds “hoarse and low, and deep and faint, all at the same time; the strangest shockingest voice

to come from a child who always used to speak so clearly and prettily before” (Collins 93). Mrs.

Peckover calls Madonna’s voice “unnatural” (95). It is a “shocking husky moaning voice that

sounded somehow as if it didn’t belong to her” (99). Holmes argues that “the disturbing effect of

Madonna’s deafness on those who are close to her seems based in part on her new behavior’s

violation of gender codes: she loses not only her pretty temper, but also her pretty voice. She is no

longer docile and sweet, and she sounds as if she is imitating an unsavory adult man” (80).

In describing Madonna’s voice, Collins echoes a pervasive cultural image of the deaf

person’s speech as both unpleasant for hearing people as well as somehow de-feminizing and

even de-humanizing. Writers, both hearing and deaf, used this construction of a deaf person’s

voice to support their various aims. For example, those who supported the use of signed

languages used this construction of the deaf person’s voice to resist Oralism. Jane Elizabeth

Groom, a progressive and independent deaf signer, whose plan for deaf emigration I address in

chapter four, argued that “deaf mutes make unpleasant sounds in endeavoring to articulate, which

is likely to annoy hearing friends, while the sign language, which is equally intelligible, is in no

way annoying to others” (quoted in H.H., Evangelist 5). In opposition to the frequent Oralist

claim that deaf people should not use signed languages because it makes them look like monkeys,

which I analyze in chapter two, Sarah H. Porter, an American Manualist teacher, counters by

criticizing the voices of deaf people:

77 While Madonna was deafened in an accident rather than from birth, her deafness may still have been 151 Was any manual teacher ever known to say to his pupils, ‘Your voice is like the voice of

a wild beast. It sets people’s teeth on edge to hear you. Do not speak.’ Yet, considering

the fact that two-thirds of the deaf people the child will ever meet use signs, the latter

counsel would be quite as kind and Christian as the former [that deaf people look like

monkeys when they sign], to say nothing of the fact that its statements sometimes possess

the merit of being sadly true while the former is wholly false. Persons who make signs

do not look like monkeys, and hearing people never laugh at them. The voices of the deaf

are often exceedingly disagreeable. (172)

Both Groom and Porter, who were advocates for deaf education, independence and linguistic

rights use this problematic construction of a deaf person’s voice as an argument against Oralism.

Was Collins using this rhetoric of the masculine or even inhuman sounding voice of deaf people

for a progressive aim? Was he endorsing signed languages through using regressive and

problematic ideas about how the human voice should sound? Collins, like other supporters of

signed languages, may have been mobilizing aural aesthetics and gender norms to validate signed

languages for deaf people. An important element of understanding Collins’s construction of the

relative value of signing to speech for deaf people is his attribution of a preference for sign to the

deaf person herself. In the novel, Mrs. Peckover explains, “’the dear child seemed to get used to

her misfortune except when we tried to make her speak’” (98). Madonna absolutely rejects

speech as a mode of communication. She asserts agency over her life when she refuses to speak at

the behest of hearing authority figures including her Doctors and her family.

Despite this probable aim, Collins’s construction of the voice of a deaf child as de-

feminized is certainly problematic. Holmes notes, “[w]hat is ‘shocking’ about [Madonna’s]

threatening in terms of heritability. Some argued that the tendency to deafness – through accident or aging – demonstrated a physical weakness or defect that could potentially be passed on hereditarily. 152 husky moaning voice is not clear, but it is impossible for a modern reader to ignore its suggestion of sexuality – a potentially alarming idea in connection with a ten year old girl, but one that the narrative keeps re-iterating” (80). Another, somewhat paradoxical, problem with this construction of the masculinized deaf voice is that it de-feminizes a deaf woman who wishes to speak. The construction of the deaf voice therefore asymmetrically affects deaf women. In Lost

Senses, Kitto attempts to describe the sound of his voice for the reader by using testimony from his friends and family. Kitto’s friend describes Kitto’s voice as “‘pitched in a far deeper bass tone than is natural to men who have their hearing…and altogether it is eminently guttural’” (22).

Kitto himself explains that his voice is “loud, and may be heard to an unusual distance” (27). The deep, loud, and guttural sound of Kitto’s voice, in comparison to hearing men, does not reflect negatively on his masculinity. In fact, a deeper, louder, gruffer tone might be perceived as hyper- masculine rather than un-masculine. The deaf woman is therefore in an oral quandary that does not parallel the experience of a deaf man; should she wish to speak, her voice de-feminizes her.

When Elisabeth Gitter engages with this moment of Madonna’s husky speech and subsequent refusal to speak altogether she reveals another reason why Madonna’s lack of speech has attendant complications: it interferes with traditional notions of voice as agency. In “Deaf-

Mutes and Heroines in the Victorian Era,” Gitter attempts to read changes in nineteenth-century representations of signed languages and of silent women heroines alongside each other. Gitter’s central argument is that the Victorian “feminizing of both deafness and sign language may have contributed to a striking cultural coincidence: the changes in attitude toward sign in the nineteenth century paralleled changing attitudes towards silent women, both fictional and real” (180). Gitter declares:

Sign flourished at a time – the mid-century period – when silent heroines were celebrated

in art and in life; Sign was attacked at a time – the end of the century – when the mute

153 woman was more often depicted as unbalanced, menacing, or duplicitous, and when the

most popular deaf woman, Helen Keller, was able to speak. (180)

In this article, Gitter looks at the nineteenth-century cultural reception of real deaf-blind women

Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. She suggests that Laura Bridgman’s teachers tried to keep her mute because any noises she made interfered with their construction of her as a silent and obedient angelic figure (186):

In fact, however, like many deaf people, [Bridgman] made, sometimes unconsciously and

sometimes for her own pleasure, a variety of noises which were characterized both by her

teachers and by psychologists who studied her as “repulsive,” “disagreeable,” “uncouth,”

“rude,” and “unladylike.” (188)

Gitter reads Bridgman’s persistent vocal sounds as a rebellion against how she has been constructed by her teachers and her culture as an idealized mute woman (188-9).

According to Gitter, Bridgman and Keller’s insistence on using their voices strikes a blow at a patriarchy that attempts to silence women. However, there are serious historical, political and logical problems with Gitter’s likening of deaf women to a more general Victorian feminine condition. She makes the rather common rhetorical move of using deafness and muteness as a metaphor for all other disenfranchised groups; however her error in employing this metaphor is even more striking because she is actually writing about deaf people. For example,

Gitter argues that Keller’s struggles with oral training “recall[]” other writers including, “Virginia

Woolf’s appeal in A Room of One’s Own for the resurrection of the stifled and buried voice of

Shakespeare’s sister” (192). Gitter’s approach effaces Keller’s actual deaf-blind condition in favor of promoting a feminist discourse of “having a voice” in a patriarchal society. While gender is certainly an important issue in the cultural representations of Laura Bridgman and

Helen Keller, it is oversimplifying the politics of Oralism, deafness, blindness and ability to

154 suggest that Keller’s “broken speech can be heard as a defiant repudiation of feminized silence”

(193). While Gitter gestures towards these politics when she once notes that Keller’s speech

suggests “the utter futility of the oralist enterprise,” her conclusion that “Bridgman was molded

by Howe to conform to a popular literary type – the silent angel. Keller, more energetic and

astute, collaborated with Bell and Sullivan in her own construction as a New Woman…a breaker

of pathological silences” (193) overlooks the power dynamics of the signed language debates.

Furthermore, Gitter’s argument ignores historical evidence. Bridgman’s teacher Samuel Gridley

Howe was actually a supporter of Oralism for deaf people, and Alexander Graham Bell, on the

other hand, was advocating Oralism far before he began to work with Keller and before Gitter’s

theoretical shift in the silent heroine took place. Overall, Gitter fails to answer the question she

sets up for herself: what is the relationship between heroines and deaf-mutes in the Victorian era?

She also fails to address the issue of why these two categories so seldom overlap.

Gitter contextualizes Madonna’s silence in Hide and Seek alongside her analysis of the

histories of Bridgman and Keller. In Madonna, according to Gitter, Collins constructed,

a fictional corrective to the stubborn noisiness of the real Laura Bridgman. Unlike the

occasionally rebellious and unladylike Bridgman, who never fully acquiesced in the

identity Howe constructed for her, Madonna, the fictional mute heroine, could joyously

embrace the role of voiceless and self-denying heroine. (189)

Gitter suggests that Madonna “is beatified by speechlessness” (189). In arguing that Madonna is

voiceless and therefore self-denying, Gitter has been led astray by her problematic understanding

of voicelessness as a marker of gender oppression. She neglects to consider both the cultural

reality of deaf speech in the nineteenth-century and the novel she is discussing.78 In refusing to

78 This is only one of my many concerns about Gitter’s approach to Deaf and Deaf-blind issues, especially Laura Bridgman’s history. In her book, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the 155 speak, Madonna is certainly not being acquiescent or self-denying; in fact, the situation is exactly the opposite. All of the hearing authority figures in Madonna’s life initially insist on her using speech to communicate. Madonna herself prefers to write and sign in order to communicate and sees those modes as entirely sufficient. Madonna is not submitting to power by remaining mute; instead she is refuting the phonocentric prejudice that would force her to speak against her will.

When arguing that Madonna “joyously embrace[s] the role of voiceless and self-denying heroine”

(189), Gitter flagrantly conflates voicelessness with self-denial and oppression, when, in fact, in this century of Oralism, the opposite is true for deaf people. In the context of nineteenth-century deaf history, the oppression of deaf people is located in speaking not in speechlessness. Gitter’s desire to attend to “the role that gender imagery and values” have played in the nineteenth- century sign language debates (179) is certainly an important goal. However, in attempting to equate speech and voice with agency and independence – a common phonocentric approach to power inequalities – while describing Oralism, Gitter has misconstrued the relationship between speech, gender and deafness in the nineteenth century. Gitter’s approach perpetuates Oralism under the guise of feminism. Where speechlessness may represent a lack of power in hearing

Original Deaf-Blind girl (2001), Gitter explains her rationale for her book as follows: “I tell her story now so that Laura, silenced in life and forgotten by history, can at last have her say” (9). This is certainly a strange and phonocentric way of describing why Gitter writes about Laura Bridgman. To open her book, Gitter explains that after Bridgman’s illness at age two that left her deaf and blind, and “cut off from the sights and sounds of the outside world, deficient in language, and lacking an image of her own face, she can have little sense of an active, conscious self, a self that can share in the world of other people, a self that can tell its own tale. She does not know her name” (4). Again, Gitter seems to conflate personhood with the ability to “tell one’s own tale” and ignores Laura’s other sensory experiences including her full use of all her senses until the age of two. Furthermore, Gitter suggests here that subjectivity depends on linguistic communication with others or on knowing one’s name, which is an ableist way of approaching subjectivity. Gitter also refers to Laura Bridgman in all of her writing as “Laura” while she refers to other people by the standard academic practice of using their last name. For example, Gitter always refers to Samuel Howe, the other main figure of this book as “Howe.” This patronizing diminutive reflects what I see as Gitter’s problematic approach to the history of Laura Bridgman and to the larger issue of Deaf history and Disability studies —an approach buttressed by pity, audism, and a misguided form of feminism that exists at the expense of deafness. 156 culture, it is audist to assume that the same is true in deaf culture. In this novel, Madonna’s

agency is most fervently exercised when she refuses to speak.

Gitter is not alone in using voice as a metaphor for agency. As Ivan Krielkamp notes, the equation of speech with power or agency has a long history in various critical traditions including

Marxist, Feminist, and Critical Race studies. Like Krielkamp, I am critical of “novel criticism as vocal recovery” (17). In considering canonical feminist texts in Victorian literary criticism, including Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, Krielkamp suggests that this metaphor of women’s voices as resistance to patriarchal power “reveals the enduring link between vocal expression and the full possession of language which stands as the sign of individual autonomy. Literary language, figured as voice, is taken to stand as the sign of the entry of the marginalized into effective agency” (16).79 Krielkamp notes that “most of the pioneer

work of feminist literary criticism sought to recover what were persistently identified in a

metaphor that became almost invisible, as suppressed female voices” (15). This invisible

metaphor is rendered strikingly visible, however, when it is used in the context of deaf women.

Krielkamp argues that while “many of the most consequential accounts of the English novel over

the past several decades have depended on an unexamined thematics of voice,” literary studies

should relinquish this reliance on speech as a metaphor for the agency of the marginalized (17).

In her introduction to the Oxford edition of Hide and Seek, Catherine Peters, like Gitter,

employs this “unexamined thematics of voice.” She argues that Collins’s interest in

marginalization of all kinds is expressed through his “apparent obsession with varied forms of

physical and psychological handicap and deformity” (ix). She then continues to use deafness and

muteness as metaphors in order to describe Collins’s concern with marginalized peoples. Peters

also uses deafness as a metaphor of morality when she argues that the novel is “an indignant

157 attack on the deafness of early Victorian bourgeois society…to the cries for help, understanding

and pity of those who are in one way or another on the margin of that society” (viii-ix). Peters

fails to recognize that using disabilities as metaphors for moral failings is extraordinarily

problematic because it aligns physical difference with negative qualities and therefore denigrates

disabilities. Peters’s representations of disability are almost exclusively negative. This approach

to Hide and Seek is especially inappropriate as there is no evidence that Collins himself meant to

use Madonna’s deafness as a metaphor for her character or the character of those around her.

Collins’s approach to deafness could best be described as an admittedly problematic

romanticization of deafness, which belies the interpretation Peters promotes of deafness as the

bourgeoisie’s willful ignorance of the plight of others. Deafness is not attended by negative

connotations in Hide and Seek, and Madonna is, in all respects, an admirable character.

Furthermore, Peters argues that this novel “marked [Collins’s] first discovery of a way to give a

voice to the dumb. The ‘hiding’ and ‘seeking’ of an illegitimate girl whose plight was

symbolized by her inability to speak was an appropriate beginning” (ix). Because Madonna’s

refusal to speak is an act of personal agency that is endorsed by the novel, I do not agree with

Peters that Madonna’s “plight” is symbolized by the fact that she does not speak.

However, there is some indication in this novel that in a very literal way Madonna’s lack

of speech prevents her from taking an active part in her story. As I noted, Madonna, while

ostensibly the heroine of Hide and Seek, very rarely communicates for herself in the text and

plays a very small role in the events of the novel. Madonna’s minor involvement seems especially

noticeable when we compare Madonna to Collins’s later character Lucilla Finch from Poor Miss

Finch. While each character has a sensory impairment, the barrier it poses to their integration in

the novel is extraordinarily different. While Collins clearly aligned Lucilla and Madonna by

79 For further reading on the use of voice as a metaphor for agency, see Krielkamp 14-7 and 210. 158 explicitly comparing them both to Raphael’s Madonnas in their respective novels, only in

Madonna’s case does the passivity and virginity suggested by the comparison hold. Collins writes that “the shape of [Madonna’s] head and face, and especially her habitual expression, reminded all beholders at once, and irresistibly, of that image of softness, purity, and feminine gentleness which has been engraven on all civilized memories by the ‘Madonna’s of Raphael” (51). In Poor

Miss Finch, Madame Pratolungo is immediately struck with Lucilla’s resemblance to the

Madonnas:

As she approached me, nearer and nearer, I was irresistibly reminded of the gem of that

superb collection [at the Dresden Picture Gallery] – the matchless Virgin of Raphael

called the “Madonna di San Sisto.” The fair broad forehead; the peculiar fullness of the

flesh between the eyebrow and the eyelid; the delicate outline of the lower face; the

tender, sensitive lips; the colour of the complexion and the hair – all reflected, with a

startling fidelity, the lovely creature of the Dresden picture. (13)

While Madonna and Lucilla similarly resemble Raphael’s Madonnas, in every other way they are represented remarkably differently. The effect of this difference is that Lucilla becomes an actual heroine of her story while Madonna remains in the background of the narrative.

Lucilla is truly the main character in Poor Miss Finch. She is self-confident, active, and extraordinarily involved in the events that surround her. She speaks for herself and is quoted at great lengths throughout the novel by the novel’s narrator, Madame Pratolungo. At the end of the novel, Lucilla happily regains her blindness after temporarily being able to see, marries the man she loves, and has two children. As Holmes notes, this ending is extraordinary when compared to typical melodramatic representations of disabled women in Victorian fiction:

The most sensational thing about this novel may be how conventional a heroine Lucilla

Finch finally is. Her transformation into a married mother from a single, financially

159 independent woman who wanders into town alone and meets strange men can be read as

a retrenchment to a familiar ideology of woman and domesticity…. Given the climate of

anxiety and suspicion about disability and reproduction… a “domestic” story about a

blind woman having babies is a real Victorian sensation. (89)

Holmes underscores the irony of the comparison of Lucilla to a Raphael Madonna since Lucilla

marries and has biological children by the end of the novel. However, as I have noted, this is not

the case for the shy and retiring Madonna who ends the novel ensconced safely in her family

home.

Madonna’s shyness and Lucilla’s confidence are explicitly linked to their sensory

impairment. In Hide and Seek, Madonna typically hides herself in Lavvie Blyth’s chambers when visitors come to the house and is shy of strangers. She also dresses conservatively in grey

“Quaker-like attire” with little ornament (48). Lucilla, on the other hand, is her own mistress and frequently ventures from her home and encounters strangers alone. Lucilla is also very forward with Oscar Nugent and often acts in a fashion that might be accused of violating propriety. In explaining these peculiarities in Lucilla’s character, Collins, ever the critic of bourgeois hypocrisy, promotes a theory of social behavior tied to specularity:

It showed me that the virtue called Modesty (I am not speaking of Decency, mind) is a

virtue of purely artificial growth; and that the successful cultivation of it depends in the

first instance, not on the influence of the tongue, but on the influence of the eye….

Modesty is essentially the growth of our own consciousness of the eyes of others judging

us – and that blindness is never bashful, for the one simple reason that blindness cannot

see. (59)

Lucilla’s defiance of social decorum in her interactions with strange men is not a moral failing but instead a mark of her innocence and her existence outside of the specular norms of modest

160 feminine behavior. Conversely, Madonna, who is always watching others and is aware that she is also always being looked at, is rather over-modest in her appearance and social interactions. It is

Lucilla’s forwardness that permits her to become acquainted with the man she admires and to encourage his attentions and his marriage proposal. On the other hand, Madonna’s frequently- invoked reticence and embarrassment often prevent her from being more direct with Zack about her feelings for him. While this modesty means that Madonna is in all respects an admirable and idealized heroine, she is also a heroine who does not play a central role in the events of her life.

The character of Lucilla, on the other hand, was widely criticized by contemporary reviewers of

Poor Miss Finch. Quoting the reviewer from the Spectator, Peters notes that reviewers objected to how

Lucilla did not conform to the stereotype of nobility and spirituality expected of a blind

heroine. “Lucilla’s story is one continuous history of feverish love and uncontrolled self-

will…She is almost incapable of the smallest self-restraint…a more unspiritual character

than Lucilla’s, disciplined as it should have been by a lifelong trial of the gravest kind, it

would be difficult to conceive.” The reviewers all disliked the heroine. (xv)

In both Poor Miss Finch and Hide and Seek, Collins sought to depict disabled characters realistically rather than melodramatically. However, by idealizing Madonna into the perfect model of modest womanhood, Collins somehow deprives her of a personality and of any desire to intervene in the events of her life. The bile of the reviewers aimed at Poor Miss Finch, on the other hand, signal how, in creating a blind character who was not flawless, who was not coninually retiring, patient, and pure, Collins was able to push the boundaries of realistic representations of disabled heroines. The gendered and social dimensions of the sensory difference between Lucilla and Madonna clearly posit Madonna as an ideal, but a dull ideal, who is always hovering in the background of her own life story. But there are other reasons for

161 Madonna’s small role in Hide and Seek. I would like to turn now to the generic conventions of the Victorian novel, conventions to which a blind heroine poses no complications but into which a deaf heroine can be difficult to incorporate.

“Violat[ing] the rules of ‘speech’ in the novel”: Writing Signs Reviewers, who generally admired Madonna as a character, did notice her lack of involvement in the narrative of her life. An unsigned review of Hide and Seek from Bentley’s

Miscellany ambiguously notes Madonna’s secondariness to the narrative: “’The idea of

[Madonna] is conceived with skill, and has several traits of originality, though she cannot play a very prominent part, from her position and physical deficiencies’” (quoted in Page 59). What exactly does this reviewer mean by Madonna’s “position”? Is the reviewer suggesting that

Madonna’s lack of speech excludes her from “play[ing]” a very prominent part in the conventional Victorian novel? Or is he or she actually suggesting that deaf people’s lack of speech excludes them from taking part in the events of life? Either way, the reviewer does note the important fact here that as readers we do not really see much of her nor “hear” the story from

Madonna’s own perspective although she is ostensibly the heroine of the novel.

The primary issue facing a novelist writing about a deaf heroine is how to represent her communication in the medium of print according to novelistic conventions. Various critics including Davis and Krielkamp have noted the novel’s reliance on printed “speech.” The pages of

Victorian novels, in particular, are littered with quotation marks. Unlike, for example, the epistolary tradition of many eighteenth-century novels, the Victorian novel is a genre that relies heavily on printed dialogue. First, there are the various constructions of the narrator as speaker – including Thackeray’s puppet-master in Vanity Fair and Dickens’s fireside narrator in Hard

Times – that Krielkamp has examined in his Voice and the Victorian Storyteller. However, the other essential “voice” of the text belongs to its characters. Krielkamp argues that, 162 Victorian Print culture grants special authority to forms of writing that pay homage to, or

even pass themselves off as, transcriptions of that voice whose death knell was

supposedly sounded by print. Affect, no longer primarily generated, as in eighteenth-

century novels, by an exchange of confidences through letters or the revelation of private

journals, instead becomes the product of vocal exchange. Speech, increasingly, becomes

the sign of the human and the humane. (6)

Rather than novels reproducing other forms of writing, as was more common in eighteenth- century novels, the Victorian novels, according to Krielkamp, participate in a new cultural drive to “pass themselves off as … transcriptions of … voice” (6). The vocal exchange that Krielkamp recognizes as foundational to the Victorian novel is another cause of the dearth of deaf characters who sign instead of speak. Krielkamp argues: “with Pitman’s invention of the phonographic shorthand system in 1837 the Victorian period was inaugurated with a new mandate to use print to capture, transcribe and simulate voice” (32). A deaf character’s communication cannot be represented in the typical written dialogue that presents itself as a “transcription” of speech, and therefore the decisions a writer makes in presenting that character’s communications reveal the fraught relationship between oral speech, printed “dialogue,” and the written novel.

Strangely enough, the absolutely central role that dialogue plays in the Victorian novel is used by John Kitto as an analogy to explain to his readers the barriers facing a deaf person in daily life. In Collins’s source text, Lost Senses, Kitto uses a Dickens novel with its dialogue erased as metaphor for deafness. This analogy demonstrates how heavily the Victorian novel, as well as Victorian society, relies on speech for communication and information:

a thousand distinguishing traits of individual character, must needs be lost to one who is

unable to catch up the forms and habits of expression which are as identifying and as

characteristic as the personal manner and the countenance. To illustrate this deficiency

163 and the sense of privation which it conveys, I may ask the reader whether in the stories of

Mr. Dickens, the numerous characters are not identified and fixed in the mind more by

their manner of speech than, as characters, by the descriptions of their conduct and

personal appearance? It cannot be denied that their talk goes far to make up the idea

which we form of those characters. But the deaf student of living character, is in precisely

the same case as would be the student of characters of Boz, who should be acquainted

with no other copy of the tales, than one in which all the talk is blotted out. (151-2)

A Victorian novel with all “the talk…blotted out” would be a thin shell of narrative interjections

that suffered from a lack of critical character and plot details. According to Kitto, novelists use

dialogue rather than actions or exposition for characterization. However, if this printed speech is

so essential to characterization and plot, how can a non-speaking character be incorporated into

the main action of a novel? Where do signing deaf characters fit in a genre that is informed by an

economy of (written) speech?

Like most Victorian novels, Hide and Seek uses the written representation of speech to create a character and indicate his or her class and regional identity in the narrative. The dialogue of Mrs. Peckover, of the circus, is rendered to capture her class dialect. She says “inferlenzer” in opposition to middle-class Lavvie’s use of “influenza” (160). Mrs. Peckover also calls

Valentine’s classically themed paintings “picter[s]” (160). While this stratifying of characters by class and region according to their speech is a marked feature of most Victorian novels, this technique can pose complications for the narrative direction of a novel. George Eliot, noted for her attempts to realistically transpose spoken dialect into her writing, expressed the difficulties in balancing narrative coherence with a realistic representation of speech. She wrote in a letter, “[i]t must be borne in mind that my inclination to be as close as I could to the rendering of dialect,

164 both in words and spelling, was constantly checked by the artistic duty of being generally intelligible” (qtd. in Eliot 217).

Like Eliot, Collins attempts to balance some notion of printed aural and oral fidelity with the demands of his complicated narrative. However, Collins’s efforts to retain “speech” in his writing often result in narrative paradoxes: the novel elides various shifts between speakers, temporal periods, and modes of communication. One marked example of this conflict is Mrs.

Peckover’s improbable parroting of Madonna’s doctor in standard English. When Mrs. Peckover first narrates Madonna’s history for Valentine Blyth and his friends, she switches dialects and speech patterns completely when she quotes others, as though she, like Collins, seeks realism in depicting speech. One striking example occurs when she describes Madonna’s attendance by two doctors:

“her hearing is completely gone; the experiment with my watch proves it. I had an

exactly similar case with the mason’s boy,”80 he says, turning to the other doctor. “The

shock of that fall has, I believe, paralysed the auditory nerve in her, as it did in him.” I

remember those words exactly, sir, though I didn’t quite understand them at the time.

But he explained himself to me very kindly; telling me over again, in a plain way, what

he’d just told the doctor. (97)

Mrs. Peckover mimics the Doctor’s rhetoric and employs his vocabulary even though she plainly acknowledges her confusion over this medical discourse. The contrast between dialogue like

“paralysed the auditory nerve” and Mrs. Peckover’s ungrammatical insertion of “he says” foregrounds the improbability of Mrs. Peckover’s perfect retention of the Doctor’s speech.

Instead of repeating what the Doctor said “in a plain way,” Mrs. Peckover repeats the Doctor’s original speech, which Collins has her awkwardly explain away by stating that she “remember[s]

165 those words exactly…though [she] didn’t quite understand them at the time.” Somehow Mrs.

Peckover’s memory serves her with such accuracy that she can suddenly speak with the

vocabulary of a doctor and the pronunciation of standard English. This happens again when Mrs.

Peckover tells Blyth about the letter that Mary’s mother’s family sent to Mrs. Peckover

explaining that they wanted no further contact with Mary. Mrs. Peckover is conveniently able to

quote the absent letter verbatim. These somewhat ridiculous moments in the text signal the

importance of dialogue to the narrative. In some ways, Mrs. Peckover authorizes the information

through speaking it. We might imagine more elegant ways to incorporate a Doctor’s diagnosis or

Mary’s aunt’s letter into the novel, including, for example, a narrative interjection or a

reproduction of the written words of the letter. However, in this novel, as in so many other

Victorian novels, stories are principally narrated through speech.

My argument about the speech-focused paradigm of the Victorian novel should not be

taken to suggest that forms of writing have been entirely eliminated from the narrative. In novels

of sensation and detection, especially, where hard evidence and the testimony of various

witnesses are essential, written artifacts do play a key role in the narrative. However, even within

these written artifacts, printed speech or dialogue predominates. For example, the narrators of

other Collins novels, including The Woman in White and Poor Miss Finch, depend heavily on the

written testimony of other characters to narrate events in the story that occur when the narrator is

absent from the main action of the text. In The Woman in White, Walter Hartright depends on

Marian Halcombe’s diary to relate the events that transpire while he is away on his expedition.

Her diary is essentially printed verbatim, and she improbably quotes large swathes of dialogue in her diary. For example, on the night before Marian becomes ill, she eavesdrops on Sir Percival and Count Fosco’s diabolical plans (289- 302). As she begins to listen to their conversation, she

80 This is a nod to Kitto’s Lost Senses. Kitto was the son of a mason who became deaf from a fall. 166 also notes “From this point forward, with certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed breathlessly in the conversation and I followed it word for word” (290). She then returns to her room and copies the conversation “word for word” including quotation marks and an exact representation of each speaker’s vocabulary and particular speech patterns. Collins attempts to explain the awkwardness and improbability of this matter by noting at various times in the novel that Marian has an excellent memory. Collins also tries to lend some realism and a sense of immediacy to this particular diary entry by having Marian comment upon beginning to feel ill, having her writing style change, reproducing the dashes and gaps that appear as she succumbs to her illness, and finally by inserting Walter Hartright’s note that “at this place the entry in the

Diary ceases to be legible. The two or three lines which follow contain fragments of words only, mingled with blots and scratches of the pen” (302).

In Poor Miss Finch, Collins also relies on diary entries and other written transcriptions of dialogue as part of the narrative framework. Because Madame Pratolungo is absent during important events in the story, she relies on Lucilla Finch’s diary to enlighten her readers. While she is sighted, Lucilla keeps a journal of the events in her life. However, within this written text, she too, like Marian Holcombe, simply transcribes dialogue. She records, word for word, the conversations that she takes part in and overhears. What these moments of journalistic transcription signal is that even when written texts are incorporated into novels, they often still retain the desire to transcribe speech. While, on one hand, it does seem surprising that Collins did not rely more heavily on written texts in Hide and Seek in order to permit Madonna to participate more fully in the narrative, on the other hand, if the written texts in Victorian novels are essentially only transcriptions of others people’s conversation, they are still inaccessible to

Madonna.

167 Clearly writing that masquerades as speech dominates Victorian novelistic narrative.

However, if speech, as Kitto noted in reference to Dickens’s novels, is so essential to denoting character, what does this mean for the representation of a signer in fiction? How can a writer denote this signing character if he or she does not have access to the words the character speaks?

For one thing, the fact that Madonna does not speak means that her speech cannot mark her class affiliation. Her silence therefore eases her transition from a family that says “inflerenzer” to a family that says “influenza.” Madonna says neither, and in this novel, which is invested in the information that can be gained from speech, Madonna exists outside of the hegemony of orality.

The only scene in the entire novel where the reader witnesses Madonna speaking takes place as soon as she becomes deaf. Madonna says, “Why are you always so quiet here? Why doesn’t somebody speak to me?” (93). Madonna is then told of her deafness by the doctor who writes

“you are deaf” on a piece of paper for Madonna to read. We never again encounter Madonna’s speech in the novel. The only words Madonna ever speaks may signal Collins’s interest in the role of speech in this novel that is, in many respects, “so quiet.” It is a novel where nobody

“speaks” to the heroine. While this initially seems progressive, Collins does not seem to follow through on creating a realistic representation of a signing deaf character. It is almost as though if

Madonna does not communicate through speech, Collins cannot imagine how to represent her communications.

Despite the progressiveness of Collins’s choice to create a signing deaf character, there are serious barriers to Madonna’s effective integration in the novel. While Madonna can write on her slate, we see her writing only once in the novel. And while Madonna uses signs and fingerspelling to communicate with other characters in the novel, these communications are very seldom reported. In fact, while Madonna is ostensibly the heroine of this novel, she plays a very marginal role in the action. As I noted, we rarely read Madonna’s direct communications and she

168 is often a still figure who fades into the background of the novel. Instead, most of what we know

about Madonna’s thoughts and feelings are related by the narrator who ventriloquizes Madonna’s

body. I borrow this idea of narrative ventriloquism from Athena Vrettos who uses the term in

Somatic Fictions: Imagining Illness in Victorian Culture. Vrettos suggests that in Hospital

Sketches, Louisa May Alcott, in tending to a wounded civil war soldier, “provides hypothetical dialogue substituting her own imaginative speech for the patient’s silence” (31). I will modify

Vrettos’s concept of ventriloquism here because while Madonna is speechless, she is not incapable of linguistic communication. The narrator of Hide and Seek does not create an imaginative dialogue for a character who is unconscious, but instead turns Madonna’s thoughts and actions into an imagined spoken dialogue even though she can communicate for herself through signs and writing.

There is a seminal moment in the novel that captures the strange dynamic between the narrator’s ventriloquism and Madonna’s own communications. In one of the few moments in the novel where Madonna is quoted directly, she has just received a compliment from Zack on her drawing. Madonna “signed these words in reply: -- ‘I am afraid it ought to be a much better drawing than it is. Do you really like it?’” (129). Collins faces the narrative difficulty of representing a signed alphabet or a signed language in written English and chooses to place his interpretation of Madonna’s spelling in quotation marks as though she has spoken. However, after

Madonna communicates her thoughts here, Collins writes, “What was Madonna thinking of? If she had been willing and able to utter her thoughts, she might have expressed them thus: ‘I wonder whether he likes my drawing…’” (129). It is here that Collins moves beyond the role of interpreter towards the position of ventriloquist by putting words that Madonna has not uttered into her mouth. We have just witnessed how Madonna is perfectly capable of expressing her thoughts but immediately after she has done so, Collins writes over her. He imagines dialogue

169 emerging from her thoughts to invalidate what she has just communicated through sign.

Importantly, he does not simply describe what Madonna was thinking at this time, but instead places those thoughts into spoken dialogue and suggests that Madonna is incapable of “uttering” them. Why does Collins call Madonna’s linguistic ability into question? Why cannot Collins allow Madonna’s signing to stand without writing over it in spoken dialogue? Collins seems to be calling the sufficiency of sign as a method of “utterance” into question.

Collins is extraordinarily self-conscious throughout the novel about the issues that

Madonna’s lack of speech pose for him as a writer. For instance, when Madonna is first introduced in the novel, Collins writes,

Socially, we may be all easily divided into two classes in this world – at least in the

civilized part of it. If we are not the people whom others talk about, then we are sure to

be the people who talk about others. The young lady who had just entered Mr Blyth’s

painting-room, belonged to the former order of human beings. She seemed fated to be

used as a constant subject of conversation by her fellow creatures. (48)

The narrator of Hide and Seek articulates not only Madonna’s position in a world of speech but also the difficulty facing the narrator of a novel about a deaf woman. Not only is Madonna not part of the group of people who talk about others, she is not part of the group of people who talk at all. Madonna writes and Madonna signs but she does not speak. According to the narrator’s binary, Madonna is “fated to be used as the constant subject of conversation for her fellow creatures,” one of whom is the narrator of this novel. Because Madonna does not speak, her actual dialogue cannot be quoted in the body of the novel, as it is for every other character.

Madonna does not tell her own story here, in fact, she does not even know her own story, until the end of the novel when she and the reader both discover her sad family history.

170 While Madonna’s refusal to speak is never explicitly constructed as a failing, Collins does draw attention to the challenges that Madonna’s speechlessness poses for him as a writer.

After describing Madonna’s physical appearance, the narrator explains,

On now entering the studio, she walked up to Valentine, laid a hand lightly on each of his

shoulders, and so lifted herself to be kissed on the forehead. Then she looked down on his

palette, and observing that some colours were still missing from it, began to search for

them directly in the painting-box. She found them in a moment, and appealed to Mr

Blyth with an arch look of enquiry and triumph…At the same time, Mr Blyth, who saw

the direction taken with her eyes, handed to her a port-crayon with some black

chalk….She took it with a little mock curtsey, pouting her lip slightly, as if drawing the

Venus was work not much to her taste – smiled when she saw Valentine shaking his

head, and frowning comically at her – then went away at once to the drawing board. (52)

This extended description of Madonna’s gestures, facial expressions, and actions allows the narrator to reveal Madonna’s thoughts and feelings without her articulating them explicitly. The narrator awkwardly interprets all of Madonna’s movements for the reader; for example the narrator indicates that Madonna pouts her lip “as if drawing the Venus was work not much to her taste.” Later, when describing Valentine’s early meetings with Madonna, the narrator explains,

“at that moment, the expression of [Madonna’s] sad and lovely little face seemed to say—‘You look as if you wanted to be kind to me; I wish you could find out some way of telling me of it’”

(69). Not only does the narrator act as interpreter, but this interpretation is also placed into spoken

English dialogue so that Madonna’s facial expression actually has a voice that can speak to

Valentine and to the reader. It is the expression of Madonna’s face that “seemed to say – ‘You look as if you wanted to be kind to me.’” The “voice” of her expression is placed within quotation marks as though Madonna were actually speaking rather than the narrator inferring her

171 feelings. This use of “seemed to say” as a way to give Madonna’s physical body dialogue is used frequently throughout the novel.

But why does Madonna need to “seem to say” anything? Why does Madonna so seldom communicate for herself outside of Collins’s ventriloquism? If Madonna is entirely capable of communicating in writing and signs, why does Collins so seldom allow her to “speak for herself”? I would like to suggest that the novel’s reliance on dialogue as a marker of communication, expression, and perhaps even subjectivity, means that Collins may believe that

Madonna’s communications in sign are not sufficiently linguistic, nor sufficiently present, (to invoke Derrida’s explanation of phonocentrism) for his desire to create a deaf character. Derrida explains that in a phonocentric paradigm, subjectivity is tied to voice as self-presence and so a lack of speech can seem to suggest a lack of subjecthood. Collins therefore struggles with how to create Madonna’s subjectivity outside of vocal communication. To do so, he imagines spoken dialogue emerging from her facial expression and physical gestures instead of simply attending to the way that deaf people communicate through signs. As Davis has noted about another writer,

Collins “has to face the dilemma of how to represent signing in a medium that authorizes the scriptable” (Davis 21). Collins’s answer to this dilemma seems to be a strange conflation of writing, gesture and speech.

Collins does self-consciously address the fact that he is writing communication anew in this novel. For example, after the passage where Madonna enters Valentine’s studio and “pouts her lip slightly” at having to draw the Venus, the narrator self-consciously draws attention to the lack of dialogue that appears in the scene:

Ever since Madonna has been in the room, not one word has she spoken to Valentine;

and not one word has Valentine (who can talk glibly enough to himself) spoken to her.

He never said “good morning,” when he kissed her – or “Thank you for finding my lost

172 colours,” – or, “I have set the Venus, my dear, for your drawing lesson today.” And she,

woman as she is, has actually not asked him a single question since she entered the

studio! What can this absolute and remarkable silence mean between two people who

look as affectionately on each other as these two look, every time their eyes meet! Is this

one of the Mysteries of the painter’s fireside? Who is Madonna? What is her real name

besides Mary? Is it Mary Blyth? (52)

In this passage, Collins mobilizes deafness – and gendered stereotypes of voluble women – as

part of the sensational machinery of the novel. Madonna’s inability to speak is exploited by

Collins to pique the interest of his reader and intensify the suspense of the novel. Furthermore, in

this scene, Collins extends his ventriloquizing into direct dialogue rather than his earlier

constructions of “as if she.” In this strange narrative moment, the narrator quotes what Valentine and Madonna did not say to each other. It is here that Collins explicitly demonstrates his recognition that he is altering the conventions of Victorian storytelling. In other novels, and elsewhere in this novel, Collins’s characters would certainly wish each other “Good morning” and their dialogue would be essential to the narrative. However, because Collins creates a main character who does not speak, he must invent new ways of developing the narrative and

Madonna’s character

One important objection to my argument that the conventions of the Victorian novel do not easily permit Collins to represent a deaf heroine would be to invoke the established convention of describing bodies communicating in Victorian fiction. After all, Victorian novelists are adept at creating meaningful descriptions of the physical body including its physiognomic resonances, its visual appearance, and its gestures and physical movements. Could not this rhetoric of “body language,” firmly entrenched as a Victorian novelistic convention, be applied to describing an actual linguistic form of body language? After all, Victorian novels constantly

173 project interpretation onto bodies during silent moments in the text. Why not simply quote these bodies directly in their linguistic communication? While co-opting and modifying the Victorian conventional rhetoric of body language in order to describe signing seems to be a potential way to script the unscriptable, Collins does not take advantage of joining the verbal to the corporeal in a literal way. Collins does attend at length, as I have noted, to Madonna’s body language, but he is never able to join that discourse to the actual linguistic communication of her hands. He attends to her body language generally but rarely her specific language of the body. While there are

Victorian novelistic conventions for representing speech, and for representing the body, Collins seems unable to imagine a way to join the conventions in order to give the body linguistic sophistication. For Collins, speech seems to be the model of human communication and only through giving Madonna’s body “speech” rather than sign can he imagine her as a communicating subject. While Collins focuses on physiognomy and body language throughout the novel, their presence seems to be to the detriment of representing signing.

While sign is largely absent from the novel, body language plays a key role. The novel frequently underscores Madonna’s skill at interpreting physical body language. For example, at

Madonna and Valentine’s first meeting, during her performance in the circus, they become mesmerized by each other. When Madonna looks at Valentine seated in the audience, the narrator asks,

[w]as there something in the eager sympathy of his eyes as they met hers, which spoke to

the little lonely heart in the sole language that could ever reach it? Did the child, with the

quick instinct of the deaf and dumb, read his compassionate disposition, his pity and

longing to help her in his expression at the moment? (62)

While the narrator poses these points as questions, and even answers that “[I]t might have been so” (62), these points are really the foundation on which the entire novel is built. Throughout the

174 novel, Madonna and Valentine communicate with their eyes and read each other’s faces instead of speaking with, and hearing, voices. However, this form of body language is certainly not “the sole language” that could reach Madonna. Despite the fact Madonna is able to write and to sign, the novel focuses mainly on non-linguistic communications between bodies.

The “quick instinct” of deaf people to read the physiognomies of other people is a common nineteenth-century claim, one that Collins encountered in Kitto’s Lost Senses. Kitto argues, “it is true that, in a certain sense, everyone who is deaf must become a physiognomist”

(61). Kitto constructs this as an “intuitive” skill rather than a “scientific” one: “he may not know the distinct meaning which a Lavater might assign to every particular feature, not may be able to detect the significance which a Spurzheim would discover in the proportionate development of the ‘basilar’ and ‘sincipital’ regions of the head” (61), but the deaf physiognomist is remarkably accurate nonetheless (62). Martineau also makes this point in her “Letter to the Deaf.” This letter is rife with denigrations of deafness but claims a few privileges, namely that “we are good physiognomists – good perceivers in every way, and have (if we are not idle) rather the advantage over others in the power of abstract reasoning” (179). For both Martineau and Kitto, one of the compensations of deafness is a superiority in visual sensitivity and judgment.

When the novel celebrates Madonna’s ability with physiognomic discrimination it echoes

Kitto’s description of the skill as intuitive rather than scientific:

Her first impression of strangers seemed invariably to decide her opinion of them…. She

could never give any satisfactory account of how she proceeded in forming her opinions

of others. The only visible means of arriving at them, which her deafness and dumbness

permitted her to use, consisted simply in examination of a stranger’s manner, expression

and play of features at a first interview….and in more than one instance events proved

that her judgment has not been misled. (119-20)

175 In a novel of sensation and detection, this remarkable deaf-specific ability is not only valued but also serves as a guide for the reader. Like Madonna, the reader also cannot hear the words being

“spoken” within the dialogue of the novel. For the reader, understanding the characters of the novel and what they are saying is also a visual enterprise. The Blyths, who are often surprised at who Madonna likes and dislikes, rely on her impressions as a barometer of an individual’s character. The narrator explains

Sometimes the very person who was thought certain to be attractive to her, proved to be

absolutely repulsive to her -- Sometimes, people, who in Mr. Blyth’s opinion, were sure

to be unwelcome visitors to Madonna, turned out, incomprehensibly, to be people whom

she took a violent liking to directly. (119)

For instance, Valentine seeks Madonna’s impressions of Mat, who Madonna accepts warmly as

“a prime favorite at first sight” (330) despite his “rough and tough” appearance.

Madonna’s physiognomic prowess is an essential part of this sensational novel because of its ability to separate appearance from reality. Vrettos explains that in Victorian culture,

the interpretation of bodies became an important form of social cartography. This desire

was instituted in “sciences” such as physiognomy, phrenology and anthropometry, each

of which measured the contours of the human body in an attempt to provide predictive

knowledge of interior identity. (8)

Madonna is a Victorian social cartographer extraordinaire. Hide and Seek is a novel where, as in most sensation fiction, appearances mask interiors. The pious hypocrisy of Zack’s father and the goodness of the “savage” and strange looking Mat are equally misleading. However, Madonna is the one character who can visually “measur[e] the contours of the human body” as a “predictive” tool. Flint suggests that this ability of Madonna’s “is implicitly predicated upon the soundness of physiognomy as a tool for uncovering what lies beyond vision: even if Madonna is not mistaken

176 in her judgments, other novelists (and one might instance George Eliot) would be quick to point

to the dangers of such credulous readings of surfaces” (158). While Flint is absolutely correct

that Collins seems to naïvely endorse the pseudo-science of physiognomy, it is also important to

note that he is attempting to reflect realistically the abilities that many nineteenth-century deaf

people believed they possessed. Like Martineau and Kitto, and the deaf poets I discuss in chapter

one, Collins suggests that Madonna’s inability to hear is compensated for by her superior powers

of observation and judgment. Furthermore, this judgment serves to guide other characters in the

novel as well as its readers.

This emphasis on how Madonna is differently-abled rather than dis-abled is essential to

Collins’s construction of a deaf heroine. Compensation is a key concept in Collins’s goal of

portraying disability realistically rather than sentimentally.81 In a note to Hide and Seek, he writes: “I do not know that any attempt has yet been made in English fiction to draw the character of a ‘Deaf Mute,’ simply and exactly after nature – or, in other words, to exhibit the peculiar effects produced by the loss of the senses of hearing and speaking on the person so afflicted”

(431). These “peculiar effects” of deafness on Madonna’s character are woven throughout the novel and are generally borrowed from Kitto’s personal observations in Lost Senses. Flint points out that Kitto himself argues that “there is no recovery, no adequate compensation…for such a loss as was on that day sustained.” What is fascinating, however, is that Collins deviates from his source and indicates that there are many adequate compensations for, and recoveries from, the loss of hearing. Collins explains that Madonna’s orientation is mainly visual, and in fact, that she has superior visual abilities because of her lack of hearing. The narrator spends some time explaining the pleasure Madonna derives from visual stimuli, especially from watching trees

81 Collins makes the same point about representing blindness realistically rather than sentimentally in Poor Miss Finch. 177 (120). While Madonna derives special pleasure from using her vision, she is also especially

uncomfortable when her vision is obscured, such as when she finds herself alone in a dark room

(121). These narrative explorations focus almost entirely on the positive gifts and abilities that

Madonna gains through being deaf. The narrator never suggests that Madonna is lacking in any

way but instead portrays her as better-abled visually than the hearing people around her. In this

way, Madonna’s abilities are simply different, rather than deficient, in comparison to hearing

people. Collins portrays Madonna in the way that deaf culture would later construct itself, as a

member of “‘the people of the eye’” (Baynton 10).82 As Holmes notes, Collins’s “own statements about representing disability have much more to do with an interest in antimelodrama and realism” (74).83

The main conflict within Collin’s representation of a deaf heroine is that while he seeks

to identify Madonna as a person of the eye, he effectively “silences” her in the text. While he

seems to be comfortable with representing the linguistic mode of speech and the non-linguistic

mode of body “language,” he is unable to tie the body to its own form of linguistic capability.

This is really where Madonna’s visual prowess is most important; she communicates visually.

Unfortunately, this visual language is not effectively mobilized in Hide and Seek. So, while

realism is Collins’s central aim, he is not entirely successful at representing a deaf woman’s

experience. While he captures some elements of her experience, like her visual orientation, he

82 This construction of deaf people as “the people of the eye” is a common one in contemporary Deaf Studies and Deaf Cultures. The quote comes from George Veditz, the President of the American National Association of the Deaf from 1907 to 1910. He defended signed language against Oralism arguing that deaf people, “are facing not a theory but a condition, for they are first, last, and all the time the people of the eye” (quoted in Baynton 10). Veditz was a vehement opponent of Oralism in America and one of his legacies was his creation of a series of films recording signers that still survive today. These films are some the earliest complete representations of American Sign Language as they were made in the early days of film technology. For more on the Veditz films see Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ Inside Deaf Culture. 83 See Holmes pages 89-93 for a fascinating analysis of the critical response to Collins’s attempts to write about disability in a realistic way. 178 omits entirely the principal difference of deafness: her visual language. Madonna’s body is present in the narrative, and the narrator ventriloquizes this body, but it is seldom allowed to communicate for itself.

Collins’s aims reached beyond a realistic representation of what it means to be deaf and how a deaf person might experience the world differently than a hearing person. He also attaches morality to his goals of realism. Collins asserts that he has a “moral purpose” in introducing characters like Madonna and Lavvie who bear “the heavier bodily afflictions” “with patience and cheerfulness” (431). Collins’s use of terms like “bodily affliction” and “human calamity” do, on one hand, mitigate the progressiveness of his approach to representing disabilities and difference.

However, his assertion that these “afflictions” are actually positive rather than negative tempers his use of conventional Victorian language in referring to disability. Collins’s interest in the effect of physical difference on personality, and his attention to the spectrum of human ability, that is, the lack of radical difference that separates “disabled” people from “abled” people, extended to most of his novels. In Poor Miss Finch, Collins expresses a similar object in writing about disability. In the dedication, he reveals a wish to “advocate” his personal view that “the conditions of human happiness are independent of bodily affliction, and that it is even possible for bodily affliction itself to take its place among the ingredients of happiness.” I would suggest that he is far more successful in this aim in his later novel. Lucilla clearly and frequently articulates how her blindness is essential to her happiness. For instance, she declares, “You will persist in thinking that my happiness depends on my sight, I look back at what I suffered when I had my sight – my one effort is to forget that miserable time…. Try to understand me and you won’t talk of my loss – You will talk of my gain” (418). Madonna, however, is never given the space to communicate how her experience of deafness is integral to her identity and her happiness. While Collins is able to improve on the portrayals of deafness that Martineau laments,

179 he never entirely reaches his goal of realism in part because of the conventions of the novel and in part, perhaps, because of his own inability to recognize and represent how fully body can communicate consciously and linguistically through signs. His adherence to the model of speech as communication limited his realistic depiction of a deaf heroine.

Through attending to Collins’s depiction of Madonna in Hide and Seek, I have argued that the reason for the dearth of Victorian deaf heroines is based on a deaf woman’s relationship to language – to speech, to writing and to sign. The deaf heroine’s inability to hear the speech of her apparently hearing lover complicates the traditional Victorian courtship plot. The second issue of communication revolves around writing, and the novelist’s task of writing most specifically. While it seems somewhat contradictory to assert that the written text depends on spoken dialogue, it seems clear from the machinations and ventriloquisms that Collins undergoes in order to allow Madonna to communicate, that traditional Victorian novels – realist, sensational or otherwise – depend on large swathes of dialogue as part of the storytelling apparatus. A character who does not speak cannot easily be incorporated into the genre of the Victorian novel.

I would like to suggest that this reading of the only deaf heroine who appears in the massive population of Victorian disabled characters also underscores the importance of distinguishing between various disabilities in our critical approaches as scholars of the history of disability. Femininity, textuality, and deafness intersect in ways that are distinctive, as do, of course, all other forms of bodily difference. This points to the importance in disability studies of remaining attuned to the differences in cultural representations of different disabilities.

Furthermore, a deaf man or woman’s relationship to language –as a signer, speaker, or writer – is an important lens through which to consider disability in literature. Because the Victorian novel is a written genre that is heavily concerned with speech, or at least the representation of speech in

180 print, linguistic differences between deaf and hearing characters can powerfully reveal Victorian constructions of the relationship between textuality and corporeality.

181 Chapter 4 “A Deaf Variety of the Human Race”?: Sign Language, Deaf Marriage, and Utopic and Dystopic Visions of Deaf Communities

The previous chapters have each traced the particular nineteenth-century construction of signed languages as more embodied than spoken languages. I have argued that this perceived corporeality of sign was denigrated in various ways and was mobilized in Oralist incursions into deaf education and language use. While this chapter is buttressed by the previous chapters’ exploration of the construction of sign’s embodiedness, it treads new ground by considering the

Oralists’ construction of the dangerous relationship between signs and bodies in a more metaphorical fashion. The growth of eugenics played an enormous role in the tenor and direction of the nineteenth-century sign language debates. With Darwin’s theorization of species evolution arose the possibility that species could also devolve. This notion of degeneration, and the related growth of eugenics theory, was a foundational paradigm in the last decades of the nineteenth- century in Britain and North America. In this chapter, I argue that the growth of eugenicist thought in the final three decades of the nineteenth century led to an important shift in the Oralist construction of deafness. Where Oralists had previously understood deafness as an unfortunate obstacle to a deaf person’s spiritual, intellectual, social and economic success, post-eugenics, the threat of deafness spread beyond the deaf individual. Instead, deafness endangered the human race more generally in the form of the potential for the creation of a deaf variety of the human race through deaf marriage and deaf reproduction.

In this chapter, I locate this shift in the construction of deafness from private issue to public threat in the three interrelated areas: cultural constructions of signed languages, the deaf body and deaf community. I argue that political and discursive battles were waged between 182 Oralists who constructed these three elements – signed languages, the deaf body and deaf

community – as newly threatening to the hearing majority and therefore sought their elimination,

and deaf people who sought to protect these elements as essential to their identity and experience.

I therefore contend that the relationship between signed languages and human bodies that I trace

in this dissertation was invested with new and threatening power by eugenicist Oralists. Now

signed languages were understood as inferior not only because they were constructed as a

language of the body, but also because they had the potential to corrupt bodies, through enabling

deaf marriage and deaf children. Secondly, I argue that the intersection of Oralism and eugenics

fomented a new focus on the deaf body. Where Oralists had previously couched their opposition

to signed languages in their concern for the spiritual, intellectual, or economic well being of deaf

people, the growth of eugenics increasingly pathologized the deaf body itself, a process that is

now called “the medicalization of deafness.”84

Finally, I suggest that deaf community was a locus for these anxieties. Both utopic and

dystopic projections of deaf intermarriage and community existed in the intersection of deaf

bodies, languages, and cultures. Oralists constructed deaf community as a facilitator of deaf

intermarriage and deaf children. For Oralists, then, deaf communities, and the signed languages

that bonded them, engendered disability. On the other hand, most deaf people regarded

collectivity and the ability to gather with people who shared their language and culture as

enabling. For them, deaf community removed disabling barriers – a social-constructivist notion

which opposes the dominant construction of deaf people as disabled. For both the Deaf

community and the hearing Oralists who wished to eradicate it signed languages were key objects

84 The Canadian Association of the Deaf defines “the medicalization of deafness” as, the treatment of deafness as a defect that must be fixed at any cost…. Hearing society tends to consider deafness as a medical deficiency which must be "fixed" in order to restore the person to his/her "rightful place" in hearing society….Devices such as hearing-aids and cochlear implants, the imposition of oral training and speech-language therapy, and the promotion of English/French-based 183 of contention. Sign was considered either an emancipating tool of community and independence or as a threatening medium for transmitting physical defects.

This chapter will consider this shift from private issue to public threat through the lens of the cultural reception of deaf intermarriage in the second half of the nineteenth century. There was certainly a history of exploring deaf intermarriage and the possibilities of deaf offspring within the deaf community throughout the nineteenth century (Van Cleve, Genetics 31).

However, the growth of eugenics in the post-Darwin period radically changed the parameters and increased the urgency of this question. The public discussion of the issue of deaf

“intermarriage”85 was a significant element of the sign language debates as they took place in the decades after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859).86 The deaf marriage issue also became

sign systems are all part of this approach to deafness as an unacceptable sickness. (n.p.) 85 As Joseph J. Murray notes, there are two contradictory definitions for intermarriage in the Oxford English Dictionary. The first meaning of the term emphasizes sameness in the marriage: “marriage between persons (or interbreeding between animals) nearly related; consanguineous marriage or breeding.” The second meaning of the term, which is a “subset” of the first definition, emphasizes difference: “the marriage of persons of different families, castes, tribes, nations or societies, as establishing a connection between such families, etc.” (Murray 64). According to Murray, this second definition gained colonial connotations in the period from 1880 to 1900 when “the generally understood meaning of the word intermarriage in this time meant marriages between Europeans and non-European natives of colonial societies or between castes of non-European populations” (45). Murray notes that eugenicists like Bell, “referred to both the interbreeding of an inferior subset of the population and to marriages between members of an enclosed community” (46) and so used the sameness-focused valence of the term. Murray eschews the term “intermarriage” in favor of “Deaf-Deaf” marriage.” However, as the term “intermarriage” was the term used throughout the century’s debates by both deaf people and hearing people I maintain its use here when describing the debates. 86 The field of Disability Studies has become increasingly interested in the connection between evolutionary theory and social constructions of disability. Lennard Davis explains the relationship between Darwinism, eugenics and disability as follows: On the one hand Sir Frances Galton was cousin to Charles Darwin, whose notion of the evolutionary advantage of the fittest lays the foundation for eugenics and also for the idea of a perfectible body undergoing progressive improvement….Darwin’s ideas serve to place disabled people along the wayside as evolutionary defectives to be surpassed by natural selection. So, eugenics became obsessed with the elimination of ‘defectives,’ a category which included the ‘feebleminded,’ the deaf, the blind, the physically defective, and so on” (30-1). See Davis’s chapter on “Constructing Normalcy” for his discussion on statistics, eugenics, the idea of the “norm” and the construction of disability. However, the relationship between Darwin’s theory of evolution and Galton’s theory of eugenics is certainly not straightforward. For a further discussion of their relationship see Diane B. Paul’s “Darwin, Social Darwinism and Eugenics.” 184 more public as eugenicists including Alexander Graham Bell, George Darwin87 and Francis

Galton took it up and widely published their findings. As deaf educator Amos G. Draper, whose sonnet “Memories of Sound” I addressed in chapter one, noted, Bell’s prominence meant that his work on hereditary deafness and deaf marriage was “taken out of the circle of those immediately interested in the deaf, and spread before the scientific world at large” (40).

The debates around deaf intermarriage in the last four decades of the nineteenth century had two main elements: First, if two deaf people married each other, was there a greater chance that their children would also be deaf? Second, what could be done to prevent the birth of more deaf children? These questions implicitly assumed that having deaf children would be a misfortune that should be avoided, which was not necessarily how deaf people saw the issue themselves. Today, instances of deaf couples hoping for a deaf child and even using developments in genetics to increase their chances have caused public uproar.88 While there does not seem to be evidence in print of nineteenth-century deaf couples explicitly wishing for a deaf

87 George Darwin was more interested in the results of consanguineous marriages than in deaf marriages in particular. However, research into these two issues often went hand in hand. For example, Bell published his “Marriage: An Address to the Deaf” with an appendix on “Consanguineous Marriages.” George Darwin’s research led him to study the incidence of consanguineous marriage that resulted in deafness and he was interested the statistics kept by educational institutions for deaf children relating to onset age of deafness, potential cause of deafness, and family incidence of deafness. George Darwin also collected issues of The American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, the journal of record in nineteenth-century deaf education and sign language. 88 A widely reported case from 2002 had to do with a Deaf lesbian couple who wished to find a sperm donor with a high likelihood of transmitting deafness in the hopes that their child would also be deaf. The public outcry over the case revealed the deep rift in how hearing people and Deaf people regard deafness and the birth of deaf children. For example, Jeannette Winterson declared in The Guardian that these women were perpetrating “genetic imperialism” and that “no child should be forced inside its parents’ psychosis – whether they be from a hardline religious sect or Deaf Lesbians.” While the desire for a deaf child is constructed as a psychosis here, in the Deaf community, as H-Dirksen L. Bauman notes, “deafness often carries a positive value” (“Designing Deaf Babies” 311). See Bauman’s “Designing Deaf Babies” for more on the issue and how the social-constructivist model of disability affirms this couple’s desire for deaf children. As of November 2007, public debate is emerging in the United Kingdom over a bill that is currently making its way through the U.K. parliament. Clause 14 of The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill would make it illegal to “prefer” “persons or embryos” that have a higher genetic liklihood to have or develop “a serious physical or mental disability, a serious illness or any other serious

185 child, there were certainly members of the community who argued that the issue was being over-

emphasized and over-dramatized. For them, the birth of deaf children was neither a personal

misfortune nor a national crisis. For example, in defending deaf intermarriage against the

accusation that it increased the deaf population, deaf educator Isaac Lewis Peet noted, “there are

many worse calamities than deafness” (quoted in Van Cleve, A Place of their Own 149). When

sparring with Alexander Graham Bell over deaf marriage, Phillip Gillett, the hearing

Superintendent of the Illinois School for the Deaf, argued, “deafness is neither a crime nor a

disgrace; nor does it inflict any suffering on its subject” (81). For this reason, according to Gillett,

deaf people should be permitted to marry and to marry each other. Van Cleve and Crouch note

that “Deaf people were nearly unanimous in rejecting the idea that they should be prevented from

marrying whomever they pleased as long as hearing people had that right” (149). It was largely

hearing educators of deaf children, eugenicists, and Oralists, especially individuals like Alexander

Graham Bell who was all three of these, who constructed the “problem” of deaf intermarriage.

They suggested remedies ranging from legislative control over deaf intermarriage to educational

measures, including, most significantly, Oralism.

Pre-Eugenics Treatments of Deaf Intermarriage

The first significant treatment of the issue of deaf marriage and deaf offspring in Britain

and North America was David Buxton’s On the Marriage and Intermarriage of the Deaf and

Dumb (1857). Buxton was the Principal of the Liverpool School for the Deaf and Dumb at the

time he published his study. He had previously trained as a teacher of deaf children at the Old

medical condition” (U.K. Parliament). This would mean that rejecting a potentially deaf baby or embryo would be legal but “preferring” a potentially deaf baby or embryo would be illegal. 186 Kent Road School in London (Branson and Miller 171), a school that appears in the Dickens’s story I will examine below.

Buxton’s article is notable in the context of this chapter for the way it frames the issue of deaf marriage as one that mainly interests deaf people. For Buxton, deaf marriage concerns hearing people only insofar as they care about the well being of deaf people. As we shall see, this is a markedly different approach to the later eugenicist tracts on deaf marriage that stress how deaf community and deaf marriage threaten the entire human race. Buxton begins his article by stressing the marginality of the issue of deaf marriage. He first notes that the 1851 census revealed that there were 17, 300 “deaf and dumb” people in Great Britain and Ireland. He then asks for the general reader’s attention by stating, “[n]o one will deny that a question that concerns the social position and the domestic happiness of so large a number of our fellow- subjects, is fully worthy to engage the attention of the philanthropist” (3). In invoking philanthropy, Buxton reveals his sense that the general public’s concern with the issue only extends as far as their charitable feelings for deaf people. He underscores this potential lack of widespread importance again in defending his choice of topic, “which whatever it may lack of general interest, has certainly the very unusual advantage of never having been thus brought under the consideration of English readers before” (3). Buxton also reveals some ambivalence about how closely the issue of deaf marriage is tied to science and medicine. He notes that deaf marriage “can scarcely be discussed without reference to matters which fall either very close to the boundary, or absolutely within the proper range of medical science” (3). Again, Buxton’s lack of confidence about whether or not deaf marriage properly falls within the range of the disciplines of science and medicine will be entirely reversed in the post-eugenicist approach to the issue.

Based on the data he retrieves from the 1851 census and from deaf schools in Britain,

Europe and North America, Buxton stresses the increased risk of deafness in children where there

187 is a family history of deafness in the parent. He also asserts that hearing children should have at

least one hearing parent. For these reasons, his final recommendation is “that there is no

sufficient reason for prohibiting the marriages of deaf persons with the hearing; but that it is, at

the same time, highly inexpedient that the deaf and dumb should marry with each other” (16).

Interestingly, despite their differences in framing the issue, these will be the very same

recommendations that Bell promotes in his treatment of deaf marriage three decades later.

Buxton, does not suggest ways to prevent deaf people from marrying each other nor does he link

language use to marriage. In fact, at this point in his career, Buxton supports the use of signed

languages in the classroom. What is most significant about Buxton’s treatment of the issue of

deaf marriage is not his findings, with which Bell’s eugenicist work three decades later will

correspond exactly, but the way Buxton understands the importance of the issue. For Buxton, the

issue of deaf marriage was of most interest to deaf people and deaf institutions. This approach, as

we shall see when we turn to Bell’s treatment of intermarriage, is in striking contrast to the

eugenicist take on deaf marriage which constructs the issue as one of dire general importance

because of its potential to corrupt the human race.

The issue of deaf intermarriage was made more widely public when Charles Dickens

took up the intertwined issues of signed languages, deaf education and deaf intermarriage in his

story “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions” in the 1865 Christmas number of All the Year Round.89

The story was published eight years after Buxton had declared that deaf people should never marry each other. While Buxton had couched the issue in statistics and prognostications, Dickens dramatizes deaf intermarriage with findings that diverge from Buxton’s. While it pre-dates

89 The entire Christmas number is titled Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions. The first story, “To be Taken Immediately” and the eighth story “To be taken for Life” are both about Doctor Marigold and Sophy. The six stories between the first and eighth story are meant to be stories that Doctor Marigold prepared for Sophy to read. In following other critics of the story and nineteenth-century references to Dickens’s public readings of the story, I call the first and eighth story together “Doctor Marigold.” 188 Galton’s coining of the term “eugenics,” “Doctor Marigold” engages with the issue of heredity

and the heritability of deafness. As Goldie Morgentaler has noted in her book Dickens and

Heredity: When Like Begets Like, “Charles Dickens was fascinated by heredity. There is not a

single one of his novels which does not carry some statement, no matter how playful or

incidental, about the amazing resemblances between children and their parents” (ix).

Unfortunately, Morgentaler does not address “Doctor Marigold,” despite the fact that the story’s

dramatic energy revolves precisely around the issue of heredity, particularly the heritability of

deafness.

As Jonathan Rée notes, in writing “Doctor Marigold” Dickens was one of the first

hearing people to write about an emerging deaf culture based on a shared language and

developments in deaf education (234). Dickens had a lifelong interest in deafness and the

education of deaf children. Dickens visited deaf schools in England and the United States, wrote

about his visit to Laura Bridgman, an American deaf and blind girl, in American Notes, read texts

about deafness like John Kitto’s autobiographical Lost Senses: Deafness and Blindness, and was a

governor of the Old Kent Road School for the Deaf in London.90 In “Doctor Marigold,”

Dickens’s treatment of signed languages, his depiction of deaf people’s abilities, and his

representation of deaf intermarriage are all essentially aligned with the deaf community’s

representation of itself. However, despite his progressive approach to signed languages and deaf

education, Dickens, like most of his hearing contemporaries, seems unable to imagine deafness

itself as anything other than a misfortune.

90 A book of essays by deaf students at the Rugby College of the Deaf and Dumb reports Dickens’s visit to the school and an essay topic he suggested to a student (Bingham). Dickens wrote about Laura Bridgman in volume 1, chapter 3 of American notes. Catherine Peters suggests that Dickens probably recommended Lost Senses to Wilkie Collins, who used it as a major source for his novel Hide and Seek. Peters reports as well that Dickens corresponded with Kitto in 1850 (xviii). A website created by the Deaf Studies Department at University of Bristol reports that Dickens “became a governor of the school in London—it is not clear how active he was” (“historical aspects”). 189 “Doctor Marigold” is the story of a traveling peddler, Doctor Marigold, who, after the accidental death of his daughter and his wife’s subsequent suicide, eventually soothes his grief and loneliness by adopting a deaf daughter named Sophy. When Marigold first meets Sophy, she is an abused orphan in an itinerant circus troupe. After adopting her, Marigold teaches her to read and write in English as well as to sign in a language that they invent together. Their life together is a happy one, as they peddle Marigold’s wares across the countryside, but Marigold becomes concerned that Sophy is missing out on the education she could receive at a school for deaf children. After some distress at the thought of parting from her, Marigold enrolls Sophy in the

Old Kent Road School for the Deaf and Dumb in London for a sign language-based education. It was this same Old Kent road school where Dickens reportedly served as a governor and where

David Buxton apprenticed as a teacher for deaf children (Branson and Miller 172). Once Sophy finishes her educational program and is happily reunited with Marigold, Marigold discovers that she has fallen in love with a deaf man she met at school. However, Sophy has refused to marry him because she does not want to leave her father alone. Marigold insists on their marrying, which leads to the central climax of the story: whether or not Sophy’s child will also be deaf.

Overall, “Doctor Marigold” presents a very positive depiction of signed languages, deaf education and deaf community. The story endorses the sign-based system of deaf education for

Sophy. In American Notes, Dickens explicitly supports the establishment of schools devoted to meeting the needs of people with various disabilities. He argued that Britain should model its system of education on the American system where government, rather than private charity, financially underwrites these schools and institutions (36-37). Where Oralists wanted deaf children to learn to speak in English and be integrated with their hearing communities rather than being sent to residential schools for deaf children, Dickens’s story represents Sophy’s experience at a school for deaf children in positive ways.

190 While Oralists feared that the threatening outcome of educating deaf children in signed languages at residential schools for deaf children was going to be deaf intermarriage, Dickens’s story presents this result as a desirable outcome. The only objection ever raised to the marriage is

Sophy’s own distress at leaving her father. The prospect of a deaf child is only raised after the marriage has taken place and once Sophy knows she is pregnant. Dickens fictionalizes the deaf intermarriage issue and couches it in the conventions of the marriage plot complete with a dutiful and modest heroine, a dashing and persistent lover, and a couple facing obstacles to their secret courtship. By constructing Sophy and her suitor as the hero and heroine of a romantic story,

Dickens ensures that his readers support their marriage, despite the potential cultural disapprobation of deaf intermarriage. Unlike Oralist and eugenicist discourse, which typically pathologized a deaf couple through describing how each of the individuals became deaf and assessing the history of deafness in each of their families, Dickens’s plot seems to deliberately efface these details. Sophy is adopted by Marigold and the reader is never told anything about either the circumstances of her or her suitor’s deafness nor their biological parents. The issue of family deafness, so central to other treatments of deaf marriage, is irrelevant in “Doctor

Marigold.” Instead of pathologizing deaf marriage, Dickens’s treatment of the issue centers on love, loyalty, and language.

However, while the story raises no initial objections to Sophy’s marriage to a deaf man,

Dickens does exploit the question of deaf intermarriage, and its potential to produce deaf children, for dramatic effect in the climax of the tale. Sophy, who has moved to Asia with her husband, writes to her father of her hopes that, “my child may not be deaf but I do not yet know.”

Upon hearing no news from Sophy on the matter, Marigold fears the case “to be a sad one” (48).

In fact, both Sophy and Marigold understand the birth of a deaf child as a “sad” possibility. It is possible that they considered a deaf child a misfortune because of the challenges that this child

191 would face in a world organized to marginalize deaf people. Alternatively, Sophy may have internalized the cultural belief that being deaf was actually a tragic circumstance despite her own happiness and success in life (once Marigold rescued her from the circus). Surprisingly,

Marigold understands the possibility of a deaf child as a misfortune even though his entire happiness has been centered on his own deaf child. One Christmas Eve, four years after the birth of his granddaughter, whom he has never seen and has assumed is deaf, Marigold dozes off after his solitary Christmas meal. He sees visions of Sophy standing “silent by me, with her silent child in her arms” (48). This quiet and somewhat melancholy reverie is interrupted by the sound of a small child entering Marigold’s abode and exclaiming, “Grandfather” (48). In his joy at hearing the voice of his little granddaughter, Marigold cries out, “‘She can speak!’” (48). Kate Field reported that audiences at Dickens’s public readings of “Doctor Marigold” were moved to tears at the happiness of this moment (52), at the happiness produced by the voice of a hearing child instead of the signing of a deaf child. The emotionally satisfying resolution of this story for

Dickens and his Victorian audience depended on the fact that a child born of two deaf parents was able to hear and speak.

While the overall tone of the story endorses deaf intermarriage and the use of signed languages, Dickens’s neutralization of the possibility of a deaf child is troubling. If “Doctor

Marigold” is promoting a position on the issue of deaf intermarriage, it is that two deaf people in love should marry since the birth of a deaf child is not inevitable. If Sophy’s child had been born deaf then would her happy marriage suddenly be tragic? Why cannot the birth of a deaf child be a happy ending? Was there even a cultural paradigm in which Dickens could write a story where the birth of a deaf child was neither tragic nor pitiable?

Martha Stoddard Holmes has argued that affect and melodrama were the dominant

Victorian modes of engaging with disability (4) – an argument that becomes more persuasive

192 with every Dickens’s tale that one reads, including, most notably, Tiny Tim in an earlier

Christmas story that used disability to encourage charity. If Dickens mobilized the character of

Tiny Tim to elicit good will to all, then what emotional work was Sophy’s deafness supposed to

accomplish in this story? There is neither a villain, nor a pitiable object, nor a need for charity in

“Doctor Marigold.” Why then did Dickens make “Doctor Marigold” the centre of his Christmas

number of All the Year Round? Field finishes her account of Dickens’s public reading of “Doctor

Marigold” by stating that after Dickens finishes his performance, “there seems to be more love

and unselfishness in the world than before we took Doctor Marigold’s prescription” (52). Does

the audience see this love and unselfishness in the final scene of the story where the happy family

– Marigold, Sophy, Sophy’s husband and Sophy’s daughter – sit together celebrating Christmas

Eve by the warm fire? Does the idea of unselfishness refer to Doctor Marigold’s adoption of an

orphaned and abused deaf child for which he has been rewarded with a happy family around the

hearth? Is a hearing grandchild the prize that Marigold receives for adopting a deaf child?

Where Field locates the unselfishness of this story is left ambiguous but what is clear is that

Dickens and his audience saw the ending of this tale as a happy one.91 On one hand, Dickens accurately depicts the rarity of deaf offspring from deaf parents and thereby dispels the still commonly held idea that two deaf parents always have deaf children. On the other hand,

Dickens’s story supports signed languages, deaf education and deaf intermarriage, but seems able to do so only if the spectre of a deaf child has been erased. While this is certainly a problematic approach, we can appreciate how Dickens affirms that the potential result of a deaf child does not

91 In Bleak House, Caddy Jellyby’s daughter is born deaf. Dickens’s characterization of this event is somewhat ambivalent. Esther describes Caddy’s busy but seemingly happy life to the reader for a paragraph and then adds the news of Caddy’s deaf child almost as an afterthought: I had almost forgotten Caddy’s poor little girl. She is not such a mite now but she is deaf and dumb. I believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts, to soften the affliction of her child. (987)

193 justify interference in deaf marriage, deaf education or the use of signed languages. After all,

Sophy’s child may be hearing, but her first language is a signed language. When signing,

Sophy’s abilities and her daughter’s abilities are indistinguishable, and the story frequently dwells

on the similarities between Sophy, a deaf woman, and her hearing child by emphasizing the

child’s inheritance of qualities other than deafness from her mother. In fact, the story closes with

the familial group “a-talking…in the signs that [Marigold] had first taught [Sophy]” (48).

Dickens never constructs signed languages as inferior to spoken English. The happy family circle

at the close of the Christmas story, the family that brings tears to the eyes of Dickens’s audience,

is a family that signs.

Bell and Other Eugenicist Treatments of Deaf Marriage The positive feelings elicited by Dickens’s happy signing family of 1865 seem almost

unimaginable within the next few decades as Oralism gained ground and eugenics burgeoned.

Francis Galton coined the term eugenics in 1870, and the last three decades of the nineteenth

century, and, of course, beyond, were informed by a eugenicist strain of thought that measured

and valued humans according to their “fitness.” Jan Branson and Don Miller argue that eugenics

was a “prime ideological force in the construction of deafness as an individual pathology, a

medical condition rendering the individual ‘unfit’” (151). While, of course, there has been a long

history of medical attempts to remedy deafness, it was not until the post-Darwinian period when

the construction of deafness shifted from being an individual circumstance into a potential threat

to the human race. Like other markers of racial or national fitness including disease, disability,

stature, and longevity, deafness was increasingly constructed as a pathological contaminant that

could endanger a national or species body.

Here Dickens suggests that Esther sees deafness as an affliction, but one that can be softened through the 194 This momentous eugenicist shift was reflected in the Oralist movement. For example,

Baynton notes that some Oralists “call[ed] for legislation to ‘prevent the marriage of persons who

[were] liable to transmit defects to their offspring’” (30). By the 1870s and 1880s, Oralist objections to signed languages were increasingly augmented and overshadowed by objections to the deaf body itself. Not only did Oralists want to eradicate the use of signed languages because they believed that speech was more abstract, more human, and more suited to representing thought, as we have seen in earlier chapters, but they now desired sign’s demise because it led deaf people to group together rather than assimilate into hearing society. Again, a concern about integrating deaf people into the hearing mainstream was not new for Oralists, but the potential repercussions of what was called “deaf clannishness” changed. Assimilation became less about the benefits to a deaf person and more about saving the human species from being endangered by a potential deaf race. This emerging version of Oralism waged a war on signed languages through relying on the new field of eugenics.

Alexander Graham Bell, who was extremely influential in legitimizing and propagating the largely successful Oralist agenda, published a widely distributed paper in 1884 called A Memoir

Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. In this Memoir, Bell coupled his scientific research on the transmission of congenital “defects” with his long-term personal interest in Oralism to argue that “the practice of the sign language…makes deaf-mutes associate together in adult life, and avoid the society of hearing people. It thus causes the intermarriage of deaf- mutes and the propagation of their physical defect” (Memoir 44). Bell concludes, “we are on the way…towards the formation of a deaf variety of the human race. Time alone is needed to accomplish the result” (Memoir 44). Of course, Bell’s dystopic prognostications were inaccurate.

Branson and Miller note that both Buxton’s and Bell’s conclusions were “flawed statistically and

“deaf and dumb arts,” namely signed languages. 195 genetically.” Bauman notes that in actuality, “less than four percent of deaf children are born to

one or more deaf parents” (“Introduction” 11).

Bell was not alone in his concerns about what was initially called deaf “clannishness” and

then later in the century deaf “association.” Every month the important periodicals in deaf

education carried multiple articles about deaf “clannishness” and the intermarriage of deaf

people. These arguments, statistics, and dystopic projections of a future defective race, as well as

counterarguments from the deaf community, signal the shift in the focus of Oralism from the

properties of sign language itself towards a new, and threatening, construction of deafness. These

Oralist arguments constructed the deaf body as not only “defective” itself in its lack of hearing

but also as an ominous carrier of congenital “defect” that could plague human development. This medicalized model of deafness considered the deaf body biologically inferior to the hearing body.

This defective body, according to the medicalized model, required a cure, and eventually, eradication. In the decades of the rise of eugenics in Europe and North America, Oralist logic shifts from demanding linguistic assimilation to advocating linguistic assimilation in service of biological assimilation. The end goal for Oralists – and, of course, for eugenicists in general – was the eradication of deafness in an attempt to repress the variability of human physical difference.

David Buxton, who earlier wrote against deaf intermarriage but did so in his position as a signing teacher of deaf children, changed his position on signed languages later in the century. In fact, his opposition to deaf intermarriage became central to his rationale for supporting Oralism.

Branson and Miller explain that even though Buxton had been trained in the manual method at the Old Kent Road School, by 1880, “he was, as the Reverend F.W.G. Gilby put it, an ‘extra pure-oralist’” (172). At the 1880 Milan Congress of Educators of the Deaf, Buxton constructed

Oralism as a form of pedagogical progress:

196 When I began my work as a teacher of the deaf, every Eastern voyager went to India

round the Cape. Waghorn had not tracked the overland route; de Lesseps had not cut

through the Isthmus, and joined the Western to the Eastern seas. A parallel change has

taken part in the work we are considering, so far as my own and other countries are

concerned. I began to teach on the “sign” system. I “went round the cape.” There was no

Suez Canal then. There is now. And by that superior route I mean to go, as I most

strenuously and earnestly urge its adoption upon you. (Buxton 158)

While Buxton’s analogy between Oralism and the Suez Canal focuses mainly on the practicality of speech as a teaching system, his belief that deaf people should marry hearing people is essential to his defense of Oralism at this later period. In his speech at Milan he declares that the numbers of deaf people are likely to rise because “[t]he deaf are now led, as a consequence of existing customs and of the circumstances of their education, to associate together in after life, and to mate with each other in an increased and increasing degree” (151). Buxton explains this potential for intermarriage informs his shift to Oralism: “On this ground then, amongst many others, I advocate that system of teaching and training the deaf which separates, not congregates them;… which gives the pupil the speech of his country, not the “signs” of his class” (151).

While Buxton had always believed that deaf people should not intermarry, it was only after the emergence of eugenics that he began to consider deaf intermarriage a serious threat that needed to be remedied through the educational system of Oralism. What was previously an issue that concerned deaf people, was now one that needed to be controlled through wider institutional mechanisms.

Like Buxton, Bell’s solution to deaf “clannishness,” and to what he believed was its calamitous potential to create a deaf variety of the human race, was deaf assimilation into hearing culture and community. To that end, Bell opposed deaf organizations, deaf newspapers, large

197 deaf residential schools and most importantly, the use of signed languages.92 For Bell, the key to reducing the spread of deafness was eliminating deaf community and, most importantly, the use of the signed languages that contribute to deaf community in the first place. It is signed languages, then, that are the vehicle for the transmission of bodily “defect.” Oralism, in Bell’s formulation, is a form of biological control.

While Bell was not the only Oralist who advanced eugenics in service of Oralist goals, he was certainly the most famous Oralist and the ostensible leader of the movement. Bell worked his entire life on deaf language use and education, married a deaf woman, was born to a deaf mother, and was universally respected in hearing culture for his scientific ingenuity and acumen.

However, in the words of one of his deaf contemporaries, Bell “never succeeded in being recognized by the deaf at large as a disinterested and enlightened friend” (Chamberlain 133). The deaf community then, as now, distrusted Bell’s stated interest in their welfare and generally remained suspicious and critical of his involvement in deaf education.

In his address to a deaf literary society at the National College for Deaf-Mutes in Washington

D.C. in March of 1891, Bell explicitly and implicitly reveals his fear of deaf intermarriage and

92 As Davis, Baynton and other Deaf Studies critics note, the actions suggested by Bell and instituted under the auspices of Oralism “are reminiscent of the measures frequently implemented by colonial powers seeking to dismantle the culture of a non-national or indigenous people” (Davis 81) including, for example, residential schools for Aboriginal Canadian children. As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted in his historic public apology to Aboriginal communities in Canada in 2008, Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, `to kill the Indian in the child.' One important difference in these cases is that deaf residential schools were a locus for deaf culture rather than a way to assimilate children into the dominant hearing culture. While the objectives of Oralists and Colonizers are similar in attempting to dismantle the cultures of minorities, the specific methods used vary according to situation. 198 the role of sign languages in facilitating these marriages.93 At this literary society event, Bell

spoke to a potentially, if politely, hostile audience about an issue that models the power dynamics

of the entire sign language debates; In Marriage: An Address to the Deaf, a hearing man told deaf

people what to do with their lives and bodies according to what he believed was best for them, for

the nation, and for the future of humanity. Bell’s tone in this address is much less insulting than

his widely distributed earlier study of deaf intermarriage Memoir Upon a Deaf Variety of the

Human Race. Nevertheless, the ludicrousness of the situation – a hearing scientist telling a group

of college-aged deaf people that it is desirable that they marry a person whose language they do

not share – remains.

While Bell makes his aversion to signed languages and deaf community explicit in his

Memoir on a Deaf Variety of the Human Race – a document he distributed to Congress, to leaders

in deaf education, and to fellow scientists – in his later speech to the students at the deaf-mute

college, he tempers his hard-line positions. Rather than promote his Oralist goals, which would

certainly be offensive to his audience, he tells them that he aims to impart his scientific research

on hereditary deafness to them so that they better understand how they can increase or diminish

their chances of having deaf children according to who they marry (Marriage 4). Of course, Bell

is “sure that there is no one among the deaf who desires to have his affliction handed down to his

children” (4). As Richard Winefield notes, “[i]t never occurred to [Bell] that there were some

deaf people who were satisfied with their condition, who considered themselves normal, who saw

nothing wrong with having deaf children” (94). Throughout his speech Bell constructs signed

languages as corrupting to both bodies and to language itself. As I will demonstrate, it was

through encouraging the eradication of deaf communities, emphasizing the desirability of diluting

93 Richard Winefield notes that Bell was not invited to speak to this group on this issue but instead requested permission to do so, which was granted by the College (93). 199 hereditary pre-dispositions to deafness, and invoking deaf people’s obligations to their children and their society, that Bell attempted to convince his deaf audience that the birth of deaf children was a tragedy that must be avoided. Furthermore, while in this speech Bell does not explicitly affirm his widely-known Oralist argument that signed languages are the essential contributing factor to the potential for a “deaf variety of the human race,” his rhetoric and method of communication expose his belief in sign language’s ability to corrupt the transmission of both communication and “healthy” bodies.

In this speech, Bell argues that rather than considering individual deafness, it is more important to assess the incidence of deafness in that individual’s family. Therefore, a hearing person who has many deaf relatives may be more likely to transmit deafness than a deaf person who has no deaf relatives (Marriage 7). However, Bell suggests that it is safer for deaf people to marry hearing people in almost every case, as his wife and mother both did without creating any deaf offspring. He tells his audience that he “hold[s] before you as the ideal marriage a marriage with a hearing person” (12). For Bell, marriage with a hearing person is not only ideal because it is the most likely to discourage deaf offspring and the potential creation of an entire deaf variety of the human race, but also because, like Buxton, he believes that deaf people owe their child at least one hearing parent (12). Bell argues that his audience of deaf people “have to live in a world of hearing and speaking people, and everything that will help you to mingle with hearing and speaking people will promote your welfare and happiness. A hearing partner will wed you to the hearing world and be of inestimable value to you in all the relations of life” (12). The marriage of a deaf person must be about more than wedding another person for Bell, and instead must encourage the wedding of a deaf person to hearing culture. Bell very carefully constructs deaf assimilation into hearing community, and what he sees as the resulting reduction of hereditary deafness, as the highest goal of deaf marriage.

200 In service of his eugenicist goals, Bell’s speech emphasizes assimilation into the hearing world and the dispersal of deaf community. Bell explains that though his audience – students at the deaf college from all over the country – are together for a short time (which, is itself objectionable to Bell who wanted deaf students to be assimilated into day schools),94 they will soon “separate from one another, and each go back singly to the places from which you came…you will go out into the great world, the world of hearing and speaking people; a world of people who cannot spell upon their fingers or make signs” (3). For Bell, the signs that his audience uses to communicate are a crutch from an isolated and protected youth at the deaf college that must be cast away in order to enter the “great world” of adulthood. Sign language, in this formulation, becomes a primitive language of children, one that is inappropriate for educated adults.95 He reminds the students that they “are a part of that great world of hearing and speaking people. You are not a race distinct and apart” (3). Bell believes this projected eradication of a community that can “spell upon their fingers” is desirable because it eliminates what he considers the great risk attending the grouping of deaf individuals by their common language: the threat of the perpetuation and growth of deafness through the intermarriage and reproduction of deaf people.

94 In his Memoir on a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, Bell argues, “segregation during education has not only favored the tendency towards the formation of a race of deaf-mutes, but has led to the evolution of a special language adapted for the use of such a race – ‘the sign language of the deaf and dumb’” (47). For Bell, “the direction of change should therefore be towards the establishment of small schools, and the extension of the day school plan.” He also advocates “partial co-education” with hearing children (46-7). 95 The notion that signs are tied to a period of infancy is one that continues today with the popularity of baby signing. The baby sign industry encourages parents to teach their infants some basic signs as a way for the infants to communicate with caregivers before they are able to articulate speech. While in many ways, the baby signing phenomenon could be a positive development for the cultural understanding of, and respect for, signed languages, there are also many dangers. First of all, these baby signs are often single signs or gestures rather than a more expansive linguistic system. Secondly, it does not seem to be the case that parents learn to sign themselves aside from these few signs nor do they maintain signing with their children once the baby can speak. Does this understanding of the utility of signing infantilize the language? Is there a risk that baby signing reinforces the long-standing and common misunderstanding of signing as entirely iconic and as suitable for “primitive” stages of development? 201 In this speech, Bell makes his case for the undesirability of deaf-deaf marriage through

alternating between the rhetoric of science and the rhetoric of friendly advice. In order to claim

scientific authority for his position, Bell uses tables of statistics about the offspring of deaf-deaf

and deaf-hearing marriages, shares mathematical probabilities of deaf offspring, and refers to the

findings of other scientists on this topic (Marriage 5-6, 8). To temper these impersonal and dehumanizing approaches, he also addresses his audience as his “friends,” explains that he wants to advise them as he “would advise [his] own children” (12), and shares personal anecdotes of his own marriage to a deaf woman with them. This waffling between a position that sees deaf people as a collective threat to the human race and a position that suggests that he cares about the individual needs of the deaf person is disingenuous at best, especially when read alongside his

Memoir on a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. Where the Memoir pathologizes deafness and advocates the elimination of signed languages and deaf community, the Marriage speech genially endorses deaf-hearing unions. While we do not have the audience’s reactions to Bell’s speech, they undoubtedly understood that these were two sides of the same coin. Bell tells his audience explicitly that his theory of a deaf variety of the human race “is a matter of great interest to scientific men but not of special value” for deaf people themselves who are only interested in their own individual lives and marriages. Bell seems to believe that these two ideas – collective cultural fears of deaf intermarriage and the individual marriage decisions of a deaf person – are not inextricably linked.

In fact, Bell uses a range of rhetorical devices in this speech to obscure his hard-line position on signed languages and deaf-deaf marriage. For one, he attempts to advise as an impartial and friendly observer rather than an influential Oralist and Eugenicist. He tells his audience that he has “no intention of interfering with your liberty of marriage. You can marry whom you choose, and I hope you will be happy” (4). However, Bell had raised the possibility of

202 legislation against deaf intermarriage in his Memoir on a Deaf Variety of the Human Race.

Although he eventually dismissed the tactic, it was not because of how legislation injured the

equality and dignity of deaf people but rather because Bell believed legislation would be difficult

to enforce and would encourage immorality (Memoir 45-6). As F.L. Seliney, a deaf respondent

to Bell’s “Memoir” retorted,

It is a grievance to the deaf to be made subjects of an alarmist. [Deaf people] may smile

at the easy facility with which legislative interference with their marriages is mentioned

and withdrawn…They cannot well understand why, since their marriages are the least

among the circumstances producing deafness, they should be singled out as transgressors-

in-chief. (132)

As Seliney notes, the rhetoric of Bell’s Memoir constructs deaf people who marry other deaf

people as recklessly endangering humanity through increasing their chances of deaf offspring.

Seliney also draws attention to the fact that Bell’s reluctant dismissal of legislative interference

with deaf marriage is less important than the fact that he even considered it a possibility in the

first place.

While Bell never explicitly states his widely known objections to signed languages to this

audience of signers, the way he transmits his speech perfectly reflects his fears about the

corrupting influence of signed languages. He delivers his address in spoken English, which is

then interpreted for the audience by Edward Allen Fay (a man whose comprehensive study of

deaf intermarriage would soon after refute Bell’s dystopic projections of the dangers of deaf-deaf

marriage).96 In his speech, Bell tells his audience that the widely circulated newspaper reports

96 Fay’s study of Deaf intermarriage, published in 1893, demonstrated the small incidence of deafness as a result of deaf intermarriage. As Van Cleve and Crouch note, Fay’s study found that “the marriages of two deaf people…were no more likely to result in deaf offspring than the marriages of one deaf person and one hearing person. Furthermore, no matter whether one or two deaf people were involved in a marriage, the chances were greater than ten to one that the children would be hearing” (A Place of Their Own, 151). 203 suggesting that he wished to have Congress outlaw deaf intermarriage were entirely false and a

result of a reporter’s error. The Washington Post of December 31, 1884 reported that Bell wanted

legislation outlawing deaf intermarriage (Van Cleve, A Place of Their Own 149-50) and the story

then circulated widely in the deaf press. In fact, as I noted earlier, Bell advises against regulating

deaf marriage. Because of this misunderstanding, which he believed produced enmity against

him in the deaf community, Bell is anxious that his next foray into the marriage question is

represented correctly:

But now I begin to be afraid of you, for you are the interviewers in this case, and I

wonder how I shall be reported by you in the newspapers of the deaf. I am talking to you

by word of mouth, while my friend, Prof. Fay, is translating what I say into the sign

language. Then by and by you will translate it again back into English for the benefit of

your deaf friends in distant parts. You are the interviewers this time, and I fear you are

just as liable to make errors of statement as the ordinary newspaper reporter. (13)

Bell’s frequent invocation of his fear of his audience is true on more levels than simply their

reporting abilities. Bell’s textual histrionics about the threat of hereditary “defects” and the

menace of signed languages reveal that he fears more than just the potential for signed languages

to corrupt transmissions in communication. In this passage, Bell implicitly demonstrates his fears

about signed languages, deaf community (in invoking the network of deaf newspapers and

friends), and errors in reproduction. While Bell is ostensibly describing issues of textual

quotation, transcription, and translation, his fears about the way that sign can corrupt the

reproduction of a message parallel his fears about the way that sign can corrupt human

Joseph J. Murray emphasizes that Fay “also noted, ten years after Bell first presented his [Memoir Upon a Deaf Variety of the Human Race] to the National Academy of Sciences, that the overwhelming majority of Deaf people married other Deaf people. More than a decade after Bell’s paper…[Bell’s] ideas had made little inroad on actual marriage practices in the United States” (“True Love” 50). 204 reproduction (through producing deaf babies). In both cases reproduction through sign results in errors of transmission.

To eliminate the possibility of this corrupted reproduction and assuage his own fears of mis-transmission, Bell brings with him

a gentleman who has taken a stenographic account of all that I am saying to you. I will

look over his notes and correct them, and then it will afford me pleasure to present every

member of the Literary Society with a printed copy of my remarks. Allow me, therefore,

to request the correspondents of distant papers kindly to reserve their notes of my

remarks until they can get my own words in black and white. (13-14)

Bell suggests that signed languages inhabit a murky grey area of communication that cannot be trusted for unsullied transmission of his message. Where written English connotes the textual safety and accuracy of being in black and white, signed languages represent the dangerous mis- reproduction of language. This construction of signed languages as a conduit for corrupted language mirrors Bell’s belief that signed languages are also a conduit for the corrupted reproduction of bodies, that is, that through signing and resulting deaf intermarriages, a threatening “defect” is transmitted through generations. For Bell, signed languages reproduce defectively, whether in communication or in bodies.

As Van Cleve and Crouch note, “To hearing people, Bell is best known for his invention of the first successful telephone, but to deaf people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries he was best known as their strongest adversary” (114). In fact, Baynton notes that Bell

“traveled the country delivering speeches on the dangers of deaf interbreeding” and that his “fears would be widely repeated in newspapers, magazines, and speeches for years to come” (31). Bell was a leader in shaping and disseminating the new Oralist approach to signed languages and deaf community. Strangely enough, Bell’s leadership role in eugenicist approaches to deafness has

205 been used by at least one critic to defend Bell’s involvement in deaf education and deaf intermarriage. In his article “ The Real ‘Toll’ of A.G. Bell: Lessons about Eugenics,” Brian H.

Greenwald’s argues that it was to the deaf community’s “benefit” that Bell “chose not to attack our community more forcefully and intimately” (41). According to Greenwald, Bell was a

“positive” eugenicist who “encouraged procreation among those who were considered…genetically ‘fit’” (36). Bell thereby “shielded Deaf people from negative eugenicists” (41) who “sought to stop the spread of ‘bad genes’ through invasive measures” (36).

Greenwald contends that Bell, as an acknowledged expert in the field, had the power to

“encourage[] the development of harshly negative eugenic steps against the deaf community. At the very least he could have stepped aside, allowing eugenicists to pursue their interest in the genetics of deafness” (39-40). Greenwald suggests that Bell was not as damaging as he could have been to deaf communities because “he knew that Deaf people were not feebleminded,” “he was a man with principles, and he believed that the government should not interfere” with the marriage of deaf people. For Greenwald, Bell’s “contact with Deaf people humanized and personalized his view of deafness” (40).

I find this construction of Bell as a fortunate friend for deaf people very troubling.

Greenwald comes remarkably close to becoming an apologist for Bell. First, Greenwald does not provide any evidence for his speculation that “Bell kept his friends in scientific circles…in close check” when it came to studying eugenics and deafness. Second, Greenwald’s generalizing about

Bell’s “principles,” especially in terms of Bell’s belief that government should not interfere with deaf marriage, is ill founded. Bell states explicitly in his Memoir that he rejects legislative interference because it would be impractical and encourage immorality, not because he had

“humanized” deaf people and believed that their marriages should be protected from governmental interference. Finally, it is unclear how Greenwald arrives at his conclusion that

206 “Deaf leaders in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries did not appreciate the danger

they faced from eugenicists. They failed to comprehend how oralism fed on eugenic ideas” (40).

Almost all the responses from the Deaf community to Bell’s Memoir, published in newspapers

and deaf periodicals, explicitly recognize the danger they faced at this eugenicist discourse and

how this discourse was being used by Oralists to buttress their aims.97

“A Future for the Deaf and Dumb in the Canadian North- West”: Deaf Community, Signed languages and the Social Construction of Disability Beyond responding to Eugenicist Oralists through letters and articles, some deaf people sought to materially assist disadvantaged and poor deaf people by bringing them together in communities. In response to the continued poverty and unemployment of deaf men and women workers in England, in 1884 a British deaf woman named Jane Elizabeth Groom proposed and implemented an emigration scheme to bring unemployed British deaf men and women to settle, and work in, what is now southeastern Saskatchewan. She suggested emigration to Canada as a way to rescue impoverished deaf people from “the fierce struggle for existence in the old country,” which she believed resulted from overpopulation and overcompetition for employment

(Future 10). According to Groom, these deaf workers could “engage in an equally balanced struggle with others” (Future 10) in Canada, where they would work on farms or in their trades with the eventual goal of purchasing and farming their own land.

Groom, in collaboration with H.H., an anonymous hearing writer, outlined the scheme in two pamphlets An Evangelist Among the Deaf and Dumb (1884) and A Future for the Deaf and

Dumb in the Canadian North-West (1884). While H.H. contributes the main narrative voice, he or

she quotes at great length from Groom’s own words and letters. Groom’s emigration scheme was

97 See Seliney and Chamberlain for two examples of these published responses to Bell.

207 supported by noble benefactors in Britain, including Prime Minister Gladstone who granted

Groom 100 pounds (H.H, Evangelist 7). Despite demands from a few Canadian newspapers that

Britain keep her “paupers and mutes,” (H.H, Future 18), the plan was also welcomed by the

Canadian government who promised their full assistance to Groom and her emigrants and welcomed their ownership of land in the Canadian North West under the Dominion Lands Act

(H.H., Future 13-14).98 Groom brought at least two groups of British emigrants with her to the prairies between 1884 and 1885 (Carbin 236-7). After 1885, there is little historical record of what happened to Groom’s settlers or whether she was able to bring any more emigrants to

Canada.99 She planned to return to England to raise funds in order to buy a large tract of land to establish a training centre and “central settlement to which new male and female settlers may come while in search of employment, or while learning the rudiments of husbandry or other industries prior to being sent on to farms or into businesses belonging to the deaf and dumb community already established” (Future 22). This land in what is now Wolseley Saskatchewan had been chosen by the Canadian Pacific Railway agent, priced below value, and was being held for her until she could return with the funds (Future 25). According to the earliest records of the

Rural Municipality of Wolseley, in 1910 part of the plot was still held by the CPR and the other part was owned by someone who was not Groom.100

98 The Dominion Lands Act (1872) granted 160-acre homesteads in Western Canada to individuals or groups that met its conditions regarding residency on the land and cultivation of the land. (Jeffrey S. Murray). See Jeffrey Murray for more on the Dominion Lands Act. 99 Carbin reports that one of Groom’s original settlers, Francis George Jefferson, “had a small part in the founding of the Manitoba Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb” in 1888. He later moved to Montreal where he taught at the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf-Mutes. 100 Groom was apparently unable to raise the funds necessary for this central settlement. Carbin reports that “in a letter dated October 26, 1891 written while she was staying at the Brunswick hotel in Ottawa, Ont., she requested that the Manitoba Ministry of Agriculture ask the British government for money to purchase a large ‘home farm’…but her petition for funding was turned down by the Provincial Privy council and never forwarded to England” (236). I learned of the 1910 ownership of the land through 208 Groom was not the first deaf person to propose establishing a deaf community or colony

in North America; thirty years earlier, an American named John Jacob Flournoy wished to

establish an entirely independent deaf state in the American West. Flournoy believed that the

hearing majority oppressed deaf people and argued for a politically and economically

autonomous deaf state where deaf people could thrive outside the reach of hearing people’s

prejudices. In Flournoy’s state, where Sign Language would reign, only deaf people would be

able to hold political office or own land (Flournoy 15). Despite the fact that Flournoy’s plan was

widely criticized in the deaf community for its impracticability and was never actually executed,

Flournoy’s grand scheme for total independence has overshadowed Groom’s plan in

contemporary Deaf Studies.101 More importantly, in focusing on the economic aspects of

Groom’s scheme and in comparing Groom’s scheme to Flournoy’s, critics have tended to ignore

its radical political dimensions. For example, John Vickrey Van Cleve and Barry Crouch,

prominent historians of the American deaf community, completely dismiss the political

implications of, what they call, Groom’s “plan of welfare” (Place 70). In comparing Groom’s plan to Flournoy’s, Van Cleve and Crouch argue that Groom’s “pathetic plea for assistance for

England’s downtrodden deaf people” (70) is only “historically important” for “the contrast it presents between a poverty-stricken and dependent minority of deaf people in England, on the one hand, and an aggressive, articulate, argumentative American deaf community on the other”

(70).

This approach to Flournoy and Groom threatens to descend into jingoistic comparisons of various national deaf communities, which is surely unwarranted and untenable. Van Cleve and

personal correspondence with Rose Zimmer, the administrator of the Rural Municipality of Wolseley, Saskatchewan. 101 For more on Flournoy’s plan to establish a deaf commonwealth see: Rée 200-1, Lane 274, 310, Bragg 13-26, Van Cleve and Crouch, A Place of their Own, 60-70, and Krentz 161-211. 209 Crouch dismiss Groom because of the rhetoric employed in the pamphlets she wrote in

collaboration with H.H. In their appeal for financial assistance for the emigration scheme, Groom

and H.H. relied on the discourse of the hardships facing impoverished deaf people in England. In

opposition to Flournoy’s bluster, Groom’s rhetoric certainly seems humbler in its aims. However,

it is also important to recognize that this tone may have been a tactical choice in the quest for

funds from hearing benefactors who would more likely support what they might consider a

charitable scheme. Van Cleve and Crouch seem to wish to use Flournoy as a representative of a

powerful and progressive American deaf community even though most American deaf leaders

roundly rejected his project. They also want to use Groom’s plea to wealthy hearing

philanthropists as an example of the poor self-image and collective weakness of British deaf

communities. Not only is this generalization unfounded, it aims to elevate the American deaf

communities at the expense of the British deaf communities without recognizing the different

audiences, aims, and historical contexts of Flournoy’s and Groom’s texts.

In opposition to this depoliticizing critical approach to Groom’s emigration scheme, I

argue that in the context of the Sign Language debates of the nineteenth-century, especially in

their eugenicist turn in the 1870s and 1880s, the plan is extremely radical in its imagining of an

independent deaf community. While Groom’s was indubitably a very practical plan to create

economic opportunities for poor deaf Britons,102 its focus on class and poverty should not be

102 In his brief reference to Groom’s scheme, Davis insightfully focuses on these class dynamics. He suggests that Groom’s plan “was particularly related to class. She advocated founding a deaf state because the deaf in England were poor and could not compete with hearing people in a tight labour market. The answer could not be revolution, but secession” (85). As Davis argues, “there is a very deep relationship between disability in general and class.”: if it is the case that disability causes poverty, and that poverty likewise causes disability since poor people are more likely to get infectious diseases, more likely to lack genetic counseling, more likely to be injured in factory-related jobs and in wars, and generally more likely to have a dangerous work environment, then we have to see disability as intricately linked to capitalism and imperialism, or the latter-day version of imperialism that shifts factory work to Third World 210 understood as a sign of a lack of political radicalism. Furthermore, Groom’s plan also implicitly resisted the Oralist movement through reasserting deaf people’s control over their own language use and bodies. Groom’s scheme accomplished this resistance through celebrating signed languages, creating deaf community, and re-configuring the biologically-rooted construction of defective deaf bodies created by Oralists. Most importantly, the foundation of Groom’s scheme was the idea that deaf people, who are “disabled” in Britain, could be “abled” through emigration to Canada. Groom therefore saw disability as a social process, dependent upon national circumstances, rather than a static fact of physical difference. Groom’s social-constructivist view of disability was in direct opposition to the medicalized or biologically-rooted construction of deafness constructed by the eugenicist Oralists. I do not mean to suggest here that Groom is an exceptional case. Here I use her as a striking example of the discourse community she was a part of: deaf people in both Britain and North America rejected the idea that they were dependent unfortunates, actively tried to preserve signed languages, fought to protect deaf education, and agitated for their rights to marry whomever they chose. Groom’s social constructivist model of deafness that located barriers in hearing culture rather than in a deaf person’s ears was one that she shared with many of her deaf contemporaries.

As I noted in my discussion of his Marriage: An Address to the Deaf and his Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, Bell was the most prominent proponent of the medicalized construction of deafness in the final decades of the nineteenth century. He also, of course, opposed schemes such as Groom’s that promoted deaf association. In his Memoir, Bell uses Groom’s scheme as an example of deaf clannishness at its worst (45). Bell argues that while

countries and creates poor and rich nations to facilitate a division of labour. The distinction some might want to make between disability and poverty collapses at some level. (85) 211 deaf intermarriage alone means that “We are on the way….towards the formation of a deaf

variety of the human race,” this result will be exacerbated with the establishment of deaf colonies:

deaf children born in the colony would be thrown into association with one another and

would probably intermarry in adult life, or marry hearing persons belonging to deaf-mute

families. Though fewer in number than the original deaf settlers, they would probably be

more prolific of deaf offspring; and each succeeding generation of deaf-mutes would increase

the probability of the deaf-mute element being rendered permanent by heredity….Under such

circumstances we might anticipate that a very few generations would suffice for the

establishment of a permanent race of deaf-mutes with a language and literature of its own.

(Memoir 44)

For Bell, a deaf colony was an intensified microcosm of what would happen on a national and

species-wide scale if deaf intermarriage continued.

While this result of a permanent community using signed languages and its own literature

might sound utopic to deaf communities whose languages and right to associate with each other

were increasingly being challenged by the hearing majority, to eugenicists – and their public

audiences – these communities of deaf people, and the potential for a deaf race, were terrifyingly

dystopic. Reviewers of Bell’s Memoir, like Francis Galton, who personally experienced

deafness,103 lauded Bell’s work and disparaged the “unwise schemes…of buying land in

settlements for the deaf and dumb, where they should reside and form a secluded society of their

own” (Galton, “Hereditary Deafness” 270). In his review, Galton declares that deaf intermarriage

“is an instance in which strong social, and possibly legislative, agencies are sure to become

103 Galton described himself as experiencing “a degree of deafness” (“Just Perceivable”). In a letter to George Darwin he wrote, “my strongest sympathy is with the deaf. Had I a fairy godmother, I would petition that every experimental physicist should be made as deaf as I am until they had discovered a good ear trumpet” (Pearson 584). For more on Galton’s experiences with deafness, see Karl Pearson’s Life of Francis Galton. 212 aroused against unions that are likely to have hereditary effects harmful to the nation” (270).

Galton does not pause to explain these harmful effects to the nation because he assumes his

readers understand the process of degeneration and species contamination. Daniel Pick notes that

regardless of its scientific speciousness, the notion of degeneration, which suggested that just as

species could evolve, they could also devolve, was “widely used and presumed as a virtual

orthodoxy” in the late nineteenth century (8). For Galton, Bell and other eugenicists, deaf

collectivity, as maintained through signed languages, could not only corrupt individual bodies but

could also put the entire nation in peril through corrupting the wider human stock. As was

common in eugenicist rhetoric, the birth of one deaf child was less important than an overall trend

towards deafness in the human race. Eugenicists sought to encourage those who were considered

most “fit” to reproduce and discourage those who were considered least “fit” from reproducing

and potentially passing on their hereditary “weakness.”104

In fact, Bell, and fellow eugenicists who were opposed to Groom’s plan, attempted to prevent its success by writing letters of objection to newspapers and to government officials. Bell was first apprised of Groom’s plan by a letter from his British colleague T.R. Armitage who read about it in a British newspaper. In his letter to the editor of this newspaper, Armitage argues that

“to collect these people together in a colony would be attended by such serious evils that the

Dominion Government, if informed of the scheme, would hardly sanction it” (Armitage,

“Emigration”). Armitage tells his British readers that a large majority of deaf Americans “marry others similarly afflicted. The result is a most alarming increase in the number of deaf mutes… it is obvious that the mischief done would be increased tenfold by forming a colony of these unfortunates” (“Emigration”). In his letter to Bell, Armitage includes his own letter to the editor

104 For more on the history of nineteenth-century theories of eugenics and degeneration, see Steven Arata’s Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle and Daniel Pick’s Faces of Degeneration. 213 and encourages Bell to intervene with the Canadian government on the issue of Groom’s

emigration scheme: “I think [Groom’s] plan so mischievous that it seems to me it ought to be

stopped. Do you think you could bring the Dominion government to see what a mistake they are

making…you would have much more weight in this matter.”

Bell complied with Armitage’s suggestion and wrote a letter to the Canadian government

about the matter.105 He must have been unpleasantly surprised to learn, upon receiving a reply from the Department of Agriculture, that not only was the government aware of Groom’s plan but they were actively supporting Groom and her emigrants. The Department of Agriculture official assured Bell that “those immigrants of that class whom [Groom] brought out last year appear to have done very well in that they have been earning their own living in the North West”

(Department of Agriculture). Because Bell believed that “segregation really lies at the root of the whole matter” (46), his interest in Groom’s scheme had nothing to do with the welfare of her settlers, which seems to be what the Department official assumed was his concern. Instead, Bell’s remonstrance with the Canadian government grew out of his desire to quash deaf communities wherever they sprang up. For Bell, Armitage and Galton, deafness was a scientific problem that needed to be controlled though “changing [‘the deaf-mute’s’] social environment” including partially co-educating deaf children with hearing children in day school settings, eliminating deaf teachers, and teaching “articulation and speech-reading…to every pupil” (Bell, Memoir 46-7).

The establishment of a large deaf community in the midst of the sparsely-populated prairies was a seed that would sprout Bell’s dystopic vision of a community that signs instead of speaks,

105 While I cannot locate a copy of Bell’s letter to the Canadian government, I know that he wrote such a letter because the Department of Agriculture official mentions receiving Bell’s letter. The official also mentions that he showed Bell’s letter to Jane Elizabeth Groom “and she told me she would write to you direct.” Unfortunately, it seems that this letter from Groom to Bell was either never written or has been lost. 214 associates together instead of assimilating into hearing culture, and intermarries instead of

diluting their potential inheritance of deafness.

Groom resisted eugenicist attempts to control deaf people and to construct deafness as a

problem that required curing. Instead Groom proposed emigration and deaf community as the

solution to the real problem – the problem of the disabling of deaf people that was occurring in

Britain. Groom knew firsthand that Oralism and eugenics were disabling the British deaf

community. For most of her life, Groom, like Bell, was a teacher of deaf children. With the

advent of oral instruction, which Groom was unable to provide as a deaf woman, she was fired

from her job as a teacher in London, which led her to devise other ways to assist the deaf

community (H.H., Evangelist 3). The irony of Groom’s emigration scheme is that she was freed

to set up an entire colony of deaf people – which is “clannishness” on the grandest scale –

through the loss of her job, which was a direct result of educators’ and eugenicists’ fears of deaf

clannishness and intermarriage. As historians of the American deaf community including Susan

Burch and Brenda Jo Brueggemann have noted, “one effect of the focus on oral education was

that deaf women found themselves without employment opportunities at a time when America’s

women were entering the teaching force in great numbers. Although deaf men, being men, had

other kinds of work they could do, the possibilities were quite limited for deaf women”

(Brueggemann 186).106 After losing her job, Groom sought other means of helping the deaf community and decided that the only possibility for the success of unemployed deaf people was emigration.

While Oralists and eugenicists like Bell attempted to control who deaf people could associate with as well as in what language that association would take place, Groom’s emigration scheme

215 boldly reasserted deaf people’s control over their own bodies. Her plan created a space for both

signed languages and deaf association. Groom firmly believed in the importance of signed

languages to deaf people. While she was not wholly opposed to some oral training for deaf

people, she argued, “‘a combined system that is a judicious combination of the sign language and

the oral teaching is likely to be useful, but in many instances the sign language is the best, and is

likely to remain so while the world lasts’” (H.H., Evangelist 5). In her pamphlets, she relates the

“lively interest” that the hearing people she encountered, including the shipmates on the voyage

from Britain to Canada, had for the “silent communications” of her emigrants (H.H., Future 14).

In fact, Groom’s settlers perpetrated the Oralists’s worst nightmare by validating sign language as

a mode of communication among their prairie community. In a letter written to a British

periodical encouraging other deaf people to accompany Groom to Canada, one of Groom’s

original deaf settlers explained, “‘many of the [hearing] farmers can converse well with their

fingers’” (Carbin 237). For Oralists, then, these signing deaf colonists would have been doubly

threatening in their reproductive capacities: they were able to spread their objectionable language

and potentially propagate their “defect” through intermarriage. Where Oralists like Bell were

discouraging the use of signed languages and deaf community in an attempt to curb deaf

intermarriage, Groom and her settlers were spreading the use of signed languages and expanding

and institutionalizing their deaf community.

Beyond creating a sign-friendly space in the Canadian North-West, Groom also created a

space that, by necessity, supported the deaf association so feared by the eugenicists; the

foundation of her plan was a refusal to separate deaf people from each other. While conceding

that her deaf settlers should be integrated with their hearing neighbors, Groom insists again and

106 See Burch’s Signs of Resistance and Brueggemann’s “Deaf Eyes: The Allen Sisters’ Photography, 1885-1920” for more on occupational choices available for American deaf women in the late nineteenth

216 again that the deaf community in the Canadian North-West must be in place to help each of its

members whether through training new settlers at farming, hiring new settlers as employees, or

providing assistance if any of the deaf settlers were temporarily out of work (H.H., Future 15,

22). Groom also refuses to capitulate to the deaf-variety-of-the-human-race fear mongers; instead

she welcomes single deaf men and single deaf women as settlers. H.H. explains that, “women

who know any trade will be assisted in the same way [as the men]; and, as young and useful girls

are much wanted as domestic servants…Miss Groom intends to take out women who are

desirable for this industry” (Future 23). In the historical and discursive context of “deaf

clannishness,” creating physical spaces for deaf community and celebrating signed languages

were acts of resistance.

Groom also opposed Oralist attempts to control deaf bodies and deaf language use through

rejecting the Oralists’s medicalized model of deafness. In her pamphlets, Groom argues that it is

hearing prejudice, not deafness, that dis-ables British deaf workers; this argument shifts the focus

of disability from the inability of deaf people to hear to the inability of hearing people to

accommodate those who are different from them. H.H. and Groom argue that the problem is not

that deaf people will not or cannot work, “but it is that they cannot obtain sufficient

employment…there is too much competition to cause them to be needed in London or in the great

centres of labour” (Future 9). Groom’s plan is underpinned by the fact that British deaf people,

who face unemployment and starvation at home, can be entirely successful in Canada away from

a glutted labour market and the discrimination of hearing employers. Throughout the pamphlet,

Groom and H.H. assert that a deaf person “is as capable in his way as any other man to enter into

the business of life and to strive, and to work for himself and his family” (Future 10). In fact,

and early twentieth century and the asymmetrical gendered effects of Oralism. 217 they argue that deaf people are even better workers than hearing people because “they do not

leave off to gossip as the [hearing] do” (Future 16).

The pamphlet’s form models Groom’s concern that deaf people are literally dis-abled by

hearing prejudice by saving the revelation of Groom’s deafness until the end of the pamphlet.

The hearing writer, H.H., explains, “it is well to mention this circumstance just now, as it most

conclusively proves that the deaf mute can to a very great extent overcome his or her affliction”

(Future 19-20). H.H. depends on the fact that his or her hearing readers will find themselves

surprised at the end of the pamphlet that the tireless, charitable, and successful Groom is deaf.

The readers’ reactions are meant to be personal proof that deaf people are restricted in their

exertions by hearing people who underestimate the abilities of deaf people. This shifts the burden

of the disabling process to the dominant hearing culture rather than the deaf individual’s body as

well as underscores how disabling is, in fact, a social process

Groom also suggests that these hearing prejudices are less powerful, and even less

common, in Canada than they are in Britain. In their pamphlets, Groom and H.H. constantly

compare Britain to Canada and always find Canada superior. Where the British are portrayed as

discriminatory towards deaf people and unlikely to help their fellow citizens (Evangelist 1), the

Canadians, including government officials and Prairie farmers, are lauded for their willingness to accept deaf people as equal to hearing people and for their strenuous exertions on behalf of

Groom and her emigrants (Future 16).

In addition to the citizenry of each country, Groom and H.H. frequently compare the physical spaces and conditions of the two countries in order to demonstrate that the Canadian prairies are a hospitable space for deaf people. Britain is described as a network of

“overcrowded,” “bustling,” “unfeeling,” and dirty cities (Evangelist 6, Future 19), while Canada is described as “that grand country, where there is a splendid opportunity for all, and where there

218 is room for thousands of our overcrowded population to emigrate if they so desire” (Future 21).

H.H. spends pages describing Canada’s “rich and generally deep virgin soil of remarkable

fertility” and “the enormous quantity of wild flowers and fruits with which the country abounds”

(Future 21). While these types of comparisons are typical of texts encouraging immigration to

Canada, Groom and H.H. emphasize that these national differences are even more pertinent to

deaf people. After all, as Groom mistakenly argues, “deaf and dumb persons are particularly

liable to consumption, through lack of … proper exercise of the lungs consequent on being

deprived of the power of speech and hearing” (Future 11).107 For their own “welfare and happiness,” Groom believes that deaf British people should immigrate to Canada where hospitable hearing neighbors and available fertile land would contribute to their “ultimate well- being” in a way that Britain never can (Evangelist 6). In order to justify her scheme, Groom borrows and intensifies the rhetoric of nineteenth-century concerns about polluted, industrialized, and crowded urban spaces, as well as their effects on human health, in order to argue that these spaces are even more harmful to deaf people than to hearing people. Again, deafness is a liability in the inhospitable country of England that can be solved through immigration to Canada, which provides “a haven of rest and happiness to those poor men” (Future 17). Through suggesting that deafness is not a disadvantage when living in Canada, Groom refutes the idea that deafness is an unfortunate bodily defect. It is not the deaf body that requires remedy but the deaf person’s environment. Groom and H.H. assert that social conditions are to blame for the epidemic of deaf

107 This health-related argument was made by Oralists as well. At the Milan Congress in 1880, British doctor E. Symes Thompson made a plea for Oralism based on his findings that deaf people do not typically live as long as hearing people and generally suffer from pulmonary disease: Having shown that the state of Deaf-mutism tends to the deterioration of health, the development of diseases of the lungs, and the shortening of life, we will now endeavor to show that methods by which the free use of the lungs, by varied and regulated speech, may be secured, should be encouraged in every way, not for educational purposes alone, but to raise the standard of health among these afflicted ones, and thus render their infirmity a useful stimulant to the activity of body and mind. (135) 219 poverty in Britain. This argument about national difference is ostensibly proto-social- constructivist because it locates disability in a culture rather than in a body.

The development of a new Oralist ideology that advocated the elimination of signed languages as a way to prevent a deaf variety of the human race and potentially eradicate deafness altogether relied on the discourse of eugenics in order to control deaf language use and association, as we have seen from Bell’s Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the

Human Race. As Baynton argues, “the image of an insular, inbred, and proliferating deaf culture became a potent weapon for the oralist cause” (31). In response to this approach to deaf community, Groom and H.H. co-opt and modify the rhetoric of eugenics used by their opponents like Bell and Galton, into rhetoric that applies equally well to the discrimination deaf people have faced socially, thereby shifting the terms of the debate from the bodies of deaf people to the cultural circumstances surrounding them. For example, Groom and H.H. argue, “in the fierce struggle for existence in the old country the poorer members of the deaf and dumb community – and they are a numerous class – have no chance of earning sufficient to render their condition one of industrial independence” (10). The “struggle for existence” is, of course, the term Darwin uses in On the Origin of Species to refer to inter and intra-species competition. Darwin explains that he uses the term “in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny” (116). Darwin’s reference to leaving progeny is particularly resonant in this case, as the battle that Groom and other deaf people were fighting against eugenicist Oralists was not only for their language rights but also often for their reproductive rights.

Groom and H.H. use the Darwinian paradigm of the struggle for existence to understand the poverty of deaf Londoners and seek a solution. In opposition to Darwin, and the eugenicists,

Groom’s use of the term, as with other evolutionary and eugenicist terms she co-opts like

220 “competition” (9), eschews the biological for the social. H.H. and Groom always address the

“social disadvantages” (10) and social disabilities” (11) facing deaf people and preventing their success in the struggle for existence. Instead of addressing the biological difference of deafness, she addresses social issues including labor markets, discrimination, and public support for unemployed deaf people. In fact, H.H. stresses that a deaf man is an “able-bodied, willing man whose only desire is to earn a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” (10). The struggle for existence facing deaf workers in England is not related to biological unfitness but to social disadvantages because “the social disabilities stand in [a deaf man’s] way if he is poor” (11).

Groom desires to establish an “equally balanced struggle with others” (17) for deaf workers through bringing them to the Canadian prairies “where such a harsh state of things does not predominate” (21). Through co-opting the language that eugenicist Oralists used in reference to the perceived biological disadvantages faced by deaf people, Groom resists the medicalization of deaf people, and is able to shift the terms of the argument over deaf community back to the realm of the social. Furthermore, her appropriation of eugenicist discourse draws attention to the fact that Oralism is, fundamentally, an issue of language. It is about the language of eugenics that

Oralists used to create a particular construction of deaf bodies as physically defective.

Groom’s emigration scheme for unemployed deaf Britons was far more radical than the

“plan of welfare” Van Cleve and Crouch believe it to be. Through her creation of a positive space for deaf association and sign language and her rejection of the new logic of Oralism – a logic that pointed to a “defect” in the deaf body to legitimate its oppressive policies of linguistic assimilation – Groom resisted the control that Oralists wished to exert over her body, as a deaf woman, over her use of language as a signer, and over her deaf community. As Groom was attempting to establish her settlement of deaf Britons in the Canadian North-West, she was facing an emerging Oralist medicalized model of deafness as inferior physical difference that needs to be

221 cured and, eventually, eliminated, which is a model of deafness that persists today. In response,

Groom, whose social-constructivist views of disability and deafness are remarkably close to

theories that circulate in present-day Deaf and Disability Studies, pointed to the fluidity of

disabling as a social process. By emphasizing the difference in national contexts, Groom

suggested that deafness is only a disadvantage when cultural conditions dis-able a deaf person. In

fact, Groom’s scheme validated itself by drawing attention to the social process of disabling Deaf

people. This disabling in Britain was a function of hearing prejudice, the medicalization of

deafness through the emerging discourse of eugenics, a lack of public and institutional support for

underprivileged and unemployed deaf people, and widespread attempts to eradicate signed

languages.

Because of the intersection of Oralism and Eugenics, the character of the sign language debates as they took place in the last three decades of the nineteenth-century increasingly became a battle over a deaf person’s body, and, more importantly, over representations of that body. For

Oralists like Bell, who increasingly used alarmist tactics buttressed by the emerging field of eugenics, the deaf body was itself a problem that needed not only to be cured, but also prevented from propagating its “defect.” The supposed tragedy of deaf children and the spectre of a deaf variety of the human race were particular historic constructions of deafness that ignored the possibility that deaf people did not see their very existence as tragic. For deaf people, facing increasingly hostile and aggressive Oralist tactics, (ranging from eliminating signed languages in many schools, the firing of deaf teachers, public debates around their right to marry other deaf people), deaf community and the right to a common language – what we now refer to as the cultural model of Deafness – were increasingly important bulwarks against the emerging medicalized model of deafness.

222 Conclusion: Apologia: Linguistic and Corporeal Inclusiveness in Deaf Studies

This dissertation has traced a particular construction of signed languages as embodied languages speech through a variety of nineteenth-century texts. The popular fictions of Wilkie

Collins and Charles Dickens, the Oralist pedagogies of Thomas Arnold and David Buxton, the eugenicist theories of Alexander Graham Bell, and the deaf resistance texts – poetic and prosaic – of Deaf Britons and North Americans like Jane Elizabeth Groom and Laura Redden Searing were all written within this particular nineteenth-century paradigm of sign as a language more material and corporeal than speech. Each of these writers had to negotiate the particular phonocentric ideologies of their culture in their attempt to textually imagine the relationship between the deaf body and signed languages. As I have demonstrated, Oralists, in particular, mobilized this construction in order to portray signs as less suitable for human use than speech by suggesting that sign’s embodiedness relegated its communications to the realm of iconicity, concreteness, and primitiveness. Deaf people and their allies attempted to re-imagine this alignment of sign with the body in order to defend their capabilities and their rights to sign language. Whether it was deaf poets who celebrated their English literacy alongside their sign literacy or Groom’s assertion that signing deaf communities could remove the disabling barriers faced by the deaf working class, the textual defense of signed languages and deaf people’s abilities resisted Oralist imputations and challenged phonocentric ideologies.

Through examining the ways that the Oralist construction of signed languages as languages of the body was mobilized during the nineteenth-century sign language debates, this dissertation has illuminated how definitions of the body and definitions of language are mutually 223 constitutive. The reality of this interrelationship over the course of the nineteenth century meant that deaf people were disabled through language. That is, if we understand disability as a social process that rewards certain types of difference and disadvantages others, deaf people were marginalized largely because of their linguistic difference. First, deaf people were constructed as abnormal, as Other, as inferior, because of their use of a different mode of language than the majority. Secondly, the largely successful nineteenth-century attempt to strip deaf people of their visuo-spatial language in favor of an oral-aural language effectively dis-abled deaf people by depriving them of an effective way to communicate. In referring to the work of scholars like

Paolo Friere and Henry Giroux, Brueggemann has noted that this disabling through language control is a common feature of oppression (46).

If constructions of language and of the human body are so mutually constitutive and inextricable, how expansively we define them has important ramifications not only for deaf people but for the entire conceptual system of disability. That is, if we can comfortably recognize and incorporate the truth of the variability of the human body, the drive for homogeneity – so often enforced though linguistic homogeneity – may be less compelling, Conversely, if our linguistic paradigms extended beyond the limits of aurality and orality, there would be less desire to hierarchize points of communicative production and reception on the body. Recognizing and affirming diversity in both bodily and linguistic experiences is therefore a key strategy in dismantling the multiple barriers to equality that face deaf people in an audist culture. For this reason, I would like to suggest, that advocacy and respect for diversity should be a central goal of the field of Deaf Studies.

With the value of recognizing physical and linguistic difference in mind, I would like to turn to current debates engrossing the growing field of Deaf Studies. As the field has burgeoned, the parameters of its area of study have been constantly in flux. The debates currently occurring

224 in the field revolve precisely around the intersections of bodies and languages that I have been discussing: What is Deaf Studies? Who is Deaf? What types of physical and linguistic experiences and expertise qualify someone to participate in the field? The first two questions –

What is Deaf Studies and who is Deaf – are very closely aligned. Once we define “Deaf” we also partly establish the parameters of the field of Deaf Studies. These three questions have been addressed by a host of Deaf Studies scholars in various forums including conferences, books, discussions on the Disability Studies in the Humanities Listserv, and in the recently published collection Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking (2008), edited by Dirksen Bauman. In Open

Your Eyes, Bauman’s introduction, Douglas Baynton’s article “Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body” and Lennard Davis’s article “Post-deafness” discuss the various complications involved in defining “Deaf.” In this conclusion to my dissertation I would like to attempt a foray into these debates – including addressing some of the issues that Bauman, Baynton, and Davis raise – that are so essential to the future direction of the field of Deaf Studies. Essentially, I would like to imagine how the field might successfully effect the recognition of diversity in bodies and languages that I argue is so essential to redressing the pervasive prejudices against signed languages and deaf people. In order to do so, I would like to suggest that these questions are really buttressed by other questions including: What is the role of the body in defining Deafness?

What is the role of language? How do these two elements – bodies and languages – intersect?

The history of Deaf Studies as a field grows out of the dichotomy of cultural versus biological explanations of deafness. The biological model is, of course, the one that was dominant for so long and was imposed by various bio-power institutions onto deaf people. This definition centers on audiological deficiency and constructs deafness as a lack that requires remedy. More recently, especially since the institutional recognition in the 1960s that American Sign Language was a true language, the cultural definition of deafness has emerged to counteract the harms of

225 the biological model. Where the biological model refers to deafness with a lower-case d, the cultural model claims the word Deaf with an upper-case D as a form of cultural identity. Baynton describes the elements of deaf culture as:

a shared history, a rich literary culture, rules of etiquette and naming practices that differ

from those of the larger hearing society, a strong tendency to marry within the group, a

unique means of transmitting cultural knowledge between generations, and of course a

complex visual language. In addition, like other cultural minority groups, Deaf people

have established a variety of other social, political and economic organizations as well as

a periodical press dating from the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps most importantly,

Deaf people share fundamental values that differ from those of the hearing Americans

around them, in particular having the value of American Sign Language (ASL) and the

Deaf world. (293)

The Deaf culture model has been extraordinarily useful and positive for various deaf communities. As Carol Padden and Tom Humpries note, “Deaf people have long lived under the benevolence and care of others whose plans and aspirations often isolated Deaf people from each other and labeled them in ways that left them uneducated and alone. Culture offers the possibility of making Deaf people whole” (161).

However, Bauman, Davis, Baynton and other Deaf Studies scholars have raised important objections to the Deaf culture model. For example, Padden and Humphries ask some essential questions about the limits of Deaf culture: “Are deaf people a distinct culture? Or are they more appropriately identified as a subculture of hearing culture? Was there one culture? If the culture entailed use of ASL, where did orally trained or late learners of ASL fit in? Where should hearing people be placed in the organization of the community?” (130). As Padden and

Humphries note, some of the problems with the Deaf culture model relate explicitly to the role of

226 particular languages or bodies in defining identity. For this reason, many Deaf Studies scholars point to the particular issue of the Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) to illuminate the complications of the Deaf culture model. After all, if Deafness is about culture and language rather than about bodies, then CODAs who are raised in Deaf culture and are fluent in sign should be considered

Deaf. In Enforcing Normalcy, Davis has postulated one of the most expansive definitions of what it means to be “Deaf”:

I was born into a family with Deaf parents. My first “word” uttered was in sign

language…. I grew up in a Deaf world, in a Deaf culture, and with a Deaf sensibility. So,

in that sense, I am not deaf (hearing-impaired) but I am Deaf (culturally Deaf). I am what

is now referred to as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), and as such I consider myself

similar to people who have grown up in a bi-cultural family. My claim of authority to

write this book is also based partly on that in-between, liminal position I occupied and

still occupy. (xvii)

In employing the deaf/Deaf conceptual framework Davis is able to claim cultural Deafness as a

CODA – an identity that I share – without the physical experience of audiological deafness.

CODAs occupy an important interstitial space between Deaf and Hearing cultures that allows them to be used as limit cases for theories of Deafness. Can someone be Deaf without being deaf?

Can someone be deaf without being Deaf? This line of thought leads to complicated questions such as the one posed by Bauman: “Can a hearing person such as a Coda be more Deaf than a nonsigning deaf person?” (“Introduction” 12). Davis’s postulation of cultural deafness would affirm this possibility, but some critics believe that this definition of Deafness removes the physical experience of deafness too entirely.

For example, Padden and Humphries attempt to retain the experience of audiological deafness and living as a “visual-tactile minority… in a phonocentric world” (Bauman,

227 “Introduction” 4) in their assessment of the parameters of Deaf identity. In Deaf in America, they note: “Hearing children of Deaf parents represent an ongoing contradiction in the culture: they display the knowledge of their parents – skill in the language and social conduct – but the culture finds subtle ways to give them an unusual and separate status” (3). CODAs are simultaneously insiders and outsiders to Deaf culture. Furthermore, while CODAs may be able to share in many elements of Deaf Culture, they are, essentially, or audiologically, hearing and thereby benefit from the advantages that hearing status confers in audist societies. Deaf people in the nineteenth century raised similar objections to the claims that hearing signers could entirely participate in

Deaf community and culture. In defending the right of deaf people to associate with each other,

James L. Smith, a deaf teacher at the Minnesota deaf school wrote,

It is a truth which many do not realize, and which many will strenuously deny, that

nothing – not even a thorough knowledge of the sign-language, not years of earnest labor

in teaching them, and continual association with them, will enable a hearing person

thoroughly to understand the deaf, their needs and inmost feelings. For no man can

realize what deafness is until he is deaf himself, and no man can, therefore, thoroughly

understand and sympathize with the deaf unless he is one of them. (248)

For Smith, the physical reality of deafness, and the social experiences that it engenders, precludes hearing people from having true “understanding” of and “sympathy” with deaf people. The relevance of this issue of whether or not hearing people can “understand” deafness is, as I will note below, still a part of the discourse of Deaf Studies.

If CODAs and other hearing participants in Deaf culture cannot be comfortably assimilated into the definition of Deaf, then, as Baynton notes, “cultural explanations by themselves are insufficient to explain Deaf identity” (294). For Baynton, the body and the bodily experience of being deaf cannot be cordoned off from Deaf identity and Deaf community. He

228 suggests that in resisting the biological model of deafness that constructed the deaf body as lacking, the field has gone too far in ignoring or effacing the physical difference of audiological deafness. Baynton argues “that if the field of Deaf Studies is to progress, it must move beyond the culture model to talk about the body, about the significance of living in a different sensory world”

(295). Noting the resistance in the Deaf community to being labeled “disabled,” Baynton suggests that “the common argument that Deaf people are a cultural and linguistic group and therefore are not disabled wrongly characterizes culture and disability as mutually exclusive” (297). Baynton’s goal is to re-incorporate the physical difference of deafness within a social-constructivist framework that recognizes that disability is a social process.

However, the next difficult step is to imagine what it would mean to not bracket off the deaf body in Deaf Studies. What would a Deaf Studies that incorporates the body look like and how would it avoid the common pitfall of essentialism? How do we balance the material body with the idea that bodily experience is a social construction? This is a conundrum faced by various disciplines that attempt to resolve the post-structuralist interrogation of the materiality of the body with a social-justice oriented insistence on the material facts of existence faced by marginalized bodies. This is, in a word, the dilemma of contemporary identity politics. While I agree that bodies cannot be erased from Deaf Studies, I am also concerned about the poverty of our discourse for addressing deafness and signed languages without foregrounding some type of imagined special connection to the body (that does not exist for hearing and speaking people). I would like to briefly turn to attempts Deaf Studies scholars have already made to incorporate an analysis of physical and cultural elements by looking at the example of ASL poetry criticism.

Unfortunately, in some of this work, the attempt to theorize the place of the body has devolved into what I would like to suggest is a romanticization of the signing body. In fact, these studies

229 seem to rely on the very nineteenth-century model of signed languages as more corporeal than speech that I have traced throughout this dissertation.

ASL poetry criticism is only twenty-five years old and is still a very small body of work.

ASL poetry critics, who typically publish in English, are wrestling with a phonocentric language and theoretical discourse in their attempts to analyze a visuo-spatial genre. The result is sometimes a criticism that romanticizes signed languages in its efforts to understand the place of the body in the text. This romanticization also relies upon a very particular reading of the relationship between sign and the body. For example, in “Deaf Poets Society: Subverting the

Hearing Paradigm,” Susan Burch argues that because the audience and the performer are both physically present during an ASL poetry performance, the eye contact and physical presence that they share creates a new kind of poetic experience. Burch writes “this experience joins the mind and the body in a way that subverts the abstraction of written poetry and its interpretation and makes the poem a shared experience, the most intimate form of communication” (125). We might note that this live poetic experience is not confined to ASL poetry but would also apply to live spoken poetry readings. That is, the presence of corporeality is not unique to sign poetry.

However, some ASL poetry critics, including Burch, argue that some type of intimate communication occurs in ASL poetry because of their understanding of its particularly embodied nature. For example, in “Redesigning Literature: The Cinematic Poetics of ASL Poetry,” Bauman writes, “as with any medium that incorporates the human body, a type of intersubjective communication occurs between performer and viewer…the ASL text is always a human body, projecting its own visual-spatial-kinetic experience, awakening similar lived experiences in the minds and bodies of the viewers (45). Again, it is true that the ASL text is embodied but Bauman and Burch are unable to distinguish this particular embodiment from the spoken text which is also embodied. Bauman then invokes the extra-linguistic nature of ASL poetry, writing “the two

230 bodies together, the poet’s and the viewer’s, ultimately combine to create a text that is more than a script of linguistic signs; it is rather a lived kinesthetic experience” (45). In order to argue that bodies communicate in this way, that they can “awaken similar lived experiences” in each other, outside of language, Bauman seems to be relying on some type of essential body – one that is stable and material, one that can communicate to another body in some type of universal or transparent manner. Furthermore, when Burch says that ASL poetry joins the mind and the body she also relies upon a problematic mind/body binary, one that has been used to denigrate signed languages for centuries.

In my critique of these approaches, I do not mean to assert that the body does not communicate extra-linguistically because of course it does. However, the idea that ASL, as some type of particularly embodied language, can somehow communicate the essence of the body, or the self, or the poem, better than oral or written poetry needs to be challenged through drawing attention to the fact that the body is an unstable social construction. What we think that we are reading when we read the body, or a shared experience with another body, is a product of discourse. Furthermore, this criticism relies on the construction that signed languages are products of the body in a very different way than speech. Part of this seems to be related to sign’s visual orientation; Burch problematically argues that visual imagery “is the most universal form of communication” (125). By reading bodies in an essentializing fashion, some ASL poetry criticism contradicts the very social-constructivist foundations of Deaf culture and Deaf Studies.

Another problem with this approach to ASL poetry is its effacement of sign language’s status as a true language and reverts to an idea of ASL as a type of universal gestural system.

Burch asserts, for example, that this shared bodily communication is available to those who do not know ASL because ASL’s “natural asset – its image orientation… transcend[s] phonetics and speak[s] for itself” (130). Why, in our historical position after the linguistic recognition of ASL,

231 after post-structuralism, and after Deaf culture, do critics of ASL poetry revert to a discourse of sign language’s expressive capabilities that is over a hundred and fifty years old? Again, I do not mean to suggest that signed languages do not have a particular relationship to iconicity, but only that these iconic resonances are not transparent to non-signers.

ASL poetry criticism faces the difficult task of analyzing the relationship between the body and language within a cultural paradigm that understands signed languages as more embodied than other forms of language. Part of the difficulty arises from an absence of discursive possibilities. What vocabulary can literary critics use to discuss ASL poetry? There seems to be a sense among these critics that ASL poetry creates a new type of communication or expression outside of language. I argue that this is not the case but rather that we do not yet have an appropriate discourse for this communication outside of spoken and written language. The poetic discourse of English literary studies is not equipped to handle various features of ASL poetry including its linguistic capabilities, its seeming textualizing of the body, and its formal properties.108 The result is criticism that romanticizes presence in ASL poetry without self-

108English Literary Studies does not have a vocabulary that it can use with a visual-spatial language like ASL. As Bauman notes, our disciplinary ideas about language and literature have arisen out of a false binary of speech and writing (“Towards,” 315). He asks, “If the Deaf Poet had been mythologized as the blind poet has been, would literature have developed differently?” (316). Sign language has no oral or written version so how can a discipline founded on an oral/written language binary begin to approach it? Further, we do not know how to separate out non-linguistic “body language” from ASL when they both occur simultaneously. Instead, in the work of many of these critics, ASL is romanticized as simply having superior communicative abilities than oral or written languages. Padden and Humphries explain that ASL and English have different qualities but equal capabilities being “equivalent in expressive power but different in what they expressed” (154). This balanced treatment of ASL by a sign linguist suggests to me that one potential avenue for approaching this issue is through the discipline of linguistics. Linguistics and literary studies have been so alienated from each other that ASL gained linguistic recognition and study in the 1960’s but it wasn’t until 1997 that the MLA moved ASL into the category of “natural” languages like English or Japanese in the MLA bibliography and out of the category of “invented” languages where it stood alongside Klingon (Brueggemann 197). Linguistics has produced a substantial body of work on the properties of signed languages thereby also creating a new vocabulary to address visuality in language. Though literary studies would certainly need to create its own literary terminology for ASL literature, grounding this terminology in linguistics in order to prevent the overly romanticized claims made for the language might be a productive first step. 232 consciously questioning its privileging of the presence of the human body nor the link between sign and corporeality.

Some have suggested that rather than relying on a seemingly essentialist definition of

Deafness that revolves around bodies, the Deaf community and Deaf Studies focus on the use of signed languages. Bauman notes that an increasingly popular approach is to refer to a “signing community” which can include Deaf people and their hearing allies (“Introduction” 12).

Understanding Deaf studies as a language-focused field rather than an audiological experience- focused field is more inclusive of physical difference and certainly less prone to essentialism.

However, it also excludes those people who do not sign. As Davis argues, “We have to understand that Deafness isn't a static thing but evolving over time. The ‘traditional’ notion is that sign language defines deafness, but given Deaf people with cochlear implants, oral Deaf, hard-of-hearing, non-signing Deaf, it would seem exclusionist to the nth degree to think of sign language as the key determinant” (18 April 2007). Furthermore, barring the involvement of oral deaf people or individuals with cochlear implants in Deaf Studies would be extremely problematic in punishing the very people who may have been most affected by the very phonocentrism Deaf Studies wishes to interrogate.

Another common critique of the Deaf culture model relates to its potential for essentialism or exclusivity and the related necessity for identity border policing. This critique suggests that the definition of a group of Deaf people according to models of ethnic, national, or linguistic minority is firmly invested, by necessity, in defining outsiders and insiders. Davis, in particular, critiques elements of the Deaf Culture model that attempt to align Deaf identity with ethnicity or with linguistic minorities. In “Postdeafness,” he asks, “with the recent reexamination

233 of identity politics under way in the United States, and the concomitant rethinking of the category of identity, is the best choice to go with a model that is increasingly antiquated and outmoded?”

(“Postdeafness” 317) As part of this critique Davis historicizes and uncovers the links between the concepts of identity and the body, suggesting that identities like race and gender have been typically understood as rooted in the corporeality:

When we talk about identity, we do speak of social identities, but the bedrock identities

of this culture – racial, gendered, sexual, and so on – seem to have been, at least

historically, defined by the fact that they, like disability, have been necessarily rooted in

the body. (317).

In fact, Davis then traces this alignment of the body and identity to the period I have studied in this dissertation:

From the nineteenth century on, with the rise of medicine and science, identity became

founded on the bedrock of inherited traits….The point is that, historically, the era of

identity is connected fundamentally to a notion of inherited traits linked to groups of

people who carry such traits. That is, race, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, national

origin, along with deafness, were pinpointed for improvement and correction (and

likewise discrimination) from the mid-nineteenth century on in the name of eugenics and

later genetics. (317)

As I argued in chapter four, deafness became increasingly pathologized in the post-Darwinian period and issues of heritability became newly important in an eugenics-inflected culture. In texts such as Alexander Graham Bell’s Memoir Upon a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, the physical characteristics of deaf people were used to conceptually group deaf people together in order to suggest that their collective identity was threatening to the rest of the human race. In

“Postdeafness,” Davis points to how this relic of the nineteenth century – identity – has

234 increasingly come under attack by the growth of postmodern understandings of languages and bodies including discourses of performativity, social construction, anti-essentialism and various scientific developments (317-8).

As a potential counterweight to the heritability denoted by identity thinking, Davis suggests a new focus on a different, less embodied, form of collectivity. Davis asks, “Why use the outdated, outmoded, and potentially dangerous categories of ethnicity, minority status, nationhood (including ‘world’ and ‘culture’) when one might do better to use the category of

‘one-generation’ identities to redefine the nature of social identity?” (323). When Davis refers to one-generation identities, he extends Robert Hoffmeister’s term for CODAs to include a variety of groups whose social identity is also not the product of inheritance: “The deaf, Codas, people with disabilities, and queer folk are… only ‘one generation thick’” (321) because their identity is not typically heritable. Davis finds this notion of one-generational identity productive because these groups “are social groups that are not defined solely by bodily capabilities.” Davis suggests that these groups can collectivize and mobilize in order to interrogate identity politics. Key to this new social solidarity would be the notion of the continuum that is already central to Queer

Studies and Disability Studies: Identity would therefore be “malleable and not grounded in the traditional medicalized or essentialized views of the body” (323). Davis wants Deaf Studies to

“come up with flexible and nonhierarchical models of being, and lead the way out of the dead end of identity thinking” (324).

If identity thinking is a dead end, then what options face Deaf people and Deaf Studies on the horizon? Davis notes that he alone cannot imagine the path that should be taken because this next step in Deaf Studies must be an organic collective discussion (324). I am extremely sympathetic to Davis’s desire to shift away from physical difference in conceptualizing Deaf identity and Deaf Studies, especially since the foundations of the field involve interrogating the

235 stability of physical difference. However, when I note my desire to transcend identity politics I

must also underscore that I am speaking from a hegemonic position. After all, I am not deaf even

if I can claim Deaf culture, and perhaps I do not have the right to voice my opinion on this matter.

In other fields like feminism, minority feminist theorists have critiqued those feminist theorists

who seek to erase the body or collapse difference in service of feminist solidarity. As various

black and third world feminists including bell hooks, Audre Lord and Chandra Mohanty have

emphasized, the desire to move beyond identity politics or to efface physical difference is a

privilege of those who may be less marginalized or less marked by that bodily difference. This is

a serious objection that Deaf Studies must also face. When Deaf Studies scholars who are hearing

engage with these questions of identity, community, and the boundaries of the field, we face

ethical dilemmas because our bodies are not marked in the same way as Deaf people. How can

hearing scholars who wish to ally themselves with Deaf Studies in a critique of audism participate

in the field ethically?109 How can I justify the project on Deaf history and culture that I have just undertaken as a hearing person in a responsible way that does not replicate the paternalism and power dynamics of the very Oralist system I have studied? These are complicated questions that scholars individually, and as representatives of an Academy that has marginalized deaf people and other linguistic and cultural minorities must face.

These issues bring me to the third question currently facing Deaf Studies as a field: what kinds of qualifications – physical, linguistic, or otherwise – equip a scholar to participate in the

109 Davis engages with these important issues in Enforcing Normalcy. He writes that his position as a hearing person complicates his position as a theorizer of Deafness and Disability: I am sure that some or even many people with disabilities will feel that in acting as a theorizer of disability I am adopting a patronizing role, like those educators of the deaf who presumed to know better than the Deaf. This is a real and genuine objection. I can only respond that I am aware of the issues surrounding identity politics, and, while I can accept the existential argument that only a black person can understand blackness, I cannot accept the political implications of such an argument. To develop a working politics, one has to accept that the subject position that one occupies is to some extent capable of being shared by those in similar circumstances. (xix) 236 field? This question was the subject of a recent discussion on the Disability Studies in the

Humanities listserv that engaged leading scholars in the field, emerging scholars, and members of the community. The question that initiated the exchange was the seemingly straightforward

“What is Deaf Studies?” However the discussion quickly turned to who can claim to be Deaf and who can contribute to Deaf Studies scholarship. As part of this conversation, Disability Studies scholar Tobin Siebers foregrounded the striking difference between Deaf Studies and Disability

Studies on this issue. He noted that Disability Studies scholars who are temporarily abled do

“claim disability, that is, embrace it as a significant category of cultural understanding.” This recognition that the concept of disability is always in flux and that “any given person is likely to become disabled” is central to Disability Studies and “makes…disability itself a critical concept”

(Siebers). However, Siebers wondered if the same claiming of Deafness was possible within Deaf

Studies. In response, Bauman argued that a hearing person cannot really claim a Deaf identity because he or she does not share the same sensory and cultural experiences as deaf people. He writes, “I do believe that one’s engagement with the world through sensory experience has a profound identity-forming quality. While I and others may live and work in the Deaf-World, we cannot fully understand what it is like within the Deaf Sensorium” (“Deaf Studies”).

This notion of needing to “understand” the experiences of deaf people in order to claim

Deafness was another noted difference between Deaf Studies and other fields. Robert McRuer took up Bauman’s rhetoric of being unable to understand another’s experience by noting that it would be strange to encounter such an argument in LGBT/Queer Studies. McRuer suggests that the critique of heteronormativity that is fundamental to Queer Studies can be lodged by “straight” people as much as by “gay” people. According to Siebers and McRuer, Queerness and Disability are conceptual and theoretical categories accessible to those who wish to claim them even if their physical or cultural identity is “straight” or “temporarily-abled.”

237 Issues of language also distinguish Deaf Studies from Disability Studies or Queer

Studies. In response to questions about whether hearing or deaf non-signers should be able to participate in the field of Deaf Studies, Bauman pointed to sign literacy as an issue of

“appropriate training and rigor”:

Would a French program with any standards tolerate faculty who did not know the

language to teach it? Would tenure and promotion committees frown upon faculty who

do not know French to publish articles on French poetry? [sic] Yet, for some reason there

are many who claim to be scholars of ASL poetry because they like the work of [ASL

poets] Flying Words Project but they would be lost at a literary night at Gallaudet

[University]. There is much out there that disability studies scholars who want to "do"

Deaf Studies could never understand, could only get through translation. (“Deaf Studies

and/or Signed Language Studies”?)

Bauman then imagined that some might suggest a potential division of fields into Sign Language

Studies and Deaf Studies where participation in Sign Studies would be predicated on sign literacy not audiological experience. What space would be available for non-signers to participate in a critique of audism? And how would a division into Sign and Deaf Studies affect Deaf Studies as a field? Would it be a field that only Deaf scholars could participate in? Why, as McRuer asked, do some suggest that experience with deafness is a qualification for involvement in the academic field of Deaf Studies?

What these questions seem to be conflating is membership in the Deaf community and participation in the field of Deaf Studies. I want to underscore that many people do believe that these should essentially be overlapping categories in order to prevent hearing-dominated or audist approaches to studying Deaf people. Deaf people understandably want to be in control of the field of study that ostensibly concerns their experiences in the world and their language use. Of

238 course, like most minority issues, the study of deaf people has historically been controlled by hegemonic biopower institutions without the consent or involvement of the people under study.

For so long, deaf people were the objects rather than the subjects of study. Because of this history, the slogan “Nothing about us, without us” is an extremely important standard in

Disability and Deaf Studies. However, it also opens up a variety of questions about who “us” is.

Who can participate in the field of Deaf Studies? Is a deaf body a prerequisite for involvement in

Deaf Studies and if so, how deaf? Is sign language use alone a satisfactory enough credential?

Are there other ways to avoid reproducing the history of hearing-deaf power relations in the field outside of excluding hearing people and non-signers from the field? Again, I would like to note my own investment in the answers to these questions. After all, while I am a signer, I am a hearing person engaged in the field of Deaf Studies. My answers to these questions are not impartial.

If a critical task of Deaf Studies involves the interrogation of audism as it appears in culture, and the related recognition of signed languages, I believe the field certainly benefits from expanding outside of the Deaf community. To address this issue, we can look to the precedents established by other critical minority studies in the academy. Can people who are descended from colonizing countries or cultures participate in post-colonial studies? Can non-African-

Americans participate in African-American studies? Can people who identify as straight participate in Queer Studies? Can men participate in Women’s Studies or Gender Studies? I think that the answer to these issues lies in the orientation of the field itself. That is, if Gender Studies postulates the social-construction of gender, then how can it possibly hold to an essentialized physical definition of sex in defining which scholars can participate in the critique of patriarchy?

Furthermore, isn’t it necessary that a critique of patriarchy be undertaken by those who most benefit from the system?

239 In Playing in The Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison models the form of critique that I am imagining here. She postulates a mode of reading culture that moves away from the victims of racism in order to consider the “the impact of racism on those who perpetuate it” (11). That is, the “Africanist presence” in American literature that Morrison traces has much more to do with “whiteness” and how particular constructions of “blackness” define

“whiteness” (9). Deaf and Disability Studies have theorized a similar function for abnormality or disability—Davis argues, for example, that “the very concept of normalcy by which most people

(by definition) shape their existence is in fact tied inexorably to the concept of disability, or rather, the concept of disability is a function of a normalcy” (Enforcing Normalcy 2). If a critique of the audism and phonocentrism that have marginalized Deaf people for so long is central to

Deaf Studies, I would like to suggest that this critique needs to be made in literary and cultural studies as a whole, even among hearing people and non-signers. While this may not be a controversial position, some might find it more problematic to advocate for hearing involvement in the study of deaf cultural production. After all, this dissertation is more than simply a critique of the audism of the nineteenth-century sign language debates. It also examines the cultures, languages, and histories of deaf people in the nineteenth century. Their lives, cultural products, and experiences have become the object of my study, which may be objectionable to some people because of my bodily experience.

In advocating diversity in Deaf Studies scholarship, I do not intend to efface the differences between those scholars who identify as hearing and those scholars who identify as deaf and/or Deaf. I simply wish to underscore that while this difference means that hearing people face different ethical responsibilities and scholarly investments in Deaf Studies than Deaf people, it should not mean that they cannot participate in the field. If Deaf Studies is buttressed by the idea that deafness is not a loss but rather a different way of engaging the world through visuality,

240 and through the use of a visual-spatial-gestural language, then it seems to me that Deaf Studies has nothing to gain through exclusivity or suspicion of bad faith in hearing people who wish to participate in the critique of Audism. Instead of exclusivity in Deaf Studies, a welcoming invitation to those who are willing to learn about and respect Deaf culture and signed languages in order to become literate cultural critics in Deaf Studies seems essential. Overall, I believe that the field must embrace expansiveness and diversity in the physical and linguistic capacities of its participants. While I cannot project what this might look like, I do hope that the field would aim for inclusivity, for social critique of an audist society, and finally, for celebrating cultural, physical and linguistic difference (while, of course, recognizing that those differences have asymmetrical cultural meanings and power). If bodies and languages combine to create particular definitions of normalcy and disability, I would like to suggest that Deaf Studies remove barriers and welcome all combinations – new signers, CODAs, deaf-blind people, hard of hearing people,

Deaf signers and so on – to the field. The challenges facing the field – including Baynton’s recommendation of re-invoking the deaf body, Davis’s caution against the essentialism of identity politics, and Bauman’s stress on the centrality of signed languages to Deaf Studies – can best be addressed through remembering the lessons of the nineteenth-century sign language debates and moving towards inclusivity in linguistic, cultural, and bodily difference.

241 Works Cited

“A New Species.” New York Times. New York. 16 November 1883.

“Absurd.” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Ackers, B. St John, “Advantages to the Deaf of the German System in After Life.”

Report of the Proceedings of the International Congress of the Education for the Deaf

Held at Milan, September 6th-11th, 1880; taken from the English Official Minutes.

London: W.H. Allen, 1880.

“Adjunct.” Oxford Dictionary of English. 2nd ed. Ed Catherine Soanes and Angus

Stevenson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

Allingham, William. A Diary. Ed. H. Allingham and D. Radford. London: MacMillan

and Co., 1907.

Alter, Stephen. William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language. Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins UP, 2005.

Arata, Steven. Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1996.

Armitage, T.R. “Emigration for Deaf Mutes.” Letter to the editor of The Christian. The

Christian. May 14, 1885. 16.

---. Letter to Alexander Graham Bell. 18 May 1885. Alexander Graham Bell Family

Papers. Library of Congress. Washington D.C.

Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Politics, Poetics. London: Routledge,

1993.

Arnold, Thomas. The Education of the Deaf and Dumb: an Exposition and a Review of

the French and German Systems. London: Elliott Stock, 1872.

---. Education of Deaf Mutes: A Manual for teachers. Vol.2. London: Hazell, Watson and 242 Viney, 1891.

Ashdown, J. Percy. “The Silent Maiden: A Polyglot Song of Love.” Sung by Charles

Coborn. London: Francis, Day and Hunter. [1891].

Austen, Jane. Emma. Vol. 2. London: John Murray, 1816.

Bauman, H-Dirksen L. “Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression.” Journal of

Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. 9.2 (2004): 239-46.

---. “Deaf Studies.” Disability Studies in the Humanities Listserv. 25 April 2007.

https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ds-hum.html

---. “Deaf Studies and/or Signed Language Studies?” Disability Studies in the Humanities

Listserv. 19 April 2007. https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ds-hum.html

---. “Designing Deaf Babies and the Question of Disability.” Journal of Deaf Studies and

Deaf Education. 10.3 (Summer 2005): 311- 15.

---. “Introduction.” Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota

P, 2008. 1-32.

---. “Listening to Phonocentrism with Deaf Eyes: Derrida’s Mute Philosophy of (Sign)

Language.” Essays in Philosophy: A Biannual Journal 9.1(January 2008).

---. “Redesigning Literature: The Cinematic Poetics of ASL Poetry.” Sign Language

Studies. 4.1 (Fall 2003): 34 –47.

---. “Toward a Poetics of Vision, Space and the Body: Sign Language and Literary

Theory. The Disability Studies Reader. Ed. Lennard J. Davis. New York: Routledge,

1997.

Baynton, Douglas C. “Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body.” Open Your

243 Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking. Ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,

2008. 293-313.

---. Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign Against Sign Language.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.

Bell, Alexander Graham. “Fallacies Concerning the Deaf.” Report of the Royal

Commission on the Education of the Blind and Deaf and Dumb Vol.2.: Appendix to the

Report. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1889.

---. Marriage. An Address to the Deaf. Washington D.C.: Gibson Bros., 1891.

---. Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. Presented to the

National Academy of Sciences at New Haven, November 13, 1883. National Academy of

Sciences. Washington D.C., 1884.

Bingham, H.B., ed. Essays by the Pupils at the College of the Deaf and Dumb, Rugby,

Warwickshire. London: Longman and Co., 1845.

Blais, Marguerite with Jules Desrosiers. Quand les Sourds Nous Font Signe: Histoires de

Sourds. Quebec: Le Dauphin Blanc, 2003.

Bragg, Lois, ed. Deaf World: A Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook. New York:

New York UP, 2001.

Branson, Jan and Don Miller. Damned for their Difference: The Cultural Construction of

Deaf People as Disabled. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2002.

Bristow, Joseph, ed. The Victorian Poet: Poetics and Persona. London: Croom Helm,

1987.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Aurora Leigh and Other Poems. Ed. John Robert Glorney

Bolton and Julia Bolton Holloway. London: Penguin, 1995.

Browning, Robert. “Fra Lippo Lippi.” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and

244 Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview,

1999. 319-325.

---. “How It Strikes a Contemporary.” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and

Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview,

1999. 345-347.

---. “My Last Duchess.” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and

Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview,

1999. 309-310.

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo. “Deaf Eyes: The Allen Sisters’ Photography, 1885-1920.”

Women and Deafness: Double Visions. Ed. Brenda Jo Brueggemann and Susan Burch.

Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2006.

---. Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical Constructions of Deafness. Washington D.C.:

Gallaudet UP, 1999.

Burch, Susan. “Deaf Poets Society: Subverting the Hearing Paradigm.” Literature and

Medicine. 16.1 (1997): 121-34.

---. Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War Two. New

York: New York UP, 2002.

Burnet, John R. Tales of the Deaf and Dumb with Miscellaneous Poems. Newark:

Benjamin Olds, 1835.

Buxton, David. On the Marriage and Intermarriage of the Deaf and Dumb. Liverpool:

W. Fearnall, 1857.

---. “Speech and Lipreading for the Deaf.” Report of the Proceedings of the

245 International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, Held at Milan, September 6th- 11th,

1880; Taken from the English Official Minutes. London: W.H. Allen and Co. 1880. 147-

59.

Canadian Association of the Deaf. “Deaf Issues: Deaf Culture Vs. Medicalization.”

Canadian Association of the Deaf Website. http://www.cad.ca/en/

issues/deaf_culture_vs_medicalization.asp. Accessed 1 May 2007.

Canadian Department of Agriculture. Letter to Alexander Graham Bell. July 16, 1886.

[Held in the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress.]

Carbin, Clifton. Deaf Heritage in Canada. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1996.

Carlin, John. “The Mute’s Lament.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Volume 1.

(October 1847): 15-6.

Chamberlain, Wm. Martin. “The Animus.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Vol.

33. (1888): 133- 37.

Christ, Carol T. “Introduction: Victorian Poetics.” A Companion to Victorian Poetry.

Eds. Richard Cronin, Alison Chapman and Antony H. Harrison. Oxford: Blackwell,

2002.

Collins, Wilkie. Armadale. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1866.

---. Hide and Seek. Ed. Catherine Peters. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

---. Poor Miss Finch. Ed. Catherine Peters. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995.

---. The Woman in White. London: Penguin, 1994.

Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism. Ithaca:

Cornell UP, 1982.

Cutrofello, Andrew (1998). “Derrida, Jacques” in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia

246 of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved April 26, 2006 from

http://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/DE010.

Daigle, Daniel and Anne-Marie Parisot, eds. Surdite et Societe: Perspectives

Psychosociale, Didactique et Linguistique. Quebec: Presses de l’Universite du Quebec,

2006.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London,

Penguin, 2004.

---. Letter to F. Max Müller. 3 July 1873. More Letters of Charles Darwin, a record of his

work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. Vol. 2. Ed. Francis Darwin and A.C.

Seward. 1903. http://www.gutenberg.org/ dirs/etext01/2mlcd10.txt. Retrieved 9

September 2007.

---. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored

Races in the Struggle for Life. Ed. J.W. Burrow. London: Penguin, 1968.

Darwin, George. “Marriages between First Cousins in England and their Effects.”

Journal of the Statistical Society. Vol. 38 No. 2. (June 1875): 169-173.

Davis, Lennard J. “Deaf Studies Definition?” Disability Studies in the Humanities

Listserv. 18 April 2007. https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ds-hum.html

---. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body. London: Verso, 1995.

---. “Postdeafness.” Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking. Ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008. 314-325.

Derrida, Jacques. “The Animal that Therefore I am (More to Follow). Critical Inquiry. 28.2. (Winter 2002): 369- 419. ---. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

UP, 1997. 247 Dever, Carolyn. “The Marriage Plot and its Alternatives.” The Cambridge Companion to

Wilkie Collins. Ed. Jenny Bourne Taylor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 112-23.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes, For General Circulation. Ed. Patricia Ingram.

London: Penguin, 2000.

---. Bleak House. Ed. Nicola Bradbury. London: Penguin, 1996.

---. “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions.” All the Year Round. 7 December 1865.

---. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1965, rpt. 1985.

---. The Pickwick Papers. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

Dowling, Linda. “Victorian Oxford and the Science of Language.” PMLA 97.2 (March

1982): 160-78.

Draper, Amos G. “Dr. Bell’s Memoir.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Vol. 33.

(1888): 39- 43.

---. “Memories of Sound.” in Gallaudet, E.M., “Poetry of the Deaf.” Education of Deaf

Children: Evidence of Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell, presented

to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, The Deaf

and Dumb, Etc. with Accompanying papers, postscripts and an index. Ed. Joseph C.

Gordon. Washington D.C. Volta Bureau, 1892.

---. “The Attitude of the Adult Deaf towards Pure Oralism,” (1895). Deaf World: A

Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook. Ed. Lois Bragg. NY: New York UP, 2001.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. Gregory Maertz. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview,

2004.

Farrar, Abraham. “Letter to the Editor.” The Times. 2 June 1882.

Fay, Edward Allen. Marriages of the Deaf in America. Washington D.C.: Volta Bureau,

1893.

248 Ferguson, Christine. Language, Science and Popular Fiction at the Fin-de-Siécle: The

Brutal Tongue. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

Field, Kate. Pen Photographs of Charles Dickens’s Readings: Taken From Life. New

York: Whitson, 1998.

Flint, Kate. “Disability and Difference.” The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins.

Ed. Jenny Bourne Taylor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 153-167.

Flournoy, J.J. “ Letter from Mr. Flournoy to Mr. Turner.” Deaf World: A Historical

Reader and Primary Sourcebook. Ed. Lois Bragg. New York: New York UP, 2001.

Fouts, Roger and Stephen Turkel Mills. Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees. New

York: Harper Collins, 1997.

Fuller, Angie A. “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy” in E.M. Gallaudet, “Poetry of the Deaf.”

Education of Deaf Children: Evidence of Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander

Graham Bell, presented to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the

Condition of the Blind, The Deaf and Dumb, Etc. with Accompanying papers, postscripts

and an index. Ed. Joseph C. Gordon. Washington D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1892.

Gallaudet, E.M. “Poetry of the Deaf.” Education of Deaf Children: Evidence of Edward

Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell, presented to the Royal Commission of the

United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, The Deaf and Dumb, Etc. with

Accompanying papers, postscripts and an index. Ed. Joseph C. Gordon. Washington

D.C:. Volta Bureau, 1892.

---. “Testimony” Report of the Royal Commission on the Education of the

Blind and Deaf and Dumb. Vol.3. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1889.

Galton, Francis. “Hereditary Deafness.” Nature. January 22, 1885. 269-70.

249 ---. “The Just Perceivable Difference.” Proceedings of the Royal Institution 14. (1893):

13-26.

Gillett, Philip. From “Articles in Science.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Vol.

36. (1891): 80-87.

Gitter, Elisabeth. “Deaf-Mutes and Heroines in the Victorian Era.” Victorian Literature

and Culture 20 (1992): 179-196.

---. The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind

Girl. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.

Greenwald, Brian H. “The Real ‘Toll’ of A.G. Bell: Lessons About Eugenics.” Genetics,

Disability, and Deafness. Ed. John Vickrey Van Cleve. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP,

2004. 35- 41.

Griffiths, Eric. The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.

Hallam, Arthur Henry. “On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry and on the

Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson” Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry

and Poetic Theory. Eds. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough,

Ontario: Broadview, 1999. 1190-1205.

Harper, Stephen. “Text of Stephen Harper’s Residential Schools Apology.” CTV News.

11 June 2008. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/

20080611/harper_text_080611/20080611/. 21 June 2008.

Haraway, Donna J. Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern

Science. New York: Routledge, 1989.

“Historical Aspects.” Vocational Guidance Standard Model for Deaf People in Europe.

Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol. 21 June 2007.

.

250 H.H. An Evangelist Among the Deaf and Dumb. 1884.

H.H. A Future for the Deaf and Dumb in the Canadian North-West. Being an Account of

a first attempt at colonization in the Canadian North West, by Miss Jane

Elizabeth Groom, and a plan of her future operations. London: Potter Bros. 1884.

Hodgson, Edward Allen, ed. Facts, Anecdotes and Poetry, relating to the Deaf and

Dumb. New York: Deaf-Mutes’ Journal Print, 1891.

Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture.

Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges. Ed.

Claude Colleer Abbott. London: Oxford UP, 1935.

Howe, Maud and Florence Howe Hall. Laura Bridgman: Dr Howe’s Famous Pupil and

What He Taught Her. London: Hodden and Stoughton, 1904.

Hull, Susanna. “My Experience of Various Methods of Educating the Deaf Born.”

Report of the Proceedings of the international Congress of the Education of the Deaf

Held at Milan, September 6th-11th, 1880; taken from the English Official Minutes.

London: W.H. Allen, 1880. 69- 84.

Huxley, Thomas Henry. Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature. New York: Appleton, 1863. “Institution of the Deaf and Dumb.” New York Times. 14 July 1859.

Keble, John. Keble’s Lectures on Poetry, 1832-1841.Vol.1. Trans. Edward Kershaw

Francis. Oxford: Clarendon, 1912.

Kingsley, Charles. Letter to Charles Darwin. 18 November 1859. In Charles Darwin’s

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Volume

2. Ed. Francis Darwin. London: John Murray, 1887. 287-8.

251 ---. The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for A Land Baby. Boston: T.O.H.P. Burnham, 1864.

Kipling, Rudyard. “Bertran and Bimi.” Life’s Handicap. London: MacMillan, 1891.

Kitto, John. The Lost Senses. Edinburgh: William Oliphant; London: Hamilton and Co.,

n.d. [1848].

Klages, Mary. Woeful Afflictions: Disability and Sentimentality in Victorian America.

Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1999.

Krielkamp, Ivan. Voice and The Victorian Storyteller. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005.

Krentz, Christopher. A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816-

1864. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2000.

---. Writing Deafness: The Hearing Line in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Chapel Hill:

U of North Carolina P, 2007.

Lamson, Mary Swift. Life and Education of Laura Dewey Bridgman, the Deaf, Dumb

and Blind Girl. London. 1890.

Lane, Harlan. When The Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf. New York: Vintage, 1984.

Lepore, Jill. A is For American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United

States. New York: Vintage, 2002.

Lynch, Deidre. “Matters of Memory: Response.” Victorian Studies 49.2 (2007): 228-40.

Maginn, Francis. “Letter to the Editor.” The Times. n.d. [May 1882].

Martineau, Harriet. Autobiography. Volume 1. Ed. Maria Weston Chapman. Boston:

James R. Osgood, 1877.

---. Household Education. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1861.

---. “Letter to the Deaf.” Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine. Vol. 1, 1834. 174-179.

---. Principle and Practice; or, the Orphan Family. A Tale. London: Wellington; 252 Houlston and Son, 1827.

McRuer, Robert. “Deaf studies?” Disability Studies in the Humanities Listserv. 24 April

2007. https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ds-hum.html

Morgentaler, Goldie. Dickens and Heredity: When Like Begets Like. London, New York:

MacMillan, St. Martins, 2000.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New

York: Vintage, 1992.

Morse, Deborah Denenholz and Martin A. Danahay. Victorian Animal Dreams:

Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate,

2007.

“Mr. Wilkinson on the Sign-Language.” The American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb.

Vol. 20 (1875): 133-4.

Müller, F. Max. Lectures on the Science of Language, Delivered at the Royal Institution

of Great Britain in April, May and June, 1861. London: Longman, 1861.

---. Lectures on the Science of Language, Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great

Britain in February, March, April and May, 1863. 2nd Series. In Lectures on the Science

of Language. 7th ed. Vol. 2. London: Longman, 1873.

Murray, Jeffrey S. “Land Grants.” Moving Here, Staying Here: The Canadian Immigrant

Experience. Library and Archives Canada. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/

immigrants/021017-1600-e.html. Accessed 20 May 2007.

Murray, Joseph J. “Co-equality and Transnational Studies: Understanding Deaf Lives.”

253 Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking. Ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman. Minneapolis: U of

Minnesota P, 2008. 100-110.

---. “’True-Love and Sympathy’: The Deaf-Deaf Marriages Debate in Transatlantic

Perspective.” Genetics, Disability, and Deafness. Ed. John Vickrey Van Cleve.

Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2004. 42- 71.

Murray, Laura J. “Joining Signs With Words: Missionaries, Metaphors, and the

Massachusett Language.” The New England Quarterly 72.1 (March 2001): 62-93.

Nack, James. “Spring is Coming.” New York Tribune. March 15, 1845. Last page.

Ong, Walter J. “Hopkins Sprung Rhythm and the Life of English poetry.” Immortal

Diamond: Studies in Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Norman Weyand. New York:

Octagon, 1969.

“Our Deaf Mutes.” New York Times. 27 June 1872.

Padden, Carol and Tom Humphries. Deaf in America: Voices From A Culture.

Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.

---. Inside Deaf Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 2005.

Page, Norman. Wilkie Collins: The Critical Heritage. London; Boston: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1974.

Pearson, Karl. Life of Francis Galton. Vol. 3B. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1930.

Peet, Mary Toles. “The Castle of Silence.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb.

Vol.11 (1859): 204-7.

---. “Thoughts on Music” in E.M. Gallaudet, “Poetry of the Deaf.” Education of Deaf

Children: Evidence of Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell, presented

to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, The Deaf

254 and Dumb, Etc. with Accompanying papers, postscripts and an index. Ed. Joseph C.

Gordon. Washington D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1892.

Peters, Catherine. “Introduction.” Hide and Seek by Wilkie Collins. Ed. Catherine Peters.

Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

Pick, Daniel. Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c.1848 – c. 1918.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.

Picker, John M. Victorian Soundscapes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.

Poe, Edward Allan. “The Poetic Principle.” The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe.

Vol.3. New York: J.S. Redfield, 1850. 1-20.

Porter, Sarah Harvey. “The Suppression of Signs by Force.” American Annals of the

Deaf and Dumb. Vol. 39. (June 1894).

Prins, Yopie. “Victorian Meters.” The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry. Ed.

Joseph Bristow. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

---. “Voice Inverse.” Victorian Poetry. 42.1 (Spring 2004): 43-59.

Radick, Gregory. The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate About Animal Language.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007.

Rée, Jonathan. I see a Voice: Deafness, Language and The Senses – A Philosophical

History. New York: Metropolitan, 1999.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “Essay On The Origin of Languages.” Two Essays on the Origin

of Language: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Gottfried Herder. Trans. John H.

Moran and Alexander Gode. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.

Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert

Sechehaye with Albert Riedlinger. Trans. Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

Seliney, F.L. “Bell, Alexander Graham. Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety

255 of the Human Race.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Vol. 33. (1888): 129- 133.

Searing, Laura C. Redden. “A Few Words About the Deaf and Dumb.” A Mighty

Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816-1864. Ed. Christopher

Krentz. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2000.

---. “My Story.” Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored. Eds.

Judy Yaeger Jones and Jane E. Vallier. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2003. 64-5.

---. “The Realm of Singing.” Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet

Restored. Eds. Judy Yaeger Jones and Jane E. Vallier. Washington D.C.:

Gallaudet UP, 2003. 206-12.

Siebers, Tobin. “Deaf Studies Definition?” Disability Studies in the Humanities Listserv.

18 April 2007. https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ds-hum.html

Simpson, William Henry. Daydreams of the Deaf: with an Introductory Preface on the

Condition of the Deaf and Dumb. London: Whitaker, 1858.

Singing-Mute. “Only a Few.” The Deaf Mute. Poet’s Column. Vol.2 No.1 (January

1889): 9-10.

Smith, James L. “Clannishness.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb Vol. 32 (1887):

246-250.

Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham:

Duke UP, 2003.

Straley, Jessica. “Of Beasts and Boys: Kingsley, Spencer, and the Theory of

Recapitulation.” Victorian Studies. 49.4. (Summer 2007): 583-609.

Swan, Jim. “Touching Words: Helen Keller, Plagarism, Authorship.” Cardozo Arts and

Entertainment Law Journal. 10.2 (1992): 321-64. [Rpt. In Woodmansee and

256 Jaszi, The Construction of Authorship. Durham: Duke UP, 1994. (57-100)].

Taub, Sarah F. Language From the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign

Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.

“The Tendency to Exclusive Association.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb

Vol.34. (1889): 79-81

Thompson, E. Symes. “On the Health of Deaf-Mutes.” Report of the Proceedings of the

International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, Held at Milan, September 6th- 11th,

1880; Taken from the English Official Minutes. London: W.H. Allen and Co. 1880.

Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in

American Literature and Culture. New York: Columbia UP, 1997.

United Kingdom Parliament. “Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.” United

Kingdom Parliament Website. http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-

08/humanfertilisationandembryology.html. Accessed November 26 2007.

“Unintelligible Courtship.” New York Times. New York. 22 September 1897.

Valli, Clayton, Ceil Weas, and Kristin J. Mulrooney. Linguistics of ASL: An Introduction.

4th ed. Washington D.C., Gallaudet UP, 2005.

Van Cleve, John Vickrey, ed. Genetics, Disability and Deafness. Washington D.C.:

Gallaudet UP, 2004.

Van Cleve, John Vickrey and Barry A. Crouch. A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf

Community in America. Washington D.C: Gallaudet UP, 1989.

Vrettos, Athena. Somatic Fictions: Imagining Illness in Victorian Culture. Stanford:

Stanford UP, 1995.

Whitney, William Dwight. “Darwinism and Language.” North American Review. July

1874: 61- 88.

257 ---. The Life and Growth of Language. London: Henry S. King, 1875.

Winefield, Richard. Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the

Communications Debate. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 1987.

Winterson, Jeanette. “How Would We Feel if Blind Women claimed the Right to a Blind

Baby?” The Guardian. Tuesday April 9, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/

women/story/0,,681110,00.html. Accessed 20 August 2007.

Yaeger Jones, Judy and Jane E. Vallier, eds. Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing,

A Deaf Poet Restored. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2003.

258 Appendix A Poems Discussed in Chapter One

1) Bridgman, Laura. “Holy Home.” 2) Bridgman, Laura. “Light and Darkness.” 3) Burnet, John R. “Emma.” 4) Burnet, John R. “Lines Written After…Passaic Falls.” 5) Carlin, John. “The Mute’s Lament.” 6) Draper, Amos G. “Memories of Sound.” 7) Fuller, Angie A. “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy” 8) Kitto, John. “Mary.” 9) Montgomery, James. “Deaf and Yet I Hear.” 10) Nack, James. “Spring is Coming.” 11) Peet, Mary Toles. “The Castle of Silence.” 12) Peet, Mary Toles. “Thoughts on Music” 13) Searing, Laura C. Redden or Howard Glyndon. “My Story.” 14) Searing, Laura C. Redden or Howard Glyndon. “Ten years of Silence.” 15) Searing, Laura C. Redden or Howard Glyndon. “The Realm of Singing.” 16) Simpson, William Henry, “Recollections of Hearing.”

Bridgman, Laura. “Holy Home.”

[Lamson, Mary Swift. Life and Education of Laura Dewey Bridgman, the deaf, dumb and blind girl. London: Trubner, 1878. 367.]

Heaven is holy home. Holy home is from everlasting to everlasting. Holy home is summerly. I pass this dark home toward a light home. Earthly home shall perish. 259 But holy home shall endure forever. Earthly home is wintery. Hard it is for us to appreciate the radiance of holy home because of blindness of our minds, How glorious holy home is, and still m ore than a beam of sun! By the finger of God my eyes and ears shall be opened. The string of my tongue shall be loosed. With sweeter joys in heaven I shall hear and speak and see. With glorious rapture in holy home for me to hear the Angels sing and perform upon instruments. Also that I can behold the beauty of Heavenly home. Jesus Christ has gone to prepare a place for those who love and believe him. My zealous hope is that sinners might turn themselves from the power of darkness unto light divine. When I die, God will make me happy. In heaven music is sweeter than honey, and finer than a diamond.

Bridgman, Laura. “Light and Darkness.”

[Lamson, Mary Swift. Life and Education of Laura Dewey Bridgman, the deaf, dumb and blind girl. London: Trubner, 1878. 366.]

Light represents day. Light is more brilliant than ruby, even diamond. Light is whiter than snow. Darkness is night like. It looks as black as iron. Darkness is a sorrow. Joy is a thrilling rapture. Light yields a shooting joy through the human (heart). Light is as sweet as honey, but Darkness is bitter as salt, and more than vinegar. Light is finer than gold and even finest gold.

260 Joy is a real light. Joy is a blazing flame. Darkness is frosty. A good sleep is a white curtain, A bad sleep is a black curtain.

Burnet, John R. from “Emma.”

[Burnet, Tales of the Deaf and Dumb with Miscellaneous Poems. New Jersey: Benjamin Olds, 1835.]

But round her kind hearts from kind faces beam’d, And the soul’s sunshine on her spirit gleam’d, That melted all her doubts and fears away, As morning fogs fade in the blaze of day. Soon her once cag’d and insulated mind Rejoices in communion with its kind. She now no longer feels herself alone, Her knowledge but what could be glean’d by one, But the mind’s commerce, here set free from thrall,--- Makes each one store become the wealth of all, Here, from the speaking limbs, and face divine, At nature’s bidding, thoughts and feelings shine, That in thin air no more her sense elude,-- Each understands,-- by each is understood (l. 320-33)

The teacher stands, to pray or teach, and all The eyes around drink in the thoughts that fall, Not from the breathing lips,-- and tuneful tongue,-- But from the hand with graceful gesture flung. The feelings that burn deep in his own breast Ask not the aid of words to touch the rest;

261 But from his speaking limbs, and changing face,-- In all the thousand forms of motion’s grace, Mind emanates, in corruscations, fraught With all the thousand varied shades of thought. Not in a cloak of words obscur’d, confined— Here free conceptions flash from mind to mind, Where’er they fall their own bright hues impart,-- And glow,-- reflected back—from ev’ry heart! (360-73)

Burnet, John R. “Lines Written After A First Visit to Passaic Falls (since corrected).”

[Burnet, Tales of the Deaf and Dumb with Miscellaneous Poems. New Jersey: Benjamin Olds, 1835. (207-210)]

Hail! Spirit of the dashing waterfall, Inspire my lays, and make them worthy thee, Nor yet disdain a nameless poet’s call, Who wander’d many a weary mile, to see

Thy far fam’d grandeur, and the chaos wild Of rushing waters foaming down thy steep Of rocks, from everlasting ages pil’d, Far flight! To mingle with the troubl’d deep.

He came to see thy grandeur; not to hear, For fate had seal’d his ears to earthly sound, And from his early childhood, many a year, To him unbroken silence reign’d around.

Not from his birth,-- in childhood’s day he heard, And lov’d to hear—the mimic torrent’s roar, 262 When from the hills, by falling floods fast stirr’d The swol’n brook rush’d before his cottage door;

Nor less he lov’d the softer melody Of whisp’ring zephyrs, birds, or murmuring rill, Or human voice, but all was gone, and he Sat lone amid society, midst uproar still.

Yet though he heard not, his admiring eye Took in the charms of nature with a gaze That never satiated, and a sigh Scarce rose in memory of his memory days.

And all was still around him, but within The passions stir’d their elemental war; And mem’ry woke the music, and the din, The long remember’d tones of years afar;--

Tones grown by distance fainter, scarcely now Distinguish’d, but they charm my inmost soul, And aching thoughts will come across my brow To think how fast the stream of time must roll

That weakens each impression, on the heart Long cherish’d, of our days of happiness, Till, like a vanish’d vision, all depart, And leave a dreary blank of pain or bliss.

So, on the canvass, mingl’d light and shade Present a beauteous vision to the eye, Of absent scenes, but when the colors fade, In one unsightly blot blend earth and sky.

263 Blest be to his deathless memory, who fir’d With more than mortal genius, could invent Those symbols heaven alone could have inspir’d! Or was the art to man by heaven lent?

Hail! first and fountain of the arts! to thee Letters! I owe what pleasures I possess, Though others feel thy power in less degree, None but the deaf canst thou so fully bless.

Ears to the deaf thou art, speech to the dumb, By thee alone the world is known to me, By thee alone my thoughts have learn’d to roam Beyond the narrow bounds of what I see.

Feel, taste, or smell; by narrow sense confin’d Had my ideas ever been, but thou Unroll’d the page of history, and my mind Expanding, new ideas caught, and learn’d to glow.

Yet small the commerce with the world I hold,-- I found, or thought I found, a chosen few; A chosen few, with hearts of kindred mould With candid minds, and friendship ever true.

And I might deem I found, if such there be In this our imperfection, and with such My happiest hours were spent in social glee, When words could tremble on the finger’s touch.

To you, companions of the social hour,

264 To you I dedicate my artless lay, A tribute paid to friendship, not to pow’r; Let venal bards a patron’s praise display,

Thus much of him who sings; his humble home Was near where young Passaic lingers slow, Unbroken by the tumbling cat’ract’s foam, And birch and willows shade his quiet flow.

There was he wont, where Cheapside’s meads are spread, Twixt willow groves, in long and level view Of grass luxuriant, to swing the blade, Or trail the rake or fork as each occasion drew.

There was he wont, the scythe and rake at rest, To bend his trembling angle o’er the flood, Or part the curling waves before his breast, Or guide the light canoe as pleas’d his mood.

There was he won’t to watch the quiet flow. That seem’d so still as it should ne’er be broken. And often had he long’d to see and know Whither the waters flow’d and thus ‘twas spoken;--

Ere rolls the river twenty miles from hence, Before his waters meet the Ocean tide, His floods twice overleap the rocky fence Of crossing mountains, rear’d in giant pride

He heard, and eager to behold, he went On his lone pilgrimage to nature’s shrine; Wond’ring he saw, and with rapt spirit bent,

265 Admiring in his works the power divine.

And while the spirit of the wondrous place Strong, deep emotions stir’d within his breas’t— Their shadow in these lines he sought to trace, Lines to that chosen, friendly few addressed.

Carlin, John. “The Mute’s Lament.”

[American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Volume 1. October 1847. 15-6.]

I move – a silent exile on this earth; As in his dreary cell one doomed for life, My tongue is mute, and closed ear heedeth not; No gleam of hope this darken’d mind assures That the blest power of speech shall e’er be known. Murmuring gaily o’er their pebbly beds The limpid streamlets as they onward flow Through verdant meadows and responding woodlands, Vocal with merry tones – I hear them not. The linnet’s dulcet tone; the robin’s strain; The whipporwil’s; the lightsome mock-bird’s cry, When merrily from branch to branch they skip, Flap their blithe wings, and o’er the tranquil air Diffuse their melodies – I hear them not. The touches-lyric of the lute divine, Obedience to the rise, the cadence soft, And the deep pause of maiden’s pensive song, While swells her heart with love’s elated life, Draw forth its mellow tones – I hear them not. Deep silence over all, and all seems lifeless; The orator’s exciting strains the crowd Enraptur’d hear, while meteor-like his wit 266 Illuminates the dark abyss of mind – Alone, left in the dark – I hear them not. While solemn stillness reigns in sacred walls, Devotion high and awe profound prevail, The balmy words of God’s own messenger Excite to love, and troubled spirits soothe – Religion’s dew-drops bright – I feel them not. From wearied search through long and cheerless ways For faithless fortune, I, lorn, homeward turn; And must this thankless tongue refuse to breathe The blest word “Mother,” when that being dear I meet with steps elastic, full of joy, And all the fibres of this heart susceptive Throb with our nature’s strongest, purest love? Oh, that this tongue must still forbear to sing The hymn sublime, in praise of God on high; Whilst solemnly the organ peals forth praises, Inspired and deep with sweetest harmony! Though sad and heavy is the fate I bear, And I may sometimes wail my solitude, Yet oh, how precious the endowments He, T’alleviate, hath lavished, and shall I Thankless return his kindness by laments? O, Hope! How sweetly smileth Heavenly Hope On the sad, drooping soul and trembling heart! Bright as the morning star when night recedes, His genial smile this longing soul assures That when it leaves this sphere replete with woes For Paradise replete with purest joys, My ears shall be unsealed, and I shall hear; My tongue shall be unbound, and I shall speak, And happy with the angels sing forever!

267 Draper, Amos G. “Memories of Sound.”

[Gallaudet’s “Poetry of the Deaf.” Education of Deaf Children: Evidence of Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell, presented to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, The Deaf and Dumb, Etc. with Accompanying papers, postscripts and an index. Ed. Joseph C. Gordon. Washington D.C. Volta Bureau, 1892.]

They are like one who shuts his eyes to dream Of some bright vista in his fading past; And suddenly the faces that were lost In long forgetfulness before him seem— Th’ uplifted brow, the love-lit eyes whose beam Could ever o’er his soul a radiance cast, Numberless charms that long ago have askt The homage of his fresh young life’s esteem; For sometimes, from the silence that they bear, Well up the tones that erst formed half their joys— A strain of music floats to the dull ear, Or low, melodious murmur of a voice, Till all the chords of harmony vibrant are With consciousness of deeply slumb’ring pow’rs.

Fuller, Angie A. “The Semi-Mute’s Soliloquy” [Gallaudet’s “Poetry of the Deaf.” Education of Deaf Children: Evidence of Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell, presented to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, The Deaf and Dumb, Etc. with Accompanying papers, postscripts and an index. Ed. Joseph C. Gordon. Washington D.C. Volta Bureau, 1892.]

268 No sound! no sound! an alien though at home, An exile even in my native land; A prisoner too, for though at will I roam, Yet chained and manacled I oft must stand Unmoved, though sounds vibrate on every hand.

No sound! no sound! yet often I have heard, Echoing through dear memory’s sacred hall, The buzz of bees, the rare song of a bird, The melody of rain-drops as they fall, The wind’s wild notes, or Sabbath bells’ sweet call.

No outward sound! yet often I perceive Kind angel voices speaking to my soul Sweetly consoling charges to believe That this life is a part, and not the whole Of being – its beginning, not its goal.

No sound! except the echoes of the past, Seeming at times, in tones now loud, now low, The voices of a congregation vast Praising the God from whom all blessings flow, Until my heart with rapture is aglow.

Kitto, John. “Mary.”

[From Kitto, Lost Senses. Vol.1: Deafness. 1848. 176-9.]

One sparkle from my Mary’s eye Would I exchange for gems of hind, Or spices of rich Araby? No:-- a clear glowing light hath shin’d 269 Into the caverns of my mind, To kindle thoughts which lay there cold, And quicken hopes which died of old. My soul to other vision blind, And casting all its grief’s behind, Does count the diamonds and the hold Which Eastern kings have left untold But as a beggar’s price to buy One sparkle of my Mary’s eye.

As the Chaldean, from his plain, Upon him saw ten thousand eyes Look down from the unclouded skies; And deemed them, while he looked again, The arbiters of joy and pain, And from their thrilling glances drew Conclusions most sublime—if true,-- So I resume my younger lore, And turn astrologer once more; And happy horoscopes I raise, Replete with cheerful destinies, From the kindly beams that shine, Dear Mary, in these orbs of thine.

In silence I have walked full long Adown life’s narrow thorny vale, Deaf to the melody of song, And all music to me mute,-- From the organ’s rolling peal To the gay burst or mournful wail Of harp, and psaltery, and lute.

270 Haven’s dread answer I have heard In thunder to old ocean’s roar, As while the elements conferr’d, Their voices shook the rock bound shore:-- I’ve listened to murmuring streams, Which lulled my spirit into dreams, Bright hopes, and fair imaginings, But false as all that fancy flings Upon a page were pain and strife Make up the history of life.

And so beneath o’ershadowing trees, I’ve heard leaves rustle in the breeze, Which brought me the melodious tale Of the all vocal nightingale, Or else, the cushat’s coo of pride Over his new mated bride; -- Yes: I have heard thee—Nature, thee, In all thy thousand voices speak, Which now are silent all to me:-- Ah, when shall this long silence break,-- And all thy tides of gladness roll In their full torrent on my soul?

But as the snows which long have lain On the cold tops of Lebanon, Melt in the glances of the sun, And, with wild rush, into the plain Haste down, with blessings in their train:-- So Mary, gilded by thine eye Griefs melt away, and fall in streams Of hope into the land of dreams,

271 And life’s inanities pass by Unheeded, without tear or sigh.

True, that the human voice divine Falls not on this cold sense of mine; And that brisk commercing of thought Which brings home rich returns, all fraught With ripe ideas—points of view Varied, and beautiful, and new, Is lost, is dead, in this lone state Where feelings sicken, thoughts stagnate, And good and evil knowledge grows Unguided and unpruned, and throws— Too often a dull sickening shade, Like that by trees of Java made, O’er hope and o’er desires which might Have lived in glory and delight, Blessed and blessing others, till The gaspings of this life were still.

But Mary, when I look on thee All things beside neglected lie, There is a deep eloquence to me In the bright sparkle of thine eye. How sweetly can their beamings roll Volumes of meaning to my soul, How long – how vainly all – might words Express what one quick glance affords. So spirits talk perhaps when they Their feelings and their thoughts convey, Till heart to heart, and soul to soul Is in one moment opened all. (83-94)

272 Mary, one sparkle of thine eye I’d not change for all the gems That shine in Kingly diadems, Or spices of rich Araby. My heart would count th’ refined gold Which Eastern kings have left untold But as a beggar’s price to buy One sparkle of my Mary’s eye.

I am a beggar; -- poor indeed! That eye whose glance was ample meed For all the blood-strife that I knew, The top;. The sorrow I went through, No love, no strength, no skill could save From the obstructions of the grave. Was not that glance of heaven? Oh, why Should things so little earthly die? Why for the bridal of the tomb Clothe them in loveliness and bloom?

Who can these hard things answer? THOU To whom perforce I turn me now. Oh! I’m not only deaf but blind – Blind, blind of heart. Oh! seek me, find Thy lost one – he so prone to stray From that sequestered and cool way, Where thine walk, guided by thine eye And cheer’d; -- and THOU dost never die.

Montgomery, James. “Deaf, and Yet I Hear.”

273 [Hodgson, Edwin Allan, ed.. Facts, Anecdotes and Poetry Relating to the Deaf and Dumb. New York: Deaf-Mutes’ Journal Print, 1891. (145-6)]

To me, though neither voice nor sound From earth or air may come, Deaf to the world that brawls around, The world to me is dumb.

Yet may the quick and conscious eye Assist the slow dull ear; Sight can the signs of thought supply, And with a look I hear.

The song of birds, the water’s fall. Sweet tones and grating jars. Hail, tempest, wind, and thunder, all Are silent as the stars.

The stars that on their tranquil way, In language without speech, The glory of the Lord display, And to all nations preach.

Now, though one outward sense be sealed, The kind remaining four, To teach me needful knowledge yield Their earnest aid the more.

Yet hath my heart an inward ear, Through which its powers rejoice; Speak, Lord, and let me love to hear Thy Spirit’s still, small voice.

274 So when the Archangel from the ground Shall summon great and small, The ear now deaf shall hear that sound, And answer to the call.

Nack, James. “Spring is Coming.”

[New York Tribune, 15 March 1845, Last page]

SPRING IS COMING. BY MR. NACK, Who is deaf and dumb from his childhood.

Spring is coming! Spring is coming! Birds are chirping, insects humming, Flowers are peeping from their sleeping, Streams escaped from Winter’s keeping. In delightful freedom rushing, Dance along in freedom gushing. Scenes, of late in deadness saddened, Smile in animation gladdened All is beauty, all is mirth, All is glory upon earth, Shout we then with Nature’s voice, Welcome Spring! Rejoice! Rejoice!

Spring is coming! come, my brother, Let us rove with one another, To our well remembered wildwood, Flourishing in Nature’s childhood, Where a thousand flowers are springing,

275 And a thousand birds are singing; Where the golden sunbeams quiver On the verdure-girdled river; Let our youth of feeling out, to the youth of Nature shout, White the waves repeat our voice, Welcome Spring! Rejoice! Rejoice!

Peet, Mary Toles. “The Castle of Silence.”

[American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 11 (1859): 204-7.]

Low bending at thy shrine I come, O radiant muse of song! And though no sound my voice may wake, No low deep tone the echoes break That tremble round thy throne.

Perchance my hand may touch the lyre, And bid some chord to thrill, And though the minstrel’s home-land be The realm of silence, still may she Bring soul-gifts, at thy will.

I stood upon a rocky cliff, That overlooks the Hudson’s tide. Mists were around me, but anon, The winds would lift the veil aside, And gazing far across the wave That broke the other shore, My vision caught one fairy spot,

276 Nor eye nor heart would seek for more.

Yet still it seemed some charm were gone, Some beauteous rainbow-tint were fled, Some gem that should be there were lost, And missing this, I bowed my head. O sunny spot! Enchanted ground! Thy dower of beauty still must be Left incomplete, until the soul Of song or story, wake in thee.

Years pass, and once again my feet Seek out this beautiful retreat. Lo! What a change! The charm no more Is wanting, as I thought before, Vast walls arise, stately and high, And towers up-pointing to the sky, And windows, where the sun’s soft beams Come through in golden tinted gleams, With granite arches shading all, And lofty ceiling, spacious hall, And chapel, where the blended light Seems like inweaving day and night; All in such fair proportions wrought, Fit home it seems for noble thought.

I enter, and a white-robed band Of silent sisters here I see, They tremble, for their young feet stand Upon the shore of life’s dark sea. And each one lingers, for the spell Is round her, of a last farewell.

277 And youth and manhood, too, are met, And each has clasped the other’s hand; Yet for a moment will regret Shade the bright future’s “promised land,” For though their hearts are brave and strong, Thought of the past will round them throng.

They look around – the world is broad – And many tempting paths behold. Our own fair land hath need of them. O! firm of will and strong and bold Should be the hearts that for the Right, ‘Gainst Wrong, must battle day and night.

One seeks a stately avenue, That leads into the western land. He sees its prairies broad and fair, Its mountains towering high and grand And there, with sinews stout and bold, Toil brings him joys more rich than gold.

And one is where the city’s din Roars around him; but unheeded falls Its noise of turmoil on his ear, While trembling all along the walls Of his soul’s chamber, rings the strain, “Thy labor shall not be in vain!”

And some may seek for curious lore, In wondrous volumes, old and rare, Yet shall they find that none of this

278 With Life’s own beauty can compare In noble deeds of heart or mind, They shall a surer pleasure find.

And maidens, on whose fair young brows, I see pale fragrant buds entwined, O! unto you shall yet be given Far dearer flowers, in wreaths to bind, Pale buds of trust and pleading prayer, And hope that never knows despair.

And in the swiftly coming years, The wife and mother both may stand Where now the maiden’s trembling feet Press lightly on the yielding sand. O! childhood’s prayer, e’er let it be For truth, and right and liberty.

A nobler destiny, I ween, Shall thus be yours than pride, or power; For silent ones with joy may bring Their tribute, thus, to freedom’s dower, And the down-trodden and opprest, In other lands shall call them blest.

Turn we our eyes across the sea. And lo! the blackening smoke of war Dims thy blue skies, O Italy! And thunders echo from afar; But, land of beauty and of song, Thy sufferings shall not be for long.

279 O mother, worthy of thy son! O Garibaldi! unto thee Shall yet re-echo the glad shout – “Our own bright Italy is free!” And speaking hands on this broad shore Shall tell the story o’er and o’er.

Once more farewell! Ye go your ways, Each to his pilgrim shrine. Some listening eyes perchance have read My soul, in this poor rhyme And in their memory will retain Some low faint echo of my strain.

And, whether in the mine of Thought Ye toil with throbbing brow, Or ‘neath the weight of care and pain Your fainting spirits bow, Aye though your hopes, like the sweet flowers Braided amid your hair. Should wither, let your souls be kept Unstained, and pure, and fair.

Peet, Mary Toles. “Thoughts on Music”

[Hodgson, Edwin Allan, ed.. Facts, Anecdotes and Poetry Relating to the Deaf and Dumb. New York: Deaf-Mutes’ Journal Print, 1891. (150-2)]

They tell me oft of the witching song That thrills the list’ner’s heart, And of the soft melody Breathed forth with music’s art: They tell me, too, of the joyous strain, 280 Which bursts with magic power, From the heart where love and hope have laid Their brightly woven dower.

And then they tell of the sounds which come Afar from the sea’s deep caves, Of the voice of the wind which sighs among Old ocean’s towering waves; And the wild, deep music, which comes up From the breaker’s dashing roar And the storm cloud’s voice, when, as in wrath, His torrents madly pour.

And they tell me, too, of the wild bird’s song Afar in the green wood’s dim, And of the lark’s glad trill, which seems Of praise a heartfelt hymn, And that the feathered sprites at which I sit and gaze each day, Send forth to the still heavens, as well, Their soft, melodious lay.

And then they tell of the sounds which come From the battlefield afar, Of the thrilling peal of the “trump and drum,” And the martial strains of war; Then turn from these to tell sweet tales, Of the evening’s zephyr’s notes, And all the varied melody Which round them ever floats.

Then I gaze into their face, and see

281 The smile no longer there. And they grieve that never unto me May float, on the stilly air, One sound of this glorious minstrelsy, One echo of the voice Which swells through Nature’s thousand tones Making all earth rejoice.

Yet deem not, since I am debarred From all the melodies of sound, Earth has no music for my heart, Nor that my soul is bound By that dull seal which has been placed Upon my outer sense, For music of my inward ear Brings joy far more intense.

Searing, Laura C. Redden. “My Story, February 14, 1864.”

[Idyls of Battle. (From Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored. Eds. Judy Yaeger Jones and Jane E. Vallier. Washington D.C: Gallaudet UP, 2003. (64-5))]

Brave, generous soul! I grasp the hand Which instinct teaches me is true; This were indeed a royal world, If all were like to you!

You know my story. In my youth The hand of God fell heavily Upon me, -- and I knew my life From thence must silent be.

282 I think my will was broken then,-- The proud, high spirit, tamed by pain; And so the griefs of later days, Cannot distract my brain.

But my poor life, so silence-bound, Reached blindly out its helpless hands, Craving the love and tenderness Which every soul demands.

I learned to read in every face The deep emotions of the heart; For Nature to the stricken one Had given this simple art.

The world of sound was not for me; But then I sought in friendly eyes A soothing for my bitter loss, When memories would rise.

And I was happy as a child, If I could read a friendly thought In the warm sunshine of a face, The which my trust had wrought * * * * * * But then, at last, they bade me hope, They told me all might yet be well; Oh! the wild war of joy and fear, I have not strength to tell! * * * * * * Oh, heavier fell the shadow then!

283 And thick the darkness on my brain, When hope forever fled my heart, And left me only pain.

But when we hope not we are calm, And I shall learn to bear my cross, And God, in some mysterious way, Will recompense this loss.

And every throb of spirit-pain Shall help to sanctify my soul,-- Shall set a brightness on my brow, And harmonize my whole!

By suffering weakened, still I stand In patient waiting for the peace Which cometh on the Future’s wing,-- I wait for God’s release!

A nation’s tears! A nation’s pains! The record of a nation’s loss! My God! Forgive me if I groan Beneath my lighter cross!

Henceforth, thou dear, bereavèd land! I keep with thee thy vigil-night; My prayers, my tears, are all for thee,-- God and the deathless Right!

Searing, Laura C. Redden. “Ten years of Silence.”

284 [Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored. Eds. Judy Yaeger Jones and Jane E. Vallier. Washington D.C: Gallaudet UP, 2003. (184-5)]

O! It is not often I dare to think Of the one bright spot in my buried past, Standing out in such bright relief From the dimming shadows by memory cast. Twenty years old to-day! Ah, well! Ten have wrapped me in silence about, Since this terrible canker upon me fell, And the music of my life went out!

Ten long years and never a sound, To startle the stillness out of my life! Velvety muffled, its wheels go round, Noiseless forever, in joy or strife. Once I thought my mother’s voice Floated across the death-still blank, And my hear[t] was astir –but it died away – Poor heart, how it fluttered and hopeless sank!

Sometimes my little sister comes, With a pitying look in her soft blue eyes, Murmuring words that I cannot hear. How she stirs the olden memories! The wonder’s to see the tears that fall, Like summer showers, upon her brow; ‘Tis hard to think of what has been, When life is so different for me now!

God of the silent! I cry at the door, That the path is too straight for my feet to tread;

285 Yet I know whose footsteps have gone before. Though the human is stubborn of heart and head. O, let the blessings of patience come down, To ease my passionate soul of its pain; Let is shine on my brow like a martyr’s crown. O, give the sunshine after the rain.

Searing, Laura C. Redden. “The Realm of Singing.”

[Yaeger Jones and Vallier, eds. Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored, 206-212]

A queer, little forlorn bird once found herself upon the edge of the Realm of Singing. Now, she was a stranger in that glorious country, in which she had no kith or kin, and not even an acquaintance to twitter to her, and she had never been there before. But grand as this country was, it looked so familiar to her that she could scarcely keep from making herself at home in it all at once. Her courage, however, was soon dashed when she began to listen to the various songs that were being carolled all around her. She knew very well that the law of the land was that no bird who could not sing beautifully should be allowed to dwell within its limits, and I suppose it was because she loved singing and was always trying to sing, that she had found her way thither. I can account for it in no other way, since she had a defect in her wings, which was always bringing her to grief, and which cruelly caused her to flutter along close to the found, when she was trying with all her might to fly high. And I do not know what pitying wind had drifted her into the land of song. But I do know that she was so glad to get there that she never wanted to go away again. She had never before heard such wonderful singing as that to which she listened now. “Oh, I cannot sing like that, they will not let me stay,” she said, and hung her little homely head, sadly enough. “How very beautiful must be the birds who sing such beautiful songs!” she said, after a space. She could hardly get a glimpse of the best singers among them, they were so high up; but when the leaves of the trees were parted by the helpful wind every once in a while she managed

286 to see one or two of them, and was almost comforted to find that their plumage was fully as dingy as her own. But then they were not lame in their wings. And they must be very strong, she thought, else how could they ever have gotten up so high. Then the poor heart of her lay like a stone in her brown breast and make her dumb. “Oh! why did I ever come here?” she cried in agony. Yet since she had come, she felt that she had rather die than go away. “I think I can sing a little,” she said, and so she hopped painfully upon the very lowest twig and began:

How shall a bird on a crippled wing Ever get up into the sky? Is it not better to cease to sing – To droop and to die?

There are so many before me there, With songs so loud and long and sweet, They startle the passer unaware – I am at his feet!

And though I sing with a quivering breast And a dewy eye and a swelling throat; My heart so close to the thorn is pressed, That I spoil each note. And if ever I sing a song, Sweet of the sweet and true of the true – All of it’s drowned by the birds ere long, Up in the blue.

O, for one hour of rapturous strength! O, to sing one song in the sky! High over all the birds at length – Then I could die!

287 I don’t believe that any one heard her. They were all listening to themselves, and none of them cared for the insignificant song of this small, lame bird. Besides, she was down low, and none of the strong-winged birds higher up came to keep her company. But she took heard on finding that they did not notice her enough to drive her away and at last, once in a long while, two or three passers would stop to listen to her low chirps. No one could have been more astonished at this than the singer herself. Yet I do believe that – though she did not look for it – without this small encouragement she would have hung her head and died. It was her crippled wings that troubled her most, however; for it seemed as if when people found out about them they did not value her singing as much as they had done before. *****

By and by, a great noise of war shook the land and invaded even the Realm of Singing. There was so much martial music, such a steady tramping of armed men, such a glancing of steel in the sun, that at first the small bird, down low, turned giddy and almost fell from her twig. And then this poor thing forgot her sad strait and began to sing out loud, loud! And even in her delirium of excitement tried to flu! Most of the birds higher up had been stunned into silence by the unwonted tumult below, and that was one reason, I suppose, why this intoxicated creature who had suddenly found her voice, began to he heard. She did not know anything of the science of singing. But her heart was so full that it came out, though in a faulty way, in her song. Some notes were sung at random and sometimes she made queer work of it all; and justice compels me to add that this was not only a friendless and an unfortunate bird, but a careless one too. She loved to sing when she felt like it, but she did not love to study singing. Consequently, many people said: “What sort of a song is this?” and they laughed at her.

*****

But then again, there were some war-worn men in military coats tramping along by the wayside, sad and tired at heard, who nevertheless liked to listen to this absurd singing, and who were sometimes cheered by it. So after a while, some sharp eyes of other men began to search for the singer, And when they found her on the lowest twig, hidden by the leaves, they said:

288 “What have we here? A crippled bird that tries to sing? Such a thing was never heard of before. It is impossible for her to sing correctly under such circumstances and we were certainly mistaken in thinking that there was anything in such songs. Our ears have deceived us.” They then withdrew, adding, “We will forgive you, poor thing, for trying to sing. And all the circumstances being considered, you do quite nicely. But then you know this isn’t singing. The birds who do the real singing are never crippled as you are, Don’t you know that birds in your unfortunate situation never succeed in singing? The pain injures their voices or strikes them dumb altogether, and you cannot hope to be an exception to the general rule. But, as we said before, your efforts, though they fail, are quite commendable. But what’s the use of trying when you can’t, you know! So, ah! Good morning!”

*****

Now, the lame bird though that this was the unkindest cut of all. “Why, lameness doesn’t affect my voice,” she cried; “I know it doesn’t because they listened to me and called it singing, till they discovered I was crippled in the wings. And if I did sing false once in a while, it is no more than other birds with sound wings have done sometimes. Ah, it was not because I was crippled that I sang false, but because I hadn’t studied singing! I am myself to blame for my failure; and I’m very sorry now that I was too lazy to study singing. Otherwise they couldn’t have made all those cruel mistakes about me, it serves me right for being such a careless bird, and never rehearsing my songs or getting them by heart before I begin to sing. Instead of that, I never know what I’m going to do till I open my mouth, and I never can sing set songs.” Then she gave a great pant and drooped her ruffled feathers. “And, O,” she cried, “What did I sing for? It was just because I couldn’t do anything else to help those men in soldiers’ coats. Those were songs sung at need – but they were criticized at leisure!” Then she was silent a long time. So long a time, that she almost unlearned singing. At last the wound in her heart healed up. She forgot that she had been hurt and she began to chirp again. I am not sure that her later songs were any better than the first. She was so very young when she sang the first ones; now she was older. But a new difficulty arose. She had to catch her own worms; and so, while she sang, she must need keep an eye on the worms below, if she meant to

289 have any breakfast; and it is perfectly well known that breakfastless birds soon are heard no more, Now, most if the birds who went on singing up high had somebody to give them worms, or else they paid for them with their songs, But our unfortunate one down low had no one to give her worms, and nobody would take her song in payment for them at first; and when they did at last, she had to sing a great deal to obtain even one meal, because in the Realm of Singing songs were many and worms were few. There was, therefore, considerable choice in the market, and I do not know, but I suspect, that there was still some prejudice against the songs of crippled birds. Therefore, this one resumed singing under difficulties. For instance, sometimes when she was brooding over some new note which she thought might have some merit in it, she was obliged to forget everything else for the moment and hop down after some perverse worm that was wriggling out of sight, and that wouldn’t wait till her song had fashioned itself to her mind as she sat with her head under her wing. Then again, some songs couldn’t be sung at all, there was such long, hard work in looking for breakfasts, and others again were badly sung because she was so dull. For you must know that it is unusually hard work for a crippled bird to catch worms, especially when they are unusually spry or when there is a good deal of competition. And between work and singing, she was always very tired, so that most of her songs were the merest snatches. And one day she stopped suddenly in the midst of one and said: “ I wonder if after all there is any good in my singing? Perhaps there is, and yet perhaps I have been wrong to try, and may be I had better hold my peace hereafter and listen to the other birds, if they will only be so good as to allow that my poor chirpings of the past have earned for me the privilege to dwell, in silence, upon the furthest edge of the domain of singing. I will stop and listen to what the passers by are saying to each other, and may be I shall hear some chance word dropped about my songs which shall help me to decide.” *****

So she settled herself again upon the twig, a little wearily, and kept silence, holding her head carefully to one side to listen. And in her heart she kept saying all the time, over and over, sometimes hopefully, sometimes despairingly, but oftenest doubtingly: “I wonder if there is any worth in my singing after all. Can it be that because a good song has not yet been sung by a crippled bird that it shall never be done at all?”

290 Suddenly, from the trees high about her, came a burst of warbling. Some of the best singers at the top of the tree were trying their notes simultaneously. The forest was alive with the sweet rivalry. Its green glooms were filled and pierced through and through with the sharp delight of sudden trills and quavers; or echoed back the mellower perfectness only of cadences long drawn out in melodious death. The sun glinted down through the dew-wet leaves, and made the little brook which ran babbling through its heart sparkle with glee. The dainty anemones, the pale blue violets, and the bold scarlet columbines seemed to listen, while here and there the shy, bright eyes of timid wild creatures peered inquisitively out of the tangled thickets of wild rose and laurel. A pang of mingled envy and resentment – the very first that she had ever felt – passed through the heavy heart of the drooping bird. They were so blithe; she was so sad. They were so free; she so abject. They were reveling in the exercise of their untrammeled powers, while with all the toil and trouble that she might throw into her singing, she should never be able to give a single full round note, like those which rolled, without effort, from their throats. The next moment, however, nothing but unmixed sadness was in her heart. “Alas!,” she said, “that to my other misfortunes I should ever add that of being spiteful and envious!”

*****

Silence had fallen again upon the wood. The world which had stopped by the wayside to listen and to applaud its favorites, had now passed by. There remained only a poor little hunch- back who lingered, seated upon the roots of the tree on whose lowest branch this unfortunate bird was perched. His great blue eyes were full of gentleness, and patience; at the same time they were dimmed by suffering and by the tears which were not often allowed to fall. The glorious singing which had brought the rest of the world out of its way coaxed no smile to his pale face. It told of exultation, or laughter, of all the loved joy of life; it struck only triumphant cords, and resonant notes alone came forth. It made the sad heart shrink into itself, and he only sighed wearily while others applauded. Now, this lonesome bird had not marked that any one remained in the wood. The pain lay so heavy on her heart that she felt that unless she could sing it away it would kill her. It was a low toned, sad little song, all in the minor key, broken by gasps and flutterings, that she sang at first.

291 But happening to look downward once, she saw two great blue eyes, full of tears, looking up at her. Here, for once at least, was sympathy, and one heard had responded to her singing. She went on; and the song grew to be a wonderful one. First it told of a grief almost too great to be borne, of the care that eats away life in silence, of the great, rebellious sobs of a tortured heart, of the insubordination and misery that will not brook constraint, of a soul in revolt under the pain of shattered hopes! Then it took a clearer and higher cadence. It told of sorrow, worthily endured and nobly over-lived. Of the strength, the ripeness, the sweetness that came with it. Of the perfected joy which lies behind it; of the sublimity of the plan which out of the keenest pain brings the noblest pleasure! *****

And as she sang, lo, the pain passed from her heart and lameness from her wings. They were outspread ready for flight. And as the constant tide of melody flowed, without restraint, from her full throat she looked down again and beheld a great throng, which had gathered under the tree in which she sang. They were the weariest of all the world’s wayfarers. The faces that were saddest, the forms that were the most bowed, the hearts that were the heaviest, had all gathered there. The sick, the sad, the maimed, the feeble, the betrayed and the lonely ones. Ah, what eyes those were that were strained upwards in direction of the song! They were sad enough to sadden Heaven itself. But, one and all, they grew brighter as the song led on and up. When it was finished, there were no loud rejoicings, only tears of mingled sorrow and gladness, and low words of tender delight. Then, through the silence which fell after this, came from above, a chorused demand, set to warbling: “Come up hither! Come up hither!” “No!” sang in reply the bird down low. “Once I would have died to go – now I would rather die than go! I have found my kingdom and my vocation. Both are down low. Let me not be lifted up unless I can lift up with me all these sad hearts over which I reign. Hemceforth I sing not to win the world’s word of applause,, but to sweeten sorrow – to put out pain – and my first true song was not sung till I tried to do this! Now I am content to remain down low!” A little brown bird, somewhat crippled in her wings, who had timidly ventured upon the edge of the Realm of Singing, and being tired had gone to sleep perched upon a twig low down,

292 suddenly took her head from under her wing, and waking, found that she had dreamed this dream and sung this song in her sleep. “There is nothing left to do, But to try to make it true.”

She sang right cheerily, as she shook the dew of the night off her feathers.

Simpson, William Henry. “Recollections of Hearing.”

[Simpson, Day-dreams of the Deaf: with an introductory preface on the condition of the deaf and dumb. London: Whitaker and Co., 1858.]

‘Twas sweet to me to hear the tongue Of birds, in sultry June; Now seen, now lost, the trees among, And warbling forth their tune: But I no longer hear their lay, I only see their plumage gay.

I heard the solemn thunder’s peal Reverberating round; I saw the lightning’s vivid flash, With hail bestrew’d, the ground; But though I see the lightning, hail. My ears to catch the thunder fail.

I saw the smoke from cannon’s mouth, And heard its sullen roar; Knew whence the sound, from North or South, Behind me or before: But though its roar remains the same

293 To me, I know not whence it came.

Of music’s tones I knew the charms, It lull’d the angry breast; The dormant soul it roused to arms. Nor let the spirit rest: Of music still I know the sound, But cannot hear it far around.

The human voice I knew full well, And heard its tones with joy; Of love or anger heard it tell, In good or ill’s employ: No more I hear its accents loud Or soft, at home, in church, or crowd.

The patt’ring rain, the blustering wind, I heard the windows shake; Or in the storm, the sturdy oak By wind uprooted, break: No sounds like these assail my ear, No tempest’s blast need it now fear.

I hear the pealing organ’s swell Echo the building round; Its sacred strains remember well, And loved to hear its sound: Its peals confused noises make, In undistinguish’d murmurs break.

The song of birds, the hum of bees. The thunder’s solemn roar,

294 I never hear; -- e’en friendship’s tongue I listen to no more: The human voice, the howling wind, Are silent now, with all their kind.

The organ’s swell, the roar of sea, But indistinctly come; And nature now remains to me Comparatively dumb: Still though I hear not what they say, Kind friends to me attention pay.

And though I miss their cheerful voice Striving their thoughts to tell; Yet I can still with them rejoice, And speak to them as well; Their fingers’ ends with nimble skill. The want of vocal converse fill.

Thus with my ill a balm is sent, I still know friendship’s name; And love, with fervent, pure intent, Still lights its holy flame; Then longer shall my heart repine, If peace remains, and it is mine.

No,-- Discontent! I bid thee fly, No more my breast assail; I’ll banish every useless sigh, For what can they avail? And more, I’ll hear the “still small voice” That bids my heart and soul rejoice.

295 It speaks to me with angel tongue, And bids me not despair; It leads me to my Bible true, To read God’s mercy there; It tells me that His name is “Love,” And points the way to heaven above.

It points to Jesus on the cross, Who down to save me came; Tells me to ‘count all things but loss,’ Compared with His bright name: Tells me no longer to repine,-- Bids me be His, and He’ll be mine!

296