Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogy of 'World Lit" (Michael Thomas Scott's

Home , Alexandre Herculano, Canon Fodder, Joyce Sikakane, Louise Colet, Murasaki (crater)

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AUTHOR Carroll, Michael Thomas, Ed. TITLE No Small World: Visions and Revisions of World Literature. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana,

REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-3368-1 PUB DATE 96 NOTE 221p. AVAILABLE FROMNational Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 33681: $14.95 members, $19.95 nonmenbers). PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Teaching Guides (For Teacher) (052) Books (010)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Cultural Context; Higher Education; Instructional Innovation; Language Role; *Literary Criticism; *Literary Genres; *Literary History; Multicultural' Education; *World Literature IDENTIFIERS *Literary Canon; Literature in Translation

ABSTRACT This collection of essays deals with world literature. The essays are focused on four primary goals: to map the conceptual and cultural problems inherent in common educational approaches to the subject which sometimes see world literature as a metanarrative of Western culture; to suggest new genres and perspectives; to consider specific curricular and pedagogical issues; and to introduce "new" texts for consideration. The 15 essays and their authors are:(1) "Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature" (Sarah Lawall); (2) "The Translator and the Voice of the Other: A Case in Point" (Marilyn Gaddis Rose);(3) "Anthologizing World Literature" (Jose J. de Vinck);(4) "Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire: The Colonization of Portuguese Literature"(Paulo de Medeiros); (5) "'Yes,I Can': Empowerment and Voice in Women's Prison Narratives" (Sharon Hileman); (6) "Sacriture: The Sacred as a Literary Genre" (Mackie J. V. Blanton);(7) "Nonnative English Literature and the World Literature Syllabus" (Ismail S. Talib); (8) "Contemporary Latin American Theater: Theatricality as a Key to Classroom Performance" (Howard M. Fraser);(9) "Mass, Multi, and High: Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogy of 'World Lit" (Michael Thomas Carroll); (10) "The Intellectual and Pedagogical Value of Traditional African Literature in the Western Classroom" (Erskine Peters);(11) "Haroun's Mystic Journey: Salman Rushdie's 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'" (Aron Aji and Katrina Runge); (12) "Anthologies, Canonicity, and the Objectivist Imagination: The Case of George Oppen" (Dennis Young); (13) "The Recuperation of Canon Fodder: Walter Scott's 'The Talisman" (Caroline McCracken-Flesher);(14) "A Different Kind of Hero: 'The Tale of Genji' and the American Reader" (Charles B. Dodson); and "'Singing in the Seams': Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants" (Ranee Kaur Banerjee). Chapters contain references. (NKA) . 4 s.

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COPY AVAIIA131. 2 No Small World

3 NCTE Editorial Board: Colette Daiute, Hazel Davis, Bobbi Fisher, Keith Gilyard, Brenda Greene, Gail Hawisher, Ronald Jobe, Richard Luckert, Karen Smith, Chair, ex officio, Dawn Boyer, ex officio

College Section Committee

James L. Hill, Chair Albany State College Frank Madden, Assistant Chair Westchester Community College Pat Belanoff State University of New York at Stony Brook Theresa Enos, CCCC Representative University of Arizona, Tucson Jeanette Harris University of Southern Mississippi Dawn Rodrigues Kennesaw State College Cynthia Selfe Michigan Technological University Tom Waldrep University of South Carolina Collett Dilworth, CEE Representative East Carolina University Louise Smith, ex officio University of Massachusetts at Boston Miriam Chaplin, Executive Committee Liaison Rutgers University Miles Myers, NCTE Staff Liaison No Small World

Visions and Revisions ofWorld Literature

Michael Thomas Carroll,Editor New Mexico HighlandsUniversity

"5-- P9 '±-

rt National Council of Teachers ofEnglish vl Illinois 61801-1096 t..) 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Acknowledgments

My thanks to New Mexico Highlands Universitystudents Carol Romero, Mollie Busbey, and Joan Snider, all of whom contributedvaluable assistance. Thanks also to Mario Welshons at NCTE. -- Richard Greene Moulton's diagram of the "LiteraryPedigree of the English- Speaking Peoples" is adapted from World Literature and ItsPlace in General Culture (Norwood, MA: Macmillan, 1911) and is usedhere by permission. "The Intellectual and Pedagogical Value of Traditional AfricanLiterature in the Western Classroom" by Erskine Peterswas published in The Western Journal of Black Studies (13.1 [1989]: 28-35) and is used herewith their permission. -2 mothers in a hdb playground," by Arthur Yap, isreprinted by permission from his Down the Line (Singapore: Heinemann Asia,1980). Copyright © Arthur Yap 1980. The first stanza of "Song of the Banana Man," by EvanJones, is reprinted by permission from The Penguin Book of CaribbeanVerse in English, ed. Paula Burnett (London: Penguin, 1986). "Psalm" and passages from "Parousia," "Of Being Numerous:'"The Little Hole," and "Route" are reprinted by permission from GeorgeOppen: Collected Poems (New York: New Directions, 1975). Copyright 1975 by George Oppen.

Manuscript Editor Lee Erwin Cover Design: Barbara Yale-Read Interior Book Design: Tom Kovacs for TGK Design NCTE Stock Number 33681

© 1996 by the National Council of Teachers of English.All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publicationsto provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning thecontent and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accordedto any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the ExecutiveCommittee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except inannouncements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data No small world : visions and revisions of world literature / Michael Thomas Carroll, ed. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8141-3368-1 (pbk.) 1. LiteratureHistory and criticism.I. Carroll, Michael Thomas, 1954-- . PN524.N61996 809dc20 96-11056 CIP Contents

vii Introduction

I The Problem of World Literature 1. Richard Moulton and the Ideaof World Literature Sarah Lawall 3 2. The Translator and the Voice ofthe Other: A Case in Point Marilyn Gaddis Rose 20 3. Anthologizing World Literature José J. de Vinck 34

H "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives

4. Beyond the Looking Glassof Empire: The Colonization of PortugueseLiterature Paulo de Medeiros 43 5. "Yes, I Can": Empowermentand Voice in Women's Prison Narratives Sharon Hileman 58 6. Sacriture: The Sacred as aLiterary Genre Mackie J. V. Blanton 72

III Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns

7. Nonnative English Literatureand the World Literature Syllabus Ismail S. Talib 8 I 8. Contemporary Latin AmericanTheater: Theatricality as a Key to Classroom Performance Howard M. Fraser 91

7 vi Contents

9. Mass, Multi, and High: Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogy of "World Lit:' Michael Thomas Carroll 101 10. The Intellectual and Pedagogical Value of Traditional African Literature in the Western Classroom Erskine Peters 115

IV "New" Texts

11. Haroun's Mystic Journey: Salmi' Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories Aron Aji and Katrina Runge 131 12. Anthologies, Canonicity, and the Objectivist Imagination: The Case of George Oppen Dennis Young 146 13. The Recuperation of Canon Fodder: Walter Scott's The Talisman Caroline McCracken-Flesher 160 14. A Different Kind of Hero: The Tale of Genji and the American Reader Charles B. Dodson 179 15. "Singing in the Seams": Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants Ranee Kaur Banerjee 189

Index 203 Editor 207 Contributors 209 Introduction

National literature has little meaning today; thetime has. come for the epoch of world literature to begin, and everyonemust now do his share to hasten itsrealization. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When one considers the unimaginably vastquantity of literature that has been produced since human beingsfirst produced script some five millennia ago; when one considers the numberof cultures that occupy (or once occupied) the globe; when oneconsiders the various genres, movements, and experiments thathave been attemptedwhen one considers all this, the term "world literature"will inevitably become, to say the least, questionable. Andwhen one begins to speak of it not only as a theoretical problem, but also as anelement of the educational curriculum, the problem becomes multipliedor moreaccurately, artificially minimized. That is, given theimmensity of the subject and the paucity of the curricular space it isafforded, some principle of selection and limitation is needed. For this reason,the term in question, one might argue, is bestunderstood not as an academic discipline or a pedagogical imperative,but as a bit of terminological turf whereupon the conceptually infinite is asked tosubmit to ,;ultural and institutional needs that are, unfortunately, all too finite. When Goethe first coined the termWeltliteratur in 1827 (qtd. in Jost 16), his aim was to establish aliterature that would, as Strich puts it, "serve as a link between nationalliteratures and thus between the nations themselves, for the exchange of idealvalues" (4). More idealized notions, as Strich argues, followed, as in A.Owen Aldridge's Arnoldian formulation of world literature as the "greatclassics of all times selected from all the various national literatures"(55), or E. D. Hirsch's Johnsonian formulation that an "almost timelesscharacter" is the principal criterion for inclusion in theworld's canon (82). Such formulations, however, fail to observe thatGoethe's Weltliteratur has been reduced from a universal concept to amerely European one (not to mention male-dominated andinformed by a narrowly conceived set vii -

viii Introduction of aesthetic criteria)a most ironic turn of events, foras Boubia notes Goethe first coined the term in a discussion of a Chinese novel (83). All of this, of course, has affected not only scholarly discourse, but curricular practice as well, and thus as it has been presented in the educational curriculum world literature has been, for the mostpart, synonymous with a grandiose metanarrative of Western culture. None- theless, as a curricular agenda, it not only persists, but continuesto evolve, as evidenced by a spate of new anthologies, all released within the past year, from Norton (Mack, et al.), Heath (Davis, et al.), and HarperCollins (Caws and Prendergast). The formation ofa world literature curriculum, however, remains problematic, for howeverwe may conceive of it it is one thing to proclaim, as did Goethe, the onset of an era of global literature; it is quite another to realize sucha bold concept both in theory and in educational practice. It is certainly not my intent (nor that of the contributors to this edition, if I may be permitted to speak for theirmany voices) to undermine and discredit world literature as a field of study. Rather, the purpose of this volume is, first, to more thoroughlymap some of the conceptual and cultural problems that attend this view of literature; second, to suggest some new (or forgotten) genres and perspectives; third, to consider some specific curricular and pedagogical issues; and fourth and finally, to introduce "new" texts for consideration. This collection is organized according to these four dominantconcerns. The first section, "The Problem of World Literature," helps to lay the groundwork by posing some important questions about three of the most important factors contributing to the concept of world literature: history, translation, and anthologization. In "Richard Moul- ton and the Idea of World Literature," Sarah Lawall introduces us to a theorist whose ideas, though admittedly Victorian and nationalistic, nonetheless provide a valuable exploration of the problems ofperspec- tive and worldview as they relate to the canon. Indeed, Moulton's scholarly endeavors are perhaps the ideal point of departure for this anthology, for as Lawall points out, "Moulton's situation... resonates peculiarly with our own. Both periods are witness to massive institutional change, in which educational policy is seen as a matter of national politics:' Moulton is also important in that, in spite of his erudition, he rejected the role of ivory-tower scholar: he was an advocate of extension education and a critic of the research-oriented university, and he was deeply concerned with educational policy. If canon formation is at one end of the world literature problematic, then surely translation is at the other. It is therefore fitting that Marilyn Ciaddis Rose, Director of the Center for Research in Translation at

I. 0 ix Introduction

SUNY-Binghamton, has provided us with"The Translator and the been Voice of the Other," an essaydemonstrating that "translators have mobilized to use their skills as weaponsin the conflict of cultures," a problem that many "would like totransform into a living mosaic through even-handed curricula?'Rose's commentary on thevarious English editions of Jules Verne'sTwenty Thousand Leaguesunder the of literary translation as a Seaprovides a provocative examination cultural and political practice that warrantsour deepest concerns as readers, teachers, and scholars."Translating?' Rose notes, "always involves usurping the Other's voice,and the need to make multicultural expressions maximally available meansthat those other voices will necessarily be altered. .. . What we cannotclaim is that our intentions can ever be completelydisinterested?' The concerns that bothLawall and Rose so compellingly raisefor us are echoed in José J. deVinck's "Anthologizing World Literature?' inwhich he asks one of the major questions posed by this collection:"Can world literature be translated and anthologized withoutdestroying the differences within and among cultures?" The answer is a verytentative "yes," although, as deVinck points out, we clearly needanthologies that evidence morecritical thought in terms of "the rhetoricof representation:' The literature curriculum haslong been organized bytraditional genres (e.g., poetrydrama, and fiction), subgenres(e.g., the pastoral, section, " 'New' thebildungsroman),and national literatures. Our second Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives?'contains three essays that help writing on the us rethink thesecategories. First, Paulo de Medeiros, "colonization of Portuguese literature,"helps to correct some of our misconceptions about nationalliteratures by pointing out that"the amalgamation of everything Europeaninto a fictive unity" is an unfortunate byproduct of the ongoingattack on Eurocentrism. There 'Europe' itself tends are, de Medeirosreminds us, "parts of Europe that to forget?' In the essaythat follows, Sharon Hilemanexamines perhaps the most unexpected of genres:women's prison narratives.Hileman demonstrates the ways in whichwriters like Domitila Barrios de Chungara, Joyce Sikakane, BarbaraDeming, and Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg use self-writing to movebeyond the self, creating narratives in which "the individual, communal,and political truly merge:' Finally, literary genre. we have Mackie J. V.Blanton's work on the sacred as a Blanton roots meaningful literaryendeavor in the quest for answers to life's unanswerable questions, anendeavor which has resulted in a narrative structure he refers to asthe "sacred conversation?'which involves a movement from themyth of creation, to revelation,ritual, sacrifice, and finally, the promiseof eternity. Blanton's essayforcefully ii Introduction

reminds us that we should not forget literature'srelationship to "the persistent yearnings of human nature:' While many of the essays in this collection reveala deep concern for pedagogy (Blanton's and Dodson's in particular),those that appear in the third section, "Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns," attempt to move pedagogy and curriculum from peripheryto center, to borrow a phrase from Mariolina Salvatori. I am very pleased to include these essays, for I have long been concerned with the institutional schizo- phrenia that separates teaching from scholarship. Ina recent essay, Jane Tompkins shares with us an experience thatdemonstrates the deep institutional roots of this problem. Recallingan experience at Swarth- more as she waited to hear from a schoiarship committee, Tompkins notes the exact moment when she learned of a peculiar attitude which is, unfortunately, not uncommon inour profession: While I sat there in a state of abject terror,I overheard a conversation between two young men also hopingto convince the committee's greybeards to find them worthy ofa fellowship. One of them said to the otherI no longer remember hisexact wordsthat thinking about teachingwas the lowest of the low and that anyone who occupied himself with itwas hopelessly beyond the pale and just didn't belong in higher education.I'll never forget my surprise and dismay at hearing this opinion which had never occurred to me before, for I had previouslythouglit (coming from a family of teachers) that teachingwas an important part of what any college professor would do. As things turned out, I subsequently embraced the view I overheard... or rather, this view embraced me, for my antipedagogicalindoctrination went on pretty steadily throughout graduate school. (655) Perhaps Tompkins's awakening to her "indoctrination" signalsa paradigm shift that is further evidenced by theconcerns of the teacher/ scholars who have contributed to this anthology Thus, inaddition to suggesting a more polymorphic and pluralistic conceptionof literature (as have any numb of critics, suchas Nina Baym, Paul Lauter, and Houston Baker, ovc, the past twentyyears or so), the aim of this collection is to demonstrate ways in which scholarly andpedagogical discourse can be meaningfully juxtaposed, ideallyto the benefit of both. And so, this section begins with Ismail Talib,a professor of English at the National University of Singapore, who suggests that theEnglish- speaking world needs to be more inclusive of literaturesin forms of English other than what we find in "the UnitedStates, Great Britain, or other predominantly white Anglophone countries?' We have thus far been concerned with world literature intranslation; Talib points out that there is indeed a worldwide literature in English,a corpus of

1 2 xi Introduction works which include writers asdiverse as Chinua Achebe, OliveSenior, Wok Soyinka, and R. K.Narayan. Talib also steers usthrough some z,t the logisticalproblems that attend the formationof a syllabus that includes this rich new literature in"World English" as he simultaneously points out the far-reachingpositive influence that such acurriculum might haw on our students and onsociety at large. Another essay that employs .aspecifically pedagogical strategyis Howard Fraser's essay on contemporaryLatin American theater, for it successfully manages to r,ombineissues related to language pedagogy, lherature pedagogy, and the canon.Fraser introduces us to the"meta- theatrical" plays of, amongothers, Sergio Vodanovi6 andEmilio Cuba Hid:), and he demonstrates waysin which a "directorial" pedagogy learning. Fraser's can enhancesimultaneous language and literature essay should also remindthose of us who teach in Englishdepartments that we share many methodological concernswith our colleagues who teach literature in otherlanguagesand that our studentsshould experience at least some lit lraturein a language other than English. Fraser's essay is followed by my own,which examines world literature and its (as a curricular practice)in terms of its institutional structure relationship to, contemporary popularculture. It i. my argument that world literature as a pedagogicalimperative can bc aided by what has usually been regarded as itsmortal enemycontemporarypopular cultureand that by enlisting suchaid we may help to tear downthe cultural cordon sanitaire that separatesthe college curriculum from more familiar culturalforms. My essay is followedby the work of theories of African studies scholar ErskinePeters, who, drawing on the Frantz Fanon and John Mbiti,suggests that worksfrom African traditions (specifically, Sundiata: AnEpic of Old Mali and TheMwindo Epic) may serve to bring a new senseof esteem and value toAfrican American students by helping toheal "the wounds of apeculiar psychological condition." The fourth and concludingsection, titled simply " 'New'Texts:' contains essays that exhibit acontinuing preoccupation withthe prob- translation, lems of cultural nationalism,canonization, anthologization, curriculum, and pedagogy, butwith more of a focus on specific texts. provides The first essay, by Aron Ajiand his student Katrina Runge, Sea of Stories and the a parallel readingof Rushdie's Haroun and the work of Jalal al-Din Rumi, athirteenth-century Sufi mystic. This essay rich cultural helps the reader to understandRushdie in the context of a tradition with which many of us areunfamiliar. Almost as important, collabo- Aji and Runge demonstrate thevalue of the student/teacher Xli Introduction

rative writing project, and thusthis essay is of special importanceto the aims of this collection. In an essay that recallssome of the general points made by José J. de Vinck, Dennis Young takes a look at the poetry of GeorgeOppen and the status of the objectivistpoets in the curriculum. Young ponders over the exclusion of "poet's poets"LouisZukofsky, Charles Rezni- koff, and especially Oppenfromthe poetry anthologies, andcomes to the conclusion that a "tenacious NewCritical mindset" may be the culprit. Next, CarolineMcCracken-Flesher considers the fate ofSir Walter Scott, who, unlike theobjectivists, is included in thecanon but in a rather backhandedmanner: "Time and again, we find [the] self-conscious builders of novelistictradition invoking Scottas a naive, flawed, yet authorizingprecursor for some 'better' novelist." Thus, while Young calls for the inclurionof the excluded poet GeorgeOppen, McCracken-Flesher's reading of Scott's TheTalisman calls for areev- aluation of a figure who is alreadywithin the canon, and yet remains seriously misunderstood. Thelext essay, by Charles B. Dodson, brings us back to some of the concerns of thecontributors in Section 3 by providing an examination of TheTale of Genji that places it inthe context of other heroic epics, suchas The Odyssey, The Song of Roland, and The Ramayana, while alsoincluding some observations regarding the reception of sucha work in an American classroom. As Dodson points out, "the sham contrastthat Genji... provides with the classic figure of the warrior hero theyhave inherited from the European cultural and literary tradition forcesstudents to reconsider and perhaps even modify their response to that traditionalfigure. Some of them even end up admiring Genji:' This collection is roundedout and given tentative closure with Ranee Kaur Banerjee's study of BharatiMukherjee, whose stories introduce us to a new subject in the global dominions--thepostcolonial exile, whom Banerjee describesas follows: As our world becomes increasinglya-cultural, as the number of tribes traveling across traditionsgrows, as Bombay and New York become boroughs of thesame moving city. itinerants like Bharati Mukherjee are creating theirown nomad literature. Here is, finally, a literature that no national boundarycan hold in and claim; a literature that reflects fragments fromdistant parts of the globe that have come together and collectedwithin the nomad's body; a literature of kaleidoscopic rather than mirrorimages. I hive we finally, then, in thework of Bharati Mukherjee, fulfilledthe promissory note handed tous by Goethe so long ago when he proposed a Weltliteratur that is unhampered byany boundaries? Or, are we

14 xiii Introduction thrown back to Richard Moulton'sfar-sighted suggestion that world literature is inevitably perspectival: "We musttake our stand at the point where we find ourselves, and,looking from that point in all directions, we must bring perspective intoplay"? If the latter be true, then Mukherjee has not paid off thecultural debt incurred by Goethe; rather, she has contributed yet anotherviewpoint to what is surely not a .singular worldliterature, but rather an amalgam ofworld literatures which are, fortunately, far too diverse tosubmit to the demands of any unitary theory Michael Thomas Carroll, New Mexico Highlands University, June 1995

Works Consulted

Aldridge, A. Owen. The Reemergenceof World Literature: A Study of Asia and the West. Newark: U of DelawareP, 1986. Boubia, Fawzi. "Universal Literature andOtherness." Trans. Jeanne Ferguson. Diogenes 141 (1988): 76-101. Caws, Mary Ann, and ChristopherPrendergast, eds. The HarperCollins World Reader. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Davis, Paul, et al., eds. Western Literaturein a World Context. 2 vols. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. Guerard, Albert. Preface to WorldLiterature. New York: Holt, 1940. Hirsch, E. D., Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and JamesTrefil. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. New York: HoughtonMifflin, 1988. Jost, Francois. Introduction toComparative Literature. Indianapolis,IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974. Mack, Maynard, et al., eds. The NortonAnthology of World Masterpieces. Expanded ed. New York: Norton, 1995. Salvatori, Mariolina. "Pedagogy: Fromthe Periphery to the Center:' In Reclaiming Pedagogy: The Rhetoric ofthe Classroom. Ed. Patricia Donahue and Ellen Quandahl. Carbondale:Southern Illinois UP, 1989. 17-34. Strich, Fritz. Goethe and World Literature.Trans. C. Sym. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971. (Translation ofGoethe und die Weltliteratur. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1946). Tompkins, Jane. "Pedagogy of theDistressed?' College English 52.6 (Oct. 1990): 653-60. I The Problemof World Literature

6 1 Richard Moulton andthe Idea of World Literature

Sarah Lawall University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Shortly after the beginning of the century, RichardGreene Moulton Biblical scholar, "inductive" literary theorist, writer onancient theater, and critic of Shakespeareproposed a theoryand practice of world literature. In Wbrld Literature and Its Place inGeneral Culture (1911), Moulton claimed that world literaturein addition tobeing a collection of global masterpieceswas also a proving-groundfor literary theory, an indispensable part ofcultural studies, and a fundamental course for nationwide extension programs. Moulton is aninteresting figure, and in many ways a precursor. He preaches the autonomyof literature and the need for an objective, intrinsic literarycriticism well before New Criticism. He drew on the Great Bookstradition and general theories of cultural identity to propose coursesspecifically in world literature when such courses were not yet on the books.Recognizing that readers are inevitably influenced bycultural perspective, he recommended using such perspective as anorganizing principle, arguing that each tradition can lay claim to its own coherentview. Finally, he attacked research-oriented universities for ignoring their role asteaching institutions, and he advocated extension educationnationwide. Moulton is not well-known in discussions of worldliterature, perhaps because the Eurocentrism of his criticalpractice undermines an otherwise flexible theory. His "world literaturefrom the English point of view" does not merely situate itself among anetwork of cultural possibilities; relying on canonical examples and aconventional world history it sets up a hierarchy of values thatfavors a Judeo-Hellenic- Christian tradition and the idea of progress.His dislike of narrow philological criticism leads him to underestimatethe play of language. His proposals are highly nationalistic. Yet manyof Moulton's concerns reappear eight decades later:the desire to write a broader and more inclusive history of civilization; the preoccupationwith cultural identity; the attempt to clarify and preserve culturalvalues; the insistence on 3 1 4 The Problem of World Literature scientific method and perspectival analysis; and the vision of a mixed community whose educational needs must be met with broad and innovative programs. Reading Richard Moulton is an exercise in critical displacement, for this Victorian writer's interpretation of world literature and "cultural studies" elicits comparison with other studies of literature and culture today. Moulton was born in England and received degrees from London University and Christ College, Cambridge, before moving to the United States in 1890; he received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1891. This transplanted British scholar taught for twenty-seven years at the University of Chicago before returning to England upon his retirement in 1919. A former University Extension teacher for Cam- bridge University and the University of London, professor of literary theory and internretation and head of the Department of General Literature at Chicago, he was a charismatic teacher and scholar who used examples from the Bible, ancient drama, and Shakespeare to substantiate new models for literary theory. His concept of world literatureis rooted in comparative studies and what he calls the "comparative reading" of literature; he did not consider himself a comparatist, however, but rather a generalist and theoretician of literature. In 1885 he published Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist: A Popular Illustration of the Principles of Scientific Criticism, which sets out a theory of inductive criticism. In 1911, he published World Literature and Its Place in General Culture, which links his inductive theory with concepts of global civilization, perspectivism, and world literature. The culmination of Moulton's work in literary theory came in The Modern Study of Literature (1915), part of which recapitulates the arguments of World Literature and Its Place in General Culture. The latter book's concluding chapter, "The Place of World Literature in Education," attacks current research-oriented institutions and proposes a new educational outreach system that would offer world literature as a foundation course chiefly because it transmits a shared understanding of cultural values. World literature, however, is not the primary focus of Moulton's inquiry; it is instead the example that illustrates his theories of literary study, of the evolution of civilization, and of humanistic value. Although he proposed teaching world literature on a broad scale, his discussion actually antedates the development and institutionalization of any courses by that title, the first of which were offered under Philo Buck at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1920s (Rosenberg 27; cf. Graff 134). World literature as an established and flourishing academic course dates to the midcentury: to the postwar period, when higher education

18 Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature 5 expanded, thousands of returning veteransentered college, and the curriculum was rethought to reflect America's newprominence in global affairs. "World literature and "worldcivilization" courses were offered as general introductions to other cultures, and wereusually part of the required humanities curriculum. Worldliterature courses were offered in conjunction with world history or worldcivilization: in other words, imaginative literature was separatedfrom history or philosophy as it had not been in thetraditional Great Books course. Yet the value- oriented aim was the same: literature offered thevicarious experience of other worlds and could therefore be used toinstruct young minds and prepare an enlightened and maturecitizenry Goethe's notion of Weltliteratur (1827), a future-oriented concept inwhich different nations would get to know one another through reciprocalreading of each other's works, had little to do with thiscurriculum. The world it envisaged was rather the scene of an evolvingWestern heritagethe ideals and values of the Greco-Roman-Judaictradition in relation to which the rest of the globe served as context.How to represent the variety of world cultures figured chiefly as astatistical problem of global coverage, with occasionalcomplaints from comparatists and foreign- language teachers that works in translationreduced the world to Anglophone perspectives or to "world literaturefrom the English point of view." The idealist Great Books model is importantfor Richard Moulton, and in fact it implicitly shapes his schemaof world literature as the "autobiography of civilizationr Nonetheless, it is notthe focus of his attention. Instead, he devotes his efforts toproposing a new model of literary studies that is linked simultaneously to conceptsof world- projection and to world literature. Moulton is an interesting figure becausehe combines three areas that are still lively sources of debate:literary theory, cultural studies, and educational policy. Each of hisworld-literature proposals is colored by contemporary circumstances that are notquite the same as our own and yet are not entirely differenteither, so that the issues are often clarified for us by historical distance. Worldliterature, he says, is dependent on literary theory; it is not merely anaccumulation of texts from different parts of the globe. Linkingliterary theory and civiliza- tional studies, he defines world literature asthe "autobiography of civilization" or more specifically "culturalstudies." Finally, as an ardent proponent of university extension (today'sadult or continuing education), he sees world literature as an agent of"general culture": it reaches out to the entire population to promote asense of cultural identity and a continuing inquiry into humanvalues. iJ AP

6 The Problem of World Liteiature

In defining world literature as cultural studies, Moultonis also defining literary criticism as a combination of theoreticalperspective and historical knowledge. He desiresa scientific literary criticism in order to grasp the meaningthe philosophical and cultural burden of major texts of world literature. By "scientific" criticismhe does not mean philology (which he detests) or positivist literary history, for he argues that "in cultural studies few things are more barren than literary facts and information" (World Literature 296; hereafter14/). Moulton is truly impatient with contemporary literary studies andemphasizes that "the study of literature, in any adequatesense, has yet to begin" ( W 1-2). Here he is not speaking of formal analysisas an end in itself. He is more interested in devising adequate literary-critical techniques to discern meaning-structures otherwise distortedor overlooked. A Biblical scholar whose Literary Study of the Bible (1906) issubtitled An Account of the Leading Forms of Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings, he frequently illustrates the importance ofstructural awareness by pointing out the doctrinal error of those who repeat wise sayings from the Book of Job without considering that theyare voiced by a character whose opinions are later criticized by God.From his original description of inductive criticism in Shakespeareas a Dramatic Artist (1885; hereafter S) to his culminating "synthetic view ofthe theory and interpretation of literature" (viii) in The Modern Study of Literature (1915; hereafter M), Moulton preachesan approach that foreshadows the work-centered strategy andeven some of the vocabulary of New Criticism. Doubtless there are substantial differences,especially in his desire to link literature with cultural values anda particular pattern of literary history. Moulton's approach to world literature is nonetheless remarkable for its attempt to look at "world"texts from a "scientific" or "philosophic" point of view (which is also, hesays, a "comparative" point of view), and for its insistence thatany other perspective falls into a trap of cultural as wellas aesthetic misprision. According to Moulton, interpretation in literature is "of thenature of a scientific hypothesis, the truth of which is tested by the degree of completeness with which it explains the details of the literary workas they actually stand" (S 25). There are predecessors, of course. Moulton's concept of the unity, complexity, and autonomy of literature is openly indebtedto the Schlegels, to Coleridge, and to Saintsbury. His map of world literature expands on Matthew Arnold's categories of Hellenism and Hebraism and he shares Arnold's determination to preserve the cultural heritage. Yet Moulton is a practicing teacher with a missionary interest in university extensionthat is, in reaching a large and diverse audience Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature 7 outside academia. He wants to translate critical principles into pedagogic practice. He draws up syllabi, lectures on academic administration, and considers such questions as the range of material to be covered and the needs of his potential audience. Most of all, he examiwts the mechanics of literary study. The study of literature is to be distinguished from philology, from historical research that merely accumulates facts, and from the "judicial criticism" of reviewers or impressionistic critics who proceed by personal taste or conformity to canonical models. Instead, literary theory and an awareness of the reader's own perspective are the proper tools of interpretationor, better, of analysis. "Interpretation" for Moulton does not have the pejorative overtones that it will acquire in T. S. Eliot. Moulton sees it neither as impressionistic fiction nor as a "presentation of historical facts which the reader is not assumed to know" (Eliot 142), but rather as the logical result of the "inductive science of literary criticism" that he proposes in Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. Inductive criticism pursues the observation of detailsthe "facts" of the textand reconstructs their inner relationships or the text's intention. This is not the "author's intention," and Moulton is far from falling into an "intentional fallacy"; instead, he draws on his understanding of scientific method to construct a theory of literary intentionality: Deep designs are traced in Shakespeare's plots, and elaborate combinations in his characters and passions: is the student asked to believe that Shakespeare really intended these complicated effects? The difficulty rests largely upon a confusion in words. Such words as 'purpose,' 'intention,' have a different sense when used in ordinary parlance from that which they bear when applied in criticism and science.... in science the 'purpose' of a thing is the purpose it actually serves, and is discoverable only by analysis.. .. In this usage alone can the words 'purpose,' 'intention,' be properly applied to literature and art: science knows no kind of evidence in the matter of creative purpose so weighty as the thing it has actually produced. (S 26) In both literature and art, the "details of literary and artistic productions" are themselves the "phenomena which the critical observer translates into facts.... A picture is a title for a bundle of facts" (S 22-23). More than mere analysis or interpretation, inductive criticism reveals, as no other criticism can, the complex workings that embody artistic value. Moulton's study of Shakespeare concludes by stating that judicial or evaluative criticism is paradoxicallyunable to grasp artistic value to perceive, for example, how Shakespeare elevated theconception of

21 8 The Problem of World Literature plot from mere unity of action tO "a harmony of design binding together concurrent actions from which no degree of complexity was excluded" (S 397). Judicial criticism cannot address Shakespeare's quality because it unconsciously uses standards from the past or present as criteria for judgment. If there is a tacit adherence to the past and a concomitant "secret antagonism to variations from received models," then new literary forms are required to "justify themselves, and so the judicial critic brings his least receptive attitude to the new effects which need receptiveness most" (S 37). The opposite bias may also hold true, and a progress-oriented critic may evaluate the past according to"the degrees in which past periods have approximated his own, advancing from literary pot-hooks to his own running facility" (S 38). Moreover, asks Moulton, "What if the idea of judging be itself a prejudice?" (S 7). Thirty years later, in The Modern Study of Literature, he is still affirming the importance of the inductive method and the intrinsic study of literature. "The criticism of inductive interpretation is the basis on which all other criticism rests: only as the reader verifies his conceptions by observation of the literature can he become a judge" (M 494). The literary-critical vocabulary of this inductive theory is startlingly familiar. Moulton's science of inductive criticism is also an "intrinsic" criticism, in which the question is "not the origins of literature, but the literature itself" (M 490), and as such indicts a number of fallacies that detract from proper interpretation. There is an "allegorizing fallacy" (M 290), the "fallacy of the superior person" (292), the "fallacy of inconsistency" (291), the "author fallacy" (295), the "common-sense fallacy" (300), the judicial fallacy, which passes "from the idea of values to the idea of valuation" (318), and a "fallacy of kinds" that measures everything new against previous models (491). The "most fundamental of all fallacies," he declares, is the fallacy that ignores unity of impression and "the relativity of details in a work of art" (289). Other fallacies fall into various versions of ,Atrinsic criticism. The "allegorizing fallacy" superimposes another structure of meaning; it leads one writer to "interpret the whole Book of Job as an astronomical treatise, Job and his friends being four stars in the constellation Botstes" (290). The fallacy of the "superior person" appears when a reader tries to make the literary work square with his or her more "advanced" views. The "author fallacy" represents "the inability of many readers to keep under observation a piece of literature without their attention wandering to its author" (293). This author fallacy, which clearly prefigures later "intentional" and "genetic" fallacies, "arises most usually in connection with the more complex examples of art." Often "common-sense" readers

22 Richard Moulton and the Idea ofWorld Literature 9 cannot believe that the poet"really meant" a particularcomplicated design, but Moulton respondsin a sentence that could have come straight out of I. A. Richards'sPractical Criticism (1929): "The conscious purpose of a poetifhe has onebelongs to hisbiography; what criticism means by 'purpose'and 'design' is the purposeparticular parts are seen to servein the poetic product whenanalyzed" (295). have to What does Moulton's notionof inductive literary criticism do with world literature? For onething, he uses it to separate the study of world literature from purelyhistorical and philological studies. Literature is a category to itself;literary evolution is linked tohistorical evolution but has nonetheless its ownset of relationships; thestudy of world literature depends on an awarenessof relations and perspectives. just the This awareness is self-reflexive:it leads one to interpret not "record" of literature, but also "theconception of literature itself" (M 491) as well as one's ownposition as observer. The inductiveliterary critic tries to avoid habitualanalysis or preset categories ofjudgment. Undeniably there are more than afew cultural assumptions under- paradigm of lying Moulton's own schemaof world literature, from his five Literary Bibles to a"literary pedigree of theEnglish-speaking peoples" that situates certaincultures as "extraneous" or"etc." He relies on "natural divisionsof mankind, like races andnations" (W 31). The race of Abraham possesses aspiritual instinct that becomes of English "a force strong enough todetermine the whole spiritual side and kindred civilizations" ( W432). There is a cultural"shrinkage" in in the Dark Ages before theculmination of "modern civilization" Europe ( W 29, 27). The "special artof the modern world is the artof music," and the orchestra(including human voices) is "the great achievement of modern times" ( W50). More disturbingly, thisBiblical Islam as scholar dedicated to theHellenic-Hebraic tradition describes facile "a new religion, a pervertedHebraism" that appeals "to the more had "the side of the moral nature" ( W32). Medieval Arabs, moreover, to main carrying trade in ideas, butthey brought nothing of their own the civilization of the future"( W 33). Moulton's sweeping surveyof civilization falls short of theself-consciousness he recommends for inductive literary criticism, andultimately distorts the outline of world literature that he equates with an"autobiography of civilization:' Yet theory' he spends considerable timeopposingir the name of literary and and competent readingpracticesingrained habits of selection judgment that influence our conceptof world literature. In Moulton's view, both literarytheory and world literature make a distinction between accumulative,documentary knowledge and an

4.) 10 The Problem of World Literature

awareness of framework and perspective: between "coverage,"to use the terms of syllabus-design, and organization.He is basically suspicious of accumulating texts from around the worldand calling them world literature. Such an accumulative procedure,which he finds appropriate for "universal literature" in its global variety,implies a never-ending quest for completeness that will ultimatelyprevent analysis. It leads to the "barren" image of literatureas "mere information" (W 296). In contrast, World Literature and Its Place in General Culture"presents a conception of World Literature, not in thesense of the sum total of particular literatures, but asa unity, the literary field seen in perspective.. ( W v). World literature involves nota "catalogue of works to read, but principles to guide individual choice"( W 408). Moulton is opposed to global booklists, even of "BestBooks," because they contribute to the "naive idea that everythingknowable is of the nature of information, sure to be found in the rightcompendium" ( W I ). If the overriding idea of world literature isto demonstrate the variety and interconnectedness of human values in theirmost powerful literary formwhat Moulton calls the "autobiographyof civilization," or cultural studies through literaturethen the chieftask becomes to outline an appropriate perspective. We have returned to the provocativeconcept of "world literature from the English point of view?' Moultonundoubtedly meant the paradoxical phrase to draw attention to the idea ofinductive criticism and to the inevitability of havinga perspective. In an era of postcolonial criticism, it is hard not to see a self-proclaimed"English point of view" as one more display of Moulton's comfortable Anglocentricity,and many examples support this view. Yet Moulton ismore aware than most of the inescapable positioning of any worldview; indeed,he makes it his point of departure:

World Literature will be a different thingto the Englishman and to the Japanese: the Shakespeare who bulksso large to the Englishman will be a small detail to the Japanese, whilethe Chinese literature which makes the foreground inthe one literary landscape may be hardly discernible in the other. WorldLiterature will be a different thing even to the Englishmanand the French- man.... More than this, World Literature may be different for different individuals of the same nation... it may be that the individuality of the student, or of some teacher who hasinfluenced him, has served as a lens focusing the multiplexparticulars of the whole in its own individual arrangement. ( W 7)

2 4 Richard Moulton and the Idea ofWorld Literature 11

And he adds: We must take our stand at thepoint where we find ourselves, and, looking from that point inall directions, we must bring perspective into play .. . ( W 435) Moulton's study of world literatureis thus openly positioned. It does not assume a singleuniversally valid canon of books drawnfrom different parts of the globe. It draws on"whatever of universal literature, coming from whatever source, hasbeen appropriated by our English civilization, and made a part of ourEnglish culture" ( W 297). It is national but not British, since he saysthat before the medieval period "the real English culture is theculture of Europe," and "nine-tenths of the history of English civilizationand culture" falls outside Britain ( W 434). To a certain extent, this viewof world literature as a historical phenomenon draws on Goethe'sfuture-oriented concept: that different nations will get to know and understand oneanother through reading one another's literature,and by producing newlycosmopolitan works. There is a distinct echo of Goethe, too,in Moulton's statement that "it is a feature of the present agethat the leading peoples of theworld are drawing nearer to oneanother, as if making a commonreading circle to which the best productsof each people will appeal" ( W427). Like Goethe, Moulton emphasizesnationality as a basic principle of world literature. The two basicprinciples on which his theory of world literature rests are "the NationalLiterary Pedigree," by which he means "the train ofhistoric considerations that connectsthe reader's nationality with its roots in the far past,and traces its rehttionship with other parts of its field" and,second, "Intrinsic Literary Interest"(W 8). Let us not misunderstand"intrinsic literary interest": this is not a qualitative criterion (Moulton is notinterested in aesthetic judgment), but an instrumental one. Only bypaying attention to literary structure can one grasp thesignificance of major cultural documents,whether the Bible, ancient Greek drama, orother works included in Moulton's outline of world literature. Inductiveliterary criticism is a tool in elucidating world literature, whichis itself another tool in establishing a common culture:"just what is needed to draw togetherthe scattered parts of humanity studies" (W 453). "World literature from the Englishpoint of view" turns out to have a very Arnoldian cast,although Moulton docs complicateArnold's Hellenic-Hebraic dualism in a chart withthe rather off-putting title "Literary Pedigree of the English-SpeakingPeoples" (see Figure 1). 25 12 The Problem of World Literature

Semitic Civilizations Aryan Civilizations Extraneous

Babylonian Arabic HEBRAIC HELLENIC Indian Persian Finnish Chinese Assyrian Japanese Egyptian &c. &c. 5.

Kettle European

Medievalism and ROMANCE

Modern English (and European) Culture

Figure 1. Moulton's "Literary Pedigree of the English-Speaking Penpies." Adapted fromWorld Literature and Its Place in General Culture(Norwood, MA: Macmihan, 1911), 52.

As the chart makes clear, "Modern English (and European) Caure" is rooted in "Semitic Civilizations" (broken down into "Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, &c.; Arabic; HEBRAIC"), "Aryan Civilizlions" (broken down into "HELLENIC; Indian; Persian" anda your4er "European Group" of "Keltic, Norse, [and] Germanic"), witha subsequent third component which enters as "Mediaevalit.m and P.OM- ANCE" with tiesT.0 AraKc; HEBRAIC, HELLENIC, ,Indian, and Persian civilizations as well as to the European Group. Tocne side on the chart are "Extraneous" civilizations ("Finnish; Chinese, Japanese, &c."), whose somewhat awkward et cetera position is explained through their being "extraneous to the evolution of whichwe are the product" W 13). Lumped together, tlry form "not a relatedgroup, but merely a total of the races other than Semitic and Aryan, which have exercised a correspondingly small influence upon history, as history affects ourselves" ( W 11). . . There are obvious objections to packaging complex civilizationsas individue contributing unit3.objections that remaineven if we give the author credit for adding historical texture to the by-thenconven- tional dualism of Hellenic and Hebraic cultures (cf. Arnold 109-27). Moulton's careful (and, it must be said, somewhat "judicial") discussion of literary-cultural history does not avoid the value judgments thatso

26 Richard Moulton and the Idea ofWorld Literature 13 of the easily follow distinctions between"our ixdigree" and "the rest the world?' Recapitulating thequalities of Hellenism and Hebraism as "originating elements of ourcivilization," for example, he decidesthat they "seem to hold asummarizing position in reference tothe main civilizatiom of the world"; later,that these "two ancientcivilizations the which are the componentfactors of our own seem to represent from flower of the civilizations of theworld" (W 11, 13). This slippage the "English point of view" tothe statement that its components represent the high pointof a1 world civilizations onlydemonstrates again how difficult it is to define aperspective without giving it priority. (or syllabi) It is a problem that continuesto face those drawing maps of world literature. has Once the "Literary Pedigreeof the English-Speaking Peoples" been outlined, Moulton proceeds toanalysis of specific literary works "Survey of based on the cultural. historyhe has just provided. The ten World Literature" thatconstitutes the rest of the book presents chapters devoted first to five"Literary Bibles" and then todiverse literary-critical perspectives on worldliterature. The sequence of "Lit- constitutes a set of culturalreference points throughout erary Bibles" of the Western world literature. Althoughthe Bible itself is the subject first chapter,' subsequent "bibles" arecomposed of more than one text, reflecting Moulton's concept of abible as a cluster of works that possess and visible "high significance of matter,""some sense of literary unity" importance for modern culture( W 53-54). Separatechapters are devoted to classical epic andtragedy, to Shakespeare, Dante,and Milton, and to versions of the storyof Faust. The remaining five chapterstake up such topics as"Collateral Studies in World Literature"(significant works outside theHebraic- Hellenic tradition), "ComparativeReading" (clusters of works that shed light on one anotherthrough common themes), and"Strategic for their Points in Literature" (groupsof correlated works to be read mutual relationships or the waythey crystallize moments ofhistorical change). Moulton's adherence tocomparative literary studies ismade Reading," which begins with theoptimistic clear in "Comparative between the assertion that comparativeliterature is a "middle stage in the purely departmental treatmentof literature, which has prevailed past, and that whichis surely comingthe studyof literature as an organic whole" ( W 351).His comparatist readers have"acquired a world- habit of mental grouping," ahabit that organizes a particular literary unity for each"miscellaneous reader" (352).Moreover, "the of mind, study of world literature"develops "the comparative habit 14 The Problem of World Literature

which acts as a lens to bring togetherresemblances and contrasts from all parts of the complex civilization" (36). While we may subscribe to Moulton's comparatiststrategy and his recognition that each reader organizes theworld from a slightly different point of view, his own groupingsare highly canonical and display the unspoken influence of the Great Books list.Under "Comparative Reading" there is an "Alcestis Group;'a "Bacchanals Group," and "Minor Groups" that include the Hebrewand the Indian Song of Songs. "Strategic Points in Literature"are occupied by Plato and Lucretius; Aristophanes; the medieval Romanceof the Rose, Reynard the Fox, and Everyman; "Malory'sMorte d'Arthur and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales"; the Faerie Queen, for its"universally recognized position as a common meeting-ground forClassical, Romantic, and Puritan"; Froissart's Chronicles and Cervantes'sDon Quixote; Erasmus and Bacon; Rabelais; Moliere, Racine, andShakespeare; Walter Scott and Sienkiewicz; Balzac and Hugo; Wordsworthand Byron.' Clearly this list is precisely the traditional catalogue of"dead white men" that contemporary cultural studies have criticized fora limited view of the world. Moulton's "cultural studies" have selectedthese authors to be the literary representatives of significantepistèmes: turning points of history that foreshadow modern Europeancivilization. His original concepts of perspective and positioning have been imperceptiblydo- mesticated, until a tacit definition of modernsociety dictates what to look for in earlier (and related) literatures. Itseems appropriate that the titlt of his last full chapter, "World Literatureas the Autobiography of Civilization," should evoke the form ofa subjective linear narrative reaching into the present. We have movedaway from the "inductive science of literary criticism" to world literatureas its own autobiography, or "civilization presented by itself" ( W 37). Yet there is a third side to Moulton's enterprise,and it is political engagement in the task of mass education. The author ofWorld Literature and Its Place in General Culturesaw his work as part of educational outreach, and he ends the book witha discussion of "the place of world literature in education:' Moultonwas a dedicated and charismatic teacher, an activist who sensed thateducational and social institutions were undergoinga profound change and who wished to help mold the future. Most of his booksare addressed to the general public and they often contain suggestions forteaching; World Literature 1' and Its Place in General Culture containsan appendix with a "syllabus" outline of material in the book, andan annotated list of works and translations.

28 Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature 15

When studying at Cambridge University inthe 1870s, Moulton became part of the developing universityextension movement. He returned to teach extension *courses at LondonUniversity for a year after receiving his Ph.D. from the Universityof Pennsylvania, and when he joined the new University of Chicagoin 1892 he taught both regular and extension courses for a time.Unlike T. S. Eliot, who disliked teaching extension courses, Moulton was anardent proponent of a diversified general education to be taughtby itinerant (but university-sponsored) teachers throughout the countryinfact, he helped found the American Society for UniversityExtension. Printing, Moulton noted, was the first university'extension, and "the time has now come to send teachers to followthe books" ("University Extension" 9; hereafter "UE"). The conclusion to nrld Literature and Its Place in General Culture draws heavily on anearly lecture on university extension that he gave at the Johns Hopkins Universityin 1890 (one of many he gave in America that year). In thelecture, Moulton outlined three waves of religious, political, andeducational change that have shaped modern history: first, the Reformation;second, a series of revolutions that helped bring about self-government;and last of all, a recent shift in which "the conception of anisolated learned class" gives way "before the ideal of a nationalculture:' ("UE" 12). Education for the whole nation, and a concomitantunderstanding of one's own national culture in its broadest context, form anintegral part of Moulton's scheme of world literature. Society as a wholethat is, national societyis toprofit by educational reform. Rebuffing in advance accusationsof "educational communism, on a par with benevolent schemes forredistributing the wealth of society" he wishes to enlist "the wholenation without exception . .. shop-assistants, porters, factory-hands,miners, dock or agricultural laborers, women with families and constanthome duties" into extension classes. Here, they will comeinto contact with the great works that have shaped modern society andwill gain a better understanding of English cultural identity. Moulton wishes tocatch a society in transition and persuade it to incorporateeducation as one of the "permanent interests in life," like religion andpolitics ("UE" 2-3). A propitious moment has come, he believes, inwhich the general population is open to the idea of higher education for everyone.If educators meet the demand it will be as if thereis a "University of England" or "University of America," for "educationally the wholeadult population will be just as much within the university aspolitically the adult population is within the constitution" ("UE" 12).

29 16 The Problem of World Literature

The utopian overtones of this vision cannot obscure its dual role its breadth is as ambiguous as the "strategic points" recommended for the study of world literature. Just as the strategic pointswere defined through canonical European works written by men, Moulton's university extension is defined by a specific (and class-conscious) vision of society. General (or "extension") education is aimed at a specific British audience and its presumed work paaerns, and this educationproposes to fill their leisure with the "English point of view" on the world. Moulton's picture of English society echoes Matthew Arnold, in fact, in his insistence on the human obligation to find leisure time for cultural pursuits: But if a man or woman is so entangled in routine duties as never to command leisure.... Such an individual... is a slave. It may be cruel circumstances that have thus absorbed him in business, but that does not alter the fact: slavery was a misfortune rather than a fault to those who suffered it, but in 'any case to be content with slavery is a crime. ("UE" 4) The benevolent intentions of this passage do not conceal the peculiar rhetoric of slavery, or the fact that the physical reality of slavery is far removed from Moulton's image of an Anglo-Saxon race whose "genius... leans towards self-help" ("UE" 13). In short, Moulton's populist sympathies, and his reformist plan to center world literature in general education, are already colored by a traditionally "English point of view" on the nature and needs of his audience. No one today, I believe, would claim Richard Moulton as a prede- cessor. The solutions he found are too often flawed, either by logical inconsistency or by incompleteness. Defending the text "in itself" as an object of study, he discounts the importance of original languages and philological exactness; in fact, he thinks of language as a transparent medium for ideas that are easily translated. He does not seem to recognize the presence of a preemptive "judicial criticism" in hisown "inductive" discussions of world masterpieces. His arguments for recognizing the importance of perspective are undercut by the visibly insular nature of his "English point of view." Describing world literature as tlw "autobiography of civilization," he distracts attention from the fact that many different people write that autobiography. Yet he remains an interesting figure in many ways: as an academic activist who tried to reform educational policy to fit current social needs; as a scholar with his own view of comparatism and world literature; as a literary theoretician whose work-centered approach foreshadows much New Criticism without quite extricating itself from traditional literary history.

30 Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature 17

Let me recapitulate some of the issues Moultonaddressed that retain their academic and political relevance. He raisedthe question of blind obedience to the canon, and criticized"judicial" or traditionally evaluative criticism for being unable toassimilate new or unfamiliar works. He asserted the importance of positioningin literary and cultural studies, noting that the outline of worldliterature (and the image of the world) will look different to peoplefrom different societies and even within the same society.He took up one of the touchiest questions of today's literary curriculumits relationship tocommunity needs by seeking to define a common heritagein "world literature from the English point of view:' He recognized thefact that the student body was changing, and devisedpedagogic strategies with that in mind. In spite of the monolithic blocs, dotted-linerelationships, and collateral and extraneous readings of his chartof world literature, he worked to diversify the conventional "English point ofview" and had the courage to present it as a perspective inpedagogical practice. Moulton's situation, so much embedded inhis own time, resonates peculiarly with our own. Both periods arewitness to massive institutional change, in which educational policyis seen as a matter of national politics. Demographics, economics, and thetechnological revolution are redefining the way wetalk about issues of class, canon, and curriculum; they influence literary theory andpropel cultural studies; they restructure our academic institutions.We have the benefit of hindsight in assessing Moulton's strategiesfor coping with educational and social change, and there is a certainfascination in observing the overlapping paradigms of his work. It is less easy toobserve our own overlapping paradigms, and even harder toforesee the impact of social pressures on the institutionof education in this country: whether, for example, it will be subtly reorganized toconform to a more centralized vision, or split into highly diverse units thatreflect various forms of local control; whether world literaturewill be researched as canonical information ("what every American needs toknow") or explored as patterns or shifting perspective.In each era, however, as Richard Moulton shows, the idea of world literatureis a catalytic concept that opens up literary, cultural,and personal horizons.

Notes

I. Moulton wrote in The Literary Studyof the Bible that the Bible is the "worst-printed book in the world" (9), nearlyincomprehensible because of the medieval arrangement of a run-on textinto short verses that obscure its

31 18 The Problem of World Literature dramatic form. From 1895 to 1913, he edited the variousbooks of the Bible "in modern literary form" with introduction andnotes, under the general title The Modern Reader's Bible. Apassage from his A Short Introduction to the Literature of the Bible explains the principles ofthese specially printed editions: "The literary study of the Bible thus seeksnew light which will come into any passage of Scripture when it is read in accordance with its exact literary form" (6). "Though the Bible is proclaimedto be one of the world's great literatures, yet if we openour ordinary version we find that the literary form is that of a scrap book:a succession of numbered sentences, with divisions into longer or shorter chapters, underwhich all trace of dramatic, lyric, story, essay, is hopelessly lost" (9). 2. It is assumed that all non-English worksare read in translation. Moulton enthusiastically supports Emerson in his preference for translations( W 5), recommends specific translations in his appendix, andsays firmly that "what th-; Englishman needs is world literature broughtto him in his own English tongue, in which he can reach the literary effect of what he isreading, undistracted by intemiptions of linguistic puzzles, and themechanism of grammar and dictionary" that "excludes the interpretation of perspectiveon which literary culture depends" (M 456).

Works Consulted

Aldridge, A. Owen. The Reemergence of World Literature:A Study of Asia and the West. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1986. Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Politicaland Social Criticism; and Friendship's Garland: Being the Conversations,Letters, and Opinions of the Late Arminius, Baron von Thunder-ten-Tronckh.New York: Macmillan, 1924. Brandt Corstius, J. C. "Writing Histories of World Literature."Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 12 (1963): 5-14. Brown, Calvin S. "Debased Standards in World Literature Courses."Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 2 (1953): 10-14. Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, 1950. Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987. Guerard, Albert. Preface to World Literature. New York: Henry Holt,1940. Hirsch, E. D., Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. The Dictionary ofCultural Literacy. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Moulton, Richard Green. The Ancient Classical Drama: A Studyin Literary Evolution Intended for Readers in English and in the Original.Oxford: Clarendon P, 1890. . The Literary Study of the Bible: An Account of the Leading Forms of Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings. 1895. Rev. ed.Boston: D. C. Heath, 1906. .The Modern Study of Literature. Chicago: U of Chicago P,1915.

32 Richard Moulton and the Idea of World Literature 19

Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist: A Popular Illustration of the Principles of Scientific Criticism. 3rd rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon P,1897. A Short Introduction to the Literature of the Bible. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1901. ."University Extension and the University of the Future?' Education, History, and Politics, III-IV. The Johns Hopkins UniversityStudies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. 9. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUP, 1891. 1-14. .Krld Literature and Its Place in General Culture. Norwood, MA: Macmillan, 1911. Richards, I. A. Practical Criticism. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1929. Rosenberg, Ralph P. "The 'Great Books' in General Education."Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 3 (1954): 20-35. Schulz, H. J. and R H. Rhein. Comparative Literature, the Early Years:An Anthology of Essays. Studies in Comparative Literature 55. ChapelHill: U of North Carolina P, 1973. Strich, Fritz. Goethe and World Literature. Trans. C. A. M. Sym.Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1971. Trans. of Goethe und dieWeltliteratur. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1946. Wellek, René, and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. New York:Harcourt, 1949. 2 The Translator and the Voice of the Other: A Case in Point

Marilyn Gaddis Rose Translation Research and Instruction Program State University of New York at Binghamton

How does one speak for the Other as a matter of course, when doing so is regarded as epistemologically impossible and ethically prohibited? This is the problem of representation and re-presentation in translation. And yet, if translation is to occur at all, the translator must assume the Other's voice in order to repeat it. This ventriloquial act requires presumptionDouglas Robinson would say "guts" (5)or at best a neutrality that needs conscious examination and, occasionally, explanation. Emanuel J. Mickel's recent retranslation of Jules Verne's Vingt mille lieues sous les triers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea) serves as my metonymic conceit, for its unobtrusive translation strategy caused me to rethink this problem. Verne's novelin which "submerged" characters have the choice of rationalization, resistance, or capitulationcauses one to wallow, perhaps drown, in Otherness, and is thus, along with its English translations, a good point of departure for an investigation into the problem of translation and Otherness. One of the best-known image sequences in Twenty Thousand Leagues occurs toward the end of the novel when an attacking octopus jams the helix of the Nautilus with one of its tentacles. Captain Nemo, members of his multinational crew, and his three prisoner-passengers rush out and up to disengage the helix by slashing the tentacle. With seven tentacles amputated, the octopus uses the one remaining to seize the sailor occupying the vanguard position protecting Nemo. Professor Aronnax, Verne's chief spokesman, relates the event: Quelle scene! Le malheureux, saisi par le tentacule et collé a ses ventouses, était balance dans l'air au _caprice de cote enorme trompe. II rAlait, ii étouffait, il criait: "A moi! a moi!" Ces mots, prononcil en francais, me caustrent unc profonde stupeur! J'avais donc un compatriote a bord, plusieurs, peut-etre! Cet appel

3 4 The Translator and the Voice of the Other 21

déchirant, je l'entendrai toute ma vie! (474-75; emphasisin original) And, after the octopi phalanx has been routedand the submarine is back up to speed, Aronnax ranks the moments ofhorror and terror in his record: Pour moi, au milieu de cette lutte, c'était lecri de désespoir poussé par l'infortune qui m'avait dechire le coeur. Ce pauvre Francais, oubliant son langage de convention, s'étaitrepris parler la langue de son pays et de sa mere, pour jeter unsupreme appel! Parmi cet equipage de Nautilus, associe de corps etd'ame au captaine Nemo, fuyant commelui le contact des hommes, j'avais donc un compatriote! (476) As you may recall, Aronnax (a Frenchmarine scientist), Conseil (his valet-taxonomist), and Ned Land (the Canadian aceharpooner), essentially begin the novel as victims of theNautilus, rescued and incarcerated by the ship's crew. (They might beconsidered prisoners of war since they were on board Admiral Farragut'sfrigate Abraham Lincoln, seeking out the presumed monster whale that wasmaking the seas unsafe.) Their collectivepolylingualismFrench. English, and Germanis no asset in effecting their release: they areland-dwellers speaking "natural" languages, while the Nautilus's crew, menof the sea, speak an "artificial" language(Nemo, at some point prior to the beginning of the novel, created a new language forhis crew). However, we assume that French, themedium of the narrative, becomes the medium of communication for the speakingcharacters since Aronnax is French, Conseil is Belgian, and Ned isCanadian, while Nemo knows all major world languages. There are four inferences to be made regardingthe Otherness of languages in these two passages, all of which are related tothe translator's inescapable presumption of speaking for the Other.First, one infers from Nemo's characterization as a ruthlessgenius that he had forced his language on his crewhad taken their tonguesand given them one unheard (of) on earth. Second, Aronnax andhis two friends, speaking French only among themselves and with Nemo,and not hearing others speak French,would have supposed that French was aforeign language for the crew. Therefore they would have assumedthat they could speak French in front of them without beingunderstood, for inasmuch as the Nautilus's language would have been aspecial excluding code, so, for the purposes of the three captives, wouldhave been French. Third, Aronnax with his two fellow captives have awe/they relationship and attitude toward Nemo and his crew, and thisseparation is reinforced by language use.'

36 22 The Problem of World Literature

Our fourth inference is language-bound and thereforeopens up to a whole host of complexities. We note that Aronnax, a bachelor like his two companions Conseil and Land, is stricken by the instantaneous realization that in life-and-death distress the French sailor spontaneously called out in the language of son pays et sa mere (notsa langue maternelle, "his mother tongue," but "the language of his country and his mother"). We note that the ways in which the two languages structure the message are diametrically different. English specifies the action: "Help!" French specifies the object: "A moi!" "Come to me!" And we note further Verne's choice of idiom; we would usually expect "Au secours!" for "Help!" Thus, the sailor asks his mother,as it were, to come to him.2 Grammatical gender can be intriguing in Verne's works, where, by implication and apparent absence, woman is Other, whereromance and love are overt only in Le Château des Carpathes (The Carpathian Castle and where, consequently, only those reading Verne's French note that key nouns are feminine: e.g., la science, la nature, la machine, la mer (sea), la mon. Generally in a Verne novel men and boysare engaged in solving problems for mankind, but they are immersed and surrounded by the feminine, using the resources of la science and la machine to enlist la nature in the struggle for la victoire of la vie against la mon on behalf of l'humanite. While I would hesitate to say that the feminine principle hasa voice in the French language, at the same time we all recognize that this implicit, covert, nearly automatic shading will not be carried into English. The men of Dickens, Hawthorne, even Melvilleto mention only a few of Verne's contemporariesmay need the help of women, but in the English-language Verne, the fellows do what must be done by themselves. Any English translation of Verne will inescapably omit th :. helpful and nurturing female voice in the text, whether Sameor Other. There is no record, it is true, that Verne consciously sought out feminine nouns. And I think it can be assumed that gendercompen- sation never entered the mind of Verne's first and determinative translator, Lewis Page Mercier. Emanuel J. Mickel's careful and first- ever integral translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues, in fact, allows us to see how much Mercier, a Church of England cleric translating Verne to the obvious satisfaction of Victorian book buyers, knew what the Otherall the Otherswanted said. (The closeness of the two translations also shows how much control Verne exerts over a translator.) In the era of high Western imperialism, translation was a tool,a function, an activity, almost a weapon of cultural aggrandizement, and Mercier, it would seem, used it to lasting effect. In French, Verne The Translator and the Voice of the Other 23

(1828-1905) is at best an ambivalent romantic,and in fact is wistfully nostalgic for the time when he thought progress waswithin reach of l'intelligence and l'industrie. After all, Verne canbe claimed by science fiction, but not by fantasy fiction. He was notout to show that there are more resilient mysteriesthan can ever be explained in wayscongenial to Enlightenment rationalism;rather, he (or his narrators and tragically flawed superheroes) was out to show thatwhat appeared to be resilient mystery was largely explicablein rational terms. In short, Verne the romantic inventor of plots replete withsymbolism coexisted with Verne the realist/positivist editor. Mercier's morerealistic Aronnax/Verne is subtly more at home with himselfandinsensitivity to grammatical gender may have had as much todo with that fact as a judgmental attitude. Mercier's chief aggression wasexcision. His 303-page translation contains roughly 144,000 words. Verne'snovel contains roughly 226,800 words. My calculation for Mickelis 192,000 words, but I noted no omissions. (The Verne edition has noillustrations. The Mercier contains the original illustrations but does notinclude them in the numbering. Mickel's translation numbers theillustrations. A typical Mickel page has 480 words; however, thecritical apparatus is so extensive that there are few typical pages.)For Mercier, Aronnax as Other clearlydid not need to say so much; moreparticularly, he did not need to describe the underwater world in such greatdetail. Therefore, Mercier cut out the parts we are tempted toskiplike the cetological taxonomyin Moby Dick. For Mercier, readers were alsoOther, but he identified with them, rather than with Aronnax orwith Verne. TheyMercier and the readerswere Others together,and Mercier as the clergyman who knows what is good for his parishionersdecided how much of the_sea world was pertinent for thisadventure. Because of this abridging, Verne's English readers, we can assume, are youngerand less sophisticated than his French readersand would not have appreciated Aronnax/Verne's ambivalences. Moreover,since Mercier had, after all, looked up all the words, his translationsprobably dominate subsequent English translations. Even Mickel'smeticulous revision keeps much of Mercier intact. Discounting Mercier's excisions, hisVerne translations are not poor. They are matter-of-factly Victorianin sound and spelling. His errors, as cited by Millerin the annotated edition, are few, andMercier can surely be excused for referring to NorthAmerica's mauvaises terres, for example, as a "disagreeableregion" instead of as the Badlands. Verne's French is of sufficientformality and impeccability that it cues a similarly correctstandard English, with the resultthat Mickel's

3 24 The Problem of World Literature retranslation uses the same register and diction andthus does not sound different from Mercier's. Since Mickelappears to follow the Société Jules Verne's no-nonsense approach, eschewingreading across the text, he has the apparent aim of neutrality: just letVerne speak through Aronnax as he would have spoken had he, Verne,been writing in English. Of course, neutrality is a strategy with itschoices, if not so many or so noticeable as an a priori interpretation, neither domesticating nor foreignizing, hut straddling a fluctuating middle border. In Aron- nax's recollection of the octopus who strangled the Frenchsailor, the 1870 Mercier and 1991 Mickel translationsare virtually identical: Mercier: What a scene! The unhappy man, seized by the tentacle,and fixed to the suckers, was balanced in the air at the caprice ofthis enormous trunk. He rattled in his throat, he was stifled, he cried, "Help! Help!" These words, spoken in French, startled me! I had a fellow-countryman on board, perhaps several! That heartrending cry! I shall hear it all my life. (275) Mickel: What a scene! The unhappy man, seized by the tentacle, and fixed to the suckers, was balanced in the air at the caprice of this enormous trunk. He rattled in his throat, he was stifled, he cried, "Help! Help!" These words, spoken in French, startled me! I had a fellow countryman on board, perhaps several! That heartrending cry! I shall hear it all my life. (462) And in the second section of our quotation: Mercier: = For me it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunateman in the midst of the struggle that had tornmy heart. The poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional language, had takento his own mother tongue to utter a last appeal! Amongst thecrew of the Nautilus. associated in body and soul with the captain, recoi'ing like him from all contact with men, I hada fellow- countryman. (275) Mickel: For me it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunateman in the midst of the struggle that tore my heart. Thepoor French- man, forgetting his conventional language, had taken to his own mother tongue to utter a last appeal! Among the crew of the Nautilus, associated in body and soul with the captain, fleeing all contact with men, I had a fellow countryman. (473) In the penultimate chapter, however, Mercier's identification with Aronnax and against Nemo comes to the foreground. The Nautilus has sunk a mystery battleship by using itself asa torpedo and piercing

3 The Translator and the Voice of the Other 25 the enemy vessel, drowning its hundreds of men.Aronnax's ambivalence toward Nemo abruptly ends; he joins Conseiland Ned Land in their escape plot. Aronnax realizes,"Ce n'était plus mon semblable, c'était l'homme des eaux, le genie des mers" (511).Mercier's Aronnax is superior: "He was no longer my equal [emphasismine], but a man of the waters, the genie of the sea" (299).Conversely, Mickel's Aronnax is horror-struck: "He was no longer afellow human being, but the man of the waters, the genieof the sea" (494). In short, as is often the case with literature intranslation, readers are ill-advised to rest their case on the translation. As translators, our own appropriationof the Other may be more subtly domesticating or more openlyforeignizing. We may inflict futile apologies on those who read our translator's notes.We may envy the Victorians their confidence and their nerve. Butsince they knelk what literature was and how it should sound, sincethey knew what was good for their readers, they knew what tochoose and how to translate it. For us it is different; our insecurity,uncertainty, and uneasinessif not unwillingness to presumeleads to animpasse which simply calls for rerouting and going on. Speaking forthe Other is an inevitable fact of translating. I am not sure that it qualifies as adilemma: perhaps it is simply a condition of the activity. Orshould I say an encompassing complex of conditions as unavoidable as la merand la langue de sa mere in Twenty Thousand Leagues? The translatoris the Seif and the self-same. The text and all its impulsions, andintentions, and patrons both instigating and receiving the translation areOther. The language of the source text is the Other's language.The language of the target text is for the use of others, andthe translation text, once expressed, is outside or Other. I am not quite proclaiming that thequestion of the Other is moot, but I am suggesting that among moderatelyself-aware writers, translators, and readers, it can be managed. It canbe offset in the classroom by stereoscopic reading, where the textis available in both the author's language and that of the class (at leastfor the instructor). It can be obviated in reception by the translator'sadmission of the interpretation developed and the strategy employed. Inthis respect as well, Mickel's Verne is exemplary Traveling below the textin footnotes are his exegeses. He tells us what hethinks the import of a passage is. We are free to skip the footnote, but the caveatprinciple has been observed. Aronnax ends with the claim that he andCaptain Nemo alone have seen what hitherto has beenonly suspected. As the writer/recorder he has taken upon himself Nemo's role, the"No man" or "Nobody" in Latin who claimed "I can do and undoeverything and transform 'yes' 26 The Problem of World Literature into 'nor This claim belongs deservedly also to the translator. I mean not only Mickelbut, yes, Mercier, as well.

Translating always involves usurping the Other's voice, and the need to make muhicultural expressions maximally available means that those other voices will necessarily be altered. When we read popular press interviews with 1992 Peace Nobelist Rigoberta Menchli, whose native language is a special variety of Quiche, we needed a printed proviso to inform us that not only were we reading a translation, but also that in speaking Spanish to the interpreter, Menchü was probably first translating her own thoughts into Spanish. However, since we wanted to know approximately (rather than not at all) what Menchü was thinking, we were prepared to risk the distortion. And we probably should have allowed a little distortion also for the editorial policy of that particular newspaper. What is always true in any translation project is that there is some kind of purpose behind it and that translators must accede to that purpose, which always includes some component of decision making for two Othersthe source author and the target audience. Most generally we, both translator and "patron" (a term I will discuss later), have decided that the Other needs something: the author needs a wider audience; the target audiencz needs exposure, if not persuasion, to different values, goods, attitudes, motivations, different information, whether true, false, or mixed. Our intentions are not necessarily malefic, but as I have insisted, they are always to some extent presumptuous. And what we cannot claim is that our intentions can ever be completely disinterested. Unwitting, inadvertent perhapsbut innocent? Never. Even conscientious, conscious neutrality is a purposeful choice. Anna Libya, an eloquent and elegant Bulgarian who headed the Federation Internationale des Traducteurs in the 1980s, claimed that translation was a link between eras, civilizations, and peoples. She was always careful to close at this point, leaving her audience of translators with the impression that linkage of this sort always had a positive value, and we always left with a very good feeling about our mission. As long as Madame Lilova's spell lasted, we felt, even believed, that communication always had beneficent effects, and that if there were more and better translators, the world would be a much better place. It is enough to state such premises to refute them. The best we can truthfully aver is that the world would probably be no worse for more and better translators. 27 The Translator and the Voiceof the Other

that some of the mostformidable translation We must now recognize conflicted causes. projects have been mounted onbehalf of inherently East the U.S.S.R. had its mosttalented writers For example, in the prudent organized and systematized totranslate. After all, it was more writeDoctor for Boris Pasternak totranslate Shakespeare than to Etkind even made anallusion to that Zhivago,and when Efraim France. One situation, he was thankful tobe allowed to emigrate to which the Russiantranslators were, it now explicit grand design at of the seems, fated tofail was the integrationof the separate heritages constituent republics into a common,shared culture throughtransla- lion. United Bible Society,through its affiliates,still In the West, the Protestant translators who supports a worldwidenetwork of evangelical preserving and stabilizing manyof the world's 5,300 are committed to to writing discrete languages byconverting their implicit grammarl along the way, they havebrought those preliterate systems. Of course, Western ma- cultures the Bible andJudeo-Christian ethics, including it entails. Their translator corpsare trained terial culture and all that in a grid of by Western standards:they study preliterate grammars (specifically, Graeco-Latin,Franco-German, and Western grammars hear Anglo-American) to transcribe texts astheir Western-trained ears documented, was them. This, as LaurenLeighton has painstakingly- translators as well. true of the Russian comparative literature/ In the mid-1970s thePolysystem group in includes scholars fromAmsterdam, Ant- translation studieswhich "patronage system" to werp, and TelAviv4introduced the term imposed by whatever persons orgroups designate the constraints designate an authorize a given translation.The patronage system can of control over what canbe translated and overt centralized system Publishing House published. This can be seenin the Foreign Language of China, or in theU.S.S.R.'s censorship in the People's Republic Eastern Bloc censorship system prior to 1991, orin other prereform The Unbearable Lightnessof Beingrecounts systems (Milan Kundera's physician begins his such an incident inCzechoslovakia, when the Oedipus in a newspaper).The patronage material descent by citing nearly invisible, as in the system, of course, canbe so covert as to be economics of publishing(including advertising U.S. system, where the published and hence what and market analysis)determines what gets "Market" here includesthe government,organized gets translated. from pro- religions, and so-called publicservice/public interest groups, the NRA to HandgunControl. Since market life to pro-choice, from determined by analysis and the taste ofkey people in that market are

41 28 The Problem of World Literature

various socioethical values, thispatronage system isopen to majority domination and can be oppressive,although in the United States the small press, little magazine, anduniversity press establishmentsto some extent counteract this monolithictendency. What may be paradoxical is thatthe Polysystem proponentswho unmistakably imply that the standardsof taste imposed by the publishing system undercorporate capitalism risk deforming literature have for the most part learnedEnglish or French well enoughto use those languages for theirown publishing. With the exception of Susan Bassnett (of Warwick University),the Polysystem proponentsare generally from countries with smalllanguage bases, and theyare only too aware of the handicap of venue. Bassnett,in the afterword to her revised, tidy, and Western introductionTranslation Studies, writes that she is going to make comparativeliterature a subfield of translation studies rather than the otherway around. However, when intotrans- lation and creative writingon their own, the members of thisgroup aim at publication with publisherssuch as Grove Press, the University of Chicago Press, Rout ledge,and Sun and Moon, and theirproducts follow the norms of publishingeconomicsand do not sound like translations. In the 1990s the vanguard positionin translation studies is being assumed by Lawrence Venuti. Hissupporters (myself included) have yet to acquire a label, butwe can take a cue from his essay "The Translator's Invisibility," and callour project "visible translation." The dilemma of dealing with the Othermakes this group of "visibles"want to do more than mark textsas translations and foreground the translator. This group wants translatorsto be open about their ideological and stylistic strategies: honest withthemselves, first of all, and, secondand repeatedly, with their readers andpatrons. Here again, the responsibles,as the French would say, are not necessarily evil hypocrites; theycan be benign activists. The benevolent and sincere can be foundeverywhere. But whateverour individual convictions regarding benevolence,sincerity, openness, and the relativity of such values, theseresponsiblesdo make decisions on behalf of the Other. If we translate, neutralas we often claim to be, we are either making such a decisionor acceding to one. Let us, at least forour purposes here, avoid the most obvious andovert instancesof which have next-to-firsthand knowledgebecause I know translators with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, whichsends linguist/missionaties along the Amazon or in theremote villages of New Guinea. Letus not take issue with their decision thatthese peoples need Westernizing.As translators, let us look intoour own consciences.

42 29 The Translator and the Voice of the Other .

Let us look at instances of decisionmaking for the Other which I wholeheartedly endorse. Mickel's retranslationis such a decision, for he recognized that the existing Englishtranslation was incomplete and contained some inaccuracies. Of course, Verneis in our Western tradition, so the presumption level, if I may putit that way, is slight. A more overt example of deciding whatthe others need or what the Other has to say comes with Francophoneliterature. For example, if A. James Arnold of Caraf Booksthinks that the American English audience needs to hear the French a ,bbeanvoice, he is making such a needs analysis. Carrol ECoates, associate editor of Callaloo, ajournal of Caribbean and African Americanliterature, makes such decisions on a weekly basis.' In such matters weare no more self-reflectivethan Anna Lilova, whom I cited earlier: wesimply believe that we here need to experience as tellingly as we canthe lives and insights of those there. Furthermore, once the decision to translatehas been made, other decisions are in order. These decisions arelikely to make neutrality either impossibleand/or undesirable. Inthe first place, like members of a jury who presumably are not supposed tohave read newspapers or watched televisionfor several months prior to being called toduty, translators cannot really claim not to knowanything about the subject nor to have no preformedjudgments; indeed, someone with no prior information and no shared opinions would notbe qualified to do the translation. (Anyone retranslating Verne,for example, has already discovered the flaws in the prior translations,and has a conviction that Verne is worth serious critical attention.)This is no paradox. Translators are not practitioners of thetraditional Western scientific method. They are, rather, more like criticaltheorists, for they must both share bias and be aware of it while processingtheir material.' In this regard, their competence depends on knowledgeof both the source and tari,et languages as well as knowledge of the subject matter,including knowing where and how to research the background. Furthermore, more' insidious decisionsinevitably arise during translating, depending upon what response isdesired from the readers. The spectrum is usually betweentarget-language acceptability and source- language fidelity, and as a result thetranslator must face a number of hard questions. Should some integrityof the original be sacrificed to make sure that readers pay attention toit? Should the giveaways, such as strained effects, oddsyntax, peculiar words be altered?Will the response be greater if it sounds asif the author wrote in English? There is a related problem: often, througheither more extensive knowledge or highly convincing roleplaying, translators find errors in fact, sense lapses in register; in short, they find thatthe text needs "improvement."

4 3 30 The Problem of World Literature

Itisa presumptuous decision, and yet may have to be made simply to ensure publication. On the other hand, the contrary may look justas convincing. Perhaps we should let readers look at the Other face to face, thus hearingsome of the text's alienating resonances. Perhapswe should allow the text to present itself. This is what Mickel did for Indiana UniversityPress, because university presses are moving toward thisnew literalism. (The popular press still wants style to conform to Anglo-Americannorms.) In this way, readers know that this isa translation, a voice from another culture or another era. Indeed, a study of translatingover the past five years shows that power centers and power languages (e.g., New York and English, Paris and French)are engaged in power struggles with the periphery Even though in French literature thecenter has moved from Paris to sites on the periphery, it iswe in the center (however that center may be constituted) who decide what is read and heard,what the rhetorical standards will be, what traditions willbe followed, and what will be rrofitable. Translation alwaysreacts to the center, whether through serving it (by bringing what is fashionablesomewhere else over to English), or through countering it (by bringing in somethingthe center would prefer to ignore or exclude). It is, quiteliterally,inexpressibly convenient to be born intoa dominant language milieu. While official bilingualismmay undermine monolingual privilege, translation inan officially bilingual community like Canadaor a quasi-officially bilingual communitylike Haiti maintains privilege. In Canada, translatorscan reduce creative language usage by their need to standardize expression and hence keep language the tool of conformity. Unapologetically, in Canadaand on the conti- nent, you speak French correctly or you speak something else,and Termium, the Canadian Secretary of State's formidabledatabase in the praiseworthy pursuit of nonambiguity in informationexchange, makes this effort machine-readable. This kind of standardization emanates from thecenter and keeps the periphery in a neat circle. In Canada, the translationoffice is a subdivision of the Secretary of State. In Quebec,a state agency and a Avic agency in Montreal try to monitor languageyetthey do not concern themselves with the Algonquin minority at its border. Many a nation-state we envy (Sweden) or like to visit (France) makesan official effort to protect usage and hold the lineon borrowings. Indeed, it is time that someone noted for the record that therise of linguistic nationalism within the past thirtyyears heralded the resurgence of political nationalism. And before politicians, translatorswere confront- ing the concomitant resurgence of linguistic nationalismand world-

4 4 31 The Translator and the Voiceof the Other language learning; that is, groups werebending their efforts to learn while commit- the colonizers' languages,voluntarily this time around, ting themselves to the defenseand illumination of their ownlanguage(s). The motives have been complex, evenconflicted. Whatever the motives may havebeen, translators have beenmobi- ,:onflict lized to use their skills as weaponsin the conflict of culturesa many would like totransform into a living mosaicthrough even- handed curriculum. With such we tryto give the Other's words,not but words the so much our own(although that will be inescapable), Other would have used. is a matter Of course, what we decidethose words would have been immersion. of judgment, compoundedof intuition, experience, and This judgment will be personaland subjective. In all translationthere of applied is a complex, multilayered,subjective factor. Various branches linguistics (computational, descriptive,neural, and terminological) have subjective element in nonliterarylanguage. been able to limit the limit the Canada and the EuropeanCommunity have been able to subjective element to such an extentthat for sheer informationtransfer, reliable automatism intranslating. Editing, there is a fair degree of in obviously, is still necessary, so adegree of subjectivity remains, even nonliterary translation. And inliterary translation the subjectivemust take precedence. is part of In the final analysis, it isevident that literary translation literature. Hence not only istranslation appropriatelydeconstructed or explicated by literary criticismbut also, and moreimportant, literary translation is a response to theliterary taste of an era, forwhat is accepted by the target audiencedetermines, consciously or unconsciously, the decisions translatorsmake. When we encounter newliterary translations that soundsomewhat it is likely stilted and antiquated or,conversely, suspiciously smooth, literature. What that the translators have notbeen reading the target persuasive makes Mickel's retranslationof Twenty Thousand Leagues so is that as a specialist in thenineteenth century Mickelknows Anglo- American literature well enough tokeep his Verne credible.Compar- Leuven School ative, chronological charts(such as those made by the lexically, syntact- under José Lambert) canshow us what can happen in the interval separatingthe Mercier and ically, and grammatically have Mickei translations. The passagesfrom these translations that I space herein cited show minimalchange. A time lapse of 121 years, a differences distance of the Atlantic Ocean,and the considerable cultural Oxford cleric and atwentieth-century between a nineteenth-century hyphen in Bloomington academic resultedonly in the removal of a

45 32 The Problem of World Literature

the phrase, "fellow countryman." The tenses, mood, and voicesstayed the same. Word orderwas preserved. Cognates were used confidently. Mickel's decision to stay neutral andlet the readers, all ofus Others, see as nearly as possible what Verne wouldhave written had he used English, was the bestone. It mandated a certain rhetorical formality, fittingly associated withnineteenth-century novels, and in thisform his Twenty Thousand Leaguesreenters the multicultural curriculum with integrity. Translators, then, are not unlike ProfessorAronnaxalthough they may feel at times like the unfortunate,nameless French sailor. They cannot rescue the original justas it is. But they can transcribe and attempt to render cet appel dkhirant... "that heartrending cry!"

Notes

I. There is no indication that Nemo, who speaks French natively, isa native speaker; Verne had originallyplanned to make Nemo a Pole, but his editor had too large a Russian marketto permit the implication that Russian repression was responsible forNemo's inhumanity. My Russo-Ukrainian colleague Georgui Derlugian informsme that in the Russian translation Nemo is a Hindu wronged by Britishcolonialism. 2. Given Verne's passion foropera, "A moi!" almost certainly echoes Faust's call to Mephistopheles in Gounod's libretto. This wouldsuggest that the sailor wants his mother but iscalling on the devil, i.e., the diabolical Nemo. It is probably alsono coincidence that "Nautilus"was the name of Robert Fulton's submarine model, whichhad a successful trial run in France in 1800. 3. Here there is affection anddevotion between the affianced innkeeper's daughter and the game warden. Butthe eroticism is displaced. The castle owner, long exiled from this section ofTransylvania presumably for his political activism, has returned witha charlatan who manipulates color slides and a recording to simulate thedeceased opera singer whom the chatelaine loved. Simultaneously theopera singer's grieving fiancé and his valetpass through the area on a walking trip. 4. The leading proponentsare José Lambert, André Lefevre, Itamar Even- Zohar, and Gideon Toury. Fora brief guide to the Polysystem see Lefevre's "Beyond the Process." 5. Coates's Haitian issues of Callalooreceived the Council of Journal Editors' 1992 monograph award,so such "presumption" was judged both valuable and attractive. 6. See the results of mysurvey of translators in "Seeking Synapses: Translators Describe Translating." Alsorelevant is my taxonomy of translator- text relations in "Crossroads or Spectrum: to a Text:' Translators' Range of Relations

4 6 The Translator and the Voice of the Other 33

Works Consulted

Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies. Rev. ed.London: Routledge, 1991. Coates, Carrol F., ed. Callaloo. Special issues onHaitian literature, 15.2 (Spring 1992) and 15.3 (Summer 1992). Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightnessof Being. New York: Harper- Collins, 1988. Lefevre, André. "Beyond the Process?' InTranslation Spectrum. Ed. M. G. Rose. Albany State U of New York P, 1981.52-59. Leighton, Lauren. Two Literatures, One Art.De Kalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1991. Robinson, Douglas. The Translator's Turn.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991. Rose, M. G. "Seeking Synapses: TranslatorsDescribe Translating?' In Trans-. lation Theory and Practice: Tension andInterdependence, ed. Mildred L. Larson. ATA Series 5. Binghamton: Centerfor Research in Translation, 1991. 5-11. Relations to a Text?' ."Crossroads or Spectrum: Translators' Range of In Languages at Crossroads, ed. DeannaLindberg Hammond. Medford, NJ: Learned Information Systems, 1988.297-303. Venuti, Lawrence, ed. Rethinking Translation.New York: Routledge, 1992. "The Translator's Invisibility?' Criticism28:199-202. Verne, Jules. Vingt mille lieues sous les mers.Edition integrale. Simone Vierne, ed. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1977.The Mercier edition is Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas (Bostcu: JamesR. Osgood and Company, 1875); the annotated edition of the Mercier wascompiled by Walter James Miller (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1967).The Mickel edition is Twenty Thousand Leagues under thf Sea (Bloomington:Indiana UP, 1991).

47 3 Anthologizing World Literature

José J. de Vinck

The petit-bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the other. Ifhe comes face to face with him he blinds himself, ignores and denies him, or else transforms him into himself. Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Can world literature be translated and anthologized withouteliding the differences within and among cultures? The productionof accessible anthologies of world literature has becomemore urgent as the globe has become more closely linked; however, the editors ofthese anthologies need to think critically about the rhetoric ofrepresentation. For example, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpiecesdefines world literature in terms of the Western masterpiece andso imposes Western models of the world, and of literature,on its representations of all other cultures. In this essay I will briefly examine theessentialist dialectic of Occidentalist and Orientalist discourse in theNorton and then suggest alternate strategies of representation. Said argues that "no one is likely to imaginea field symmetrical to [Orientalism] called Occidentalism" (50). He furthermoreclaims that Occidentalism could be a coherent discourse withinnon-Western cultures, but that is not the sense in which I willuse the term. In this essay "Occidentalism" refers to the ways in which Western cultures and traditions are imagined within the West. Thisdiscourse of identity is inseparable from the discourse of difference.And, as Bhabha, Mohanty, Parry, and Suleri argue, the discourses of self andother have a complex, mutually deconstructive interrelationship. Said himself recognizes that the diffuse and heterogeneousdiscourses of the Western selfoften unconscious and seeminglynatural ways of speaking and beingare inseparable from themore limited and homogenous discourse of Orientalism. In other words, the play of identity is inseparable from the politics of difference. However,this dynamic is 34 48 35 Anthologizing World Literature often imagined as an essentialistdialectic of self and other. Inthis context the encounter ofself and other does not resultin the engagement of differences, but in thereinforcement of a presumedidealized identity presumed idealized difference.It is this imagined essen- over against a Barthes tialist dialectic, within Westernculture, that the epigraph from evokes and which I propose toexamine in the Norton series. The first edition of the Norton waspublished in 1956; the fifth,in 1985; the sixth, in 1992; and an"expanded" edition made itsfirst appearance in 1995. Iwill focus on the preface tothe fifth edition clearly, and since it articulates thepresuppositions of the editors most I will also briefly comment uponother texts in the series. The preface to the fifth editionstates: "From its firstedition in 1956 executed by it has been planned whole,each of its parts designed and changing steadily with the a recognizedauthority in that field, but r (xiv). The Norton's formis determined by its didacticfunction times .. represent "the ever- as a "teachinginstrument" (xiv). It attempts to broadening cultural traditionthat in these latter years ofthe twentieth employs different century we all share"(xiii). The rhetoric of the preface strategies of legitimationorganicism,expertise, didacticism, relevance, of an Occi- and traditionto naturalizethe Norton's representation dental culture that "we allshare:' However, a second look atthe preface only represents the to the fifth editionreveals that its discourse not this identity. identity of the Westit re-invents of What is a "world masterpiece?"The designation refers to texts often substitutes "depth and subtlety" (xiv).The term "representative" (xiv). An implicit Hegelianmodel of literary for the term "masterpiece" into distinct history operates throughout theNorton. History is divided periods, each with its own"complex sensibility" (xiv). Themasterpiece represents the spirit of its age,which is at the same time auniversal Spirit that remains foreverpertinent. The Norton, however, is morethan a collection ofrepresentative textsit is greater than the sumof its parts. The fifthedition is structured like the Bible: thefirst volume, or the OldTestament, begins the with Genesis and ends withParadise Lost; the second volume, or with the apostles of theEnlightenment and New Testament, begins closer ends, nervously, with potentiallyapocryphal modern works. "The there is over we come to contemporarytimes, the more disagreement what is to be called a'masterpiece' (1907). In a sense,the editors have reconstructed a new,secular Bible, but who isthis god called Norton? tradition of The Norton reinvents andrelegitimates the canonical and difference. A the West through anessentialist dialectic of identity 49 36 The Problem of World Literature few selections from Africa, Japan,and India are included within the anthology, and these relatively homogenousrepresentations of otherness authorize the heterogeneous representationsof self. Of course the editors of any anthology of world literature facethe practical limitations of space, but the choices of what to include and whatto exclude are instructive. The most dramatic example of thisdialectic of inclusion and exclusion can be found in the Norton's"Companion Volume" (see the title and facing pages). That volume issignificantly titled Masterpieces of the Orient (1961;rev. 1976).' These are not "world" masterpieces, but masterpieces of that vast homogenizedterritory of the "Oriental" other. In a brief four hundredpages, compared to the four thousand two hundred and seventeenpages of the two volumes of World Masterpieces, the literature of the Near East,India, China, and Japan is represented. Masterpieces of theOrient inherits the tradition of "anthologizing" the Orient which Saidsuggests began in 1806 with Sacy's Chrestomathie arabe (128). Themodern Masterpieces of the Orient includes longer selections, but is inevery other way reminiscent of Sacy. The essentialist dialectic of Occidentalismand Orientalism, in terms of identity and difference, is perfectlyexpressed by the first sentence of the first edition of Masterpieces ofthe Orient, in whichwe are informed that "Masterpieces of the Orientis a companion volume to World Masterpieces.. ." (vii). The Orient is thus a companion to the World Master. The preface continues:

Its editorial principles are in the spirit of theoriginal anthology. Imaginative literature is emphasized, though withthe literatures of both the Near and the Far East it isdifficult to make the distinction between intellectual writing (especiallywhen it is concerned with philosophy or religion) and belleslettres. (vii) This rhetoric brings to mind all theOccidentalist/Orientalist imagery of the faithful colonial companionfromEnkidu to Gunga Din. The work of Said, Bhabha, Mohanty, Parry,and Suleri, amongst others, has made the political implications of thisrhetoric familiar. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces is theoriginalin the sense of originatingtext: the next paragraph refersto it as the "parent volume" (vii). Masterpieces of the Orient is the childinthe sense of childlike text: even the philosophical and religioustexts of the "Orient" are indistinguishable from belles lettres. The dialecticof identity and difference is clear: the father recognizes andaccepts the childlike fictions of his faithful companions.

50 Anthologizing World Literature 37

The Occidentalist/Orientalist discourseof the 1961 preface to Mas- terpieces of the Orient is substantiallyrevised in th.? edition of 1977, but it also slips into cultural stereotypes asit describes the "intricate language" of the Arab, the "statelysplendor" of the Persian, the "pervasive religious element" of the Indian, thepoetic "didacticism" of the Chinese, and the "instinctive senseof beauty" of the Japanese (x). To be sure, the discourse of the1961 and 1977 prefaces to the "companion" Anthology is dated. Said'sgroundbreaking study was only published in 1978, and the variouseditors of the Norton series have already tried to respond to thechanging times. The Norton has recently generated fromits rib another companion volume, The Norton Anthology of Literatureby Women: The Tradition in English (I 985). According to the titlethese texts are neither examples of world literature, nor masterpieces.They belong to a separate "Tra- dition in English" created by women.The exclusion of the word "masterpiece" from the title points to thegendered sense of the term. In this way tx zi:-. particular anthology serves as animportant corrective to the Norton, but it does soin a way that reinforces the essentialist dialectic of identity and difference.Like Masterpieces of the Orient, this volume is as much a product ofexclusion as it is of inclusion. It gives women writers their own spacewithout disturbing the existing order of the ideal, and for the most partpatriarchal, Western masterpieces. And between these companionvolumes a literary third world, within the first world, is created. The preface to the sixth edition (1992)explicitly raises the question of "canonicity" and "multiculturalism,"but, as the binary opposition suggests, the question only serves tolegitimate the essentialist dialectic of self and other: Looking out on the controversies now ragingbetween advocates of "canonicity" and "multiculturalism," wefind ituseful to remember that a sound democracy, like aneffective orchestra, needs diversity and consensus equally.(xix) The preface to the sixth edition issensitive to the controversy, and yet all the presuppositions of the preface tothe fifth edition remain intact. The essentialist dialectic ofOccidentalism/Orientalism, self/other, is now even moreexplicitly legitimated by what might becalled an aesthetic liberal pluralism. This solution tothe controversy is still underwritten by a Hegelian idealism and stillenacted by a strategy of inclusion: texts are added in the sixthedition, but the order of theworld-according-to-Norton remains undisturbed.

51 38 The Problem of World Literature

The expanded edition of Norton (1995)seems to raise the same issues. For example, the publicationannouncement for the expanded edition claims that it will offer

the best of the literatures of India, China, Japan,the Middle Ea3t, Africa, the Caribbean, and native Americaalongside the mastek- pieces of the Western tradition. Once again the pluralistic strategy of inclusionis pursued within the essentialist dialectic of self and other. The "best"literature of other cultures is placed "alongside" the "masterpieces"of the West. While the table of contents indicates amore inclusive anthology, the rhetoric of the publication announcement falls baiton the same unconscious ideological presuppositions of the earlier editions.2 The editors of the Norton series have led theway in making important texts available, and several generations of students andteachers are in their debt. Following Norton's lead,a new anthology from St. Martin's Press Western Literature ina World Contextcontinues to wrestle with the problem of anthologizing world literature.The title of its preface states its intent: "Placing Western Literaturein a World Context." However, the table of contents shows that thefirst section of "The World Context" only begins on page 787. The Norton and St. Martin anthologiesare valuable contributions to the study of world literature; however, the editorsof any new anthology need to make questions of representationintegral parts of their texts. Instead of relyingon unexamined universals like the "masterpiece," "classic," or "great book," and instead ofimagining an essentialist dialectic of identity and difference, the editorsof a new anthology of world literature might discuss the historyand politics of canonical and apocryphal writing in the light of thesubstantial research on this subject. These editors would also do well to abandon thevery category of literature so as not to superimpose relativelyrecent Western aesthetic traditions and criteria on other culturesand their varied kinds of writing. For example, while it is perfectly legitimateto read the Bible and the Koran as literature, it is not legitimateto elide the questions raised by such a dramatic reorientationto these religious testimonies. In the future, editors would do equally wellto avoid the pasteurizing rhetoric of the "text." It would not be much ofan improvement to replace the Norton's aestheticization and homogenizationof world "literature" with a postmodern textualization and pasteurization.The study of literature has only recently shifted "FromWork to Text" (Barthes), and yet perhaps the time has alreadycome for another shift to "discursive practices" (Foucault).

5` 39 Anthologizing World Literature

Instead of the universal categoriesof "literaturer "workr or "text," the editors of the future mighthighlight the distinct discursivepractices of various documents belonging todifferent times, places, cultures, and peoples. They might emphasizethe variety of ways ofconstructing meaningful representations of particularworlds. They might explore the differences within cultures aswell as between cultures. Theymight consider the political contest withinand among hegemonic, popular, subcultural, and resistant forms ofdiscourse. Instead of reinscribing the unexamined rhetoric of themasterpiece and its attendant idealist discourse of identity and difference, ananthology of distinct discursive practices from around the worldmight serve as an invitation to students to pursue ethnographicanalyses of their own varieddiscursive practices in relation to those of others.In contrast to an imaginedessentialist dialectic students might be asked to engagein an imaginative nones- sentialist dialectic: a dialectic ofdifference.

Notes

1. Although this text was lastrevised in 1976, it is still in print,available, and in use at a number ofuniversities and colleges. [Ed.] Norton 2. It is, however, worth notingthat the editors of the expanded do address some of these ideologicalissues. In particular, Sarah Lawall (whose work appears elsewhere in this volume),in her introduction to "The Twentieth Century" in Volume 2, presents arevised definition of "masterpiece"a because it constitutes a coherent structure work that "continues to be relevant tied to a of reference and representationthat is neither easily exhausted nor single context" (1376). Such adefinition, while reflective of theJohnsonian "test of time," and the modernistvalorization of "complexity" nonetheless accommodates a more inclusive vision.[Ed.]

Works Consulted 1961. Anderson, G. L., ed. Masterpiecesof the Orient. New York: Norton, Rev. ed., 1976. Expanded ed.,1977. 1972. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. NewYork: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Strategies. Ed. J. Harari. London: ."From Work to Text." In Textual Methuen, 1979. 73-81. and the Bhabha, Homi K. "The OtherQuestion: Difference, Discrimination Discourse of Colonialism:' InLiterature, Politics, and Theory. Ed.F. Barker et al. London: Methuen,1986. vols. New Davis, Paul, et al., eds. WesternLiterature in a World Context. 2 York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. 40 The Problem of World Literature

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge.London: Harper Colophon, 1972. Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar, eds. TheNorton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English. New York:Norton, 1985. Mack, Maynard et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of WorldMasterpieces. 5th ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 1985. 6th ed., 2 vols.,1992; expanded ed., 2 vols., 1995. (The one-volume "Continental" editionsexclude British and American authors, and, like the "Oriental" edition,are still available.) Mohanty, S. P. "Us and Them: On the PhilosophicalBases of Political Criticism?' Yale Journal of Criticism 2.2 (1989): 1-28. Parry, Benita. "Problems in Current Theories of ColonialDiscourse?' Oxford Literary Review 9 (1987): 27-58. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: RandomHouse, 1978. Suleri, Sara. The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1992.

5 II "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives 4 Beyond theLooking Glass of Empire: The Colonizationof Portuguese Literature fq

Paulo de Medeiros Bryant College

The studY of literature in theWest has traditionally assumed a predominantly, if not exclusively, Westernperspective masked under the guise of universalism or neutrality:consequently, non-Western works made have either been ignored,dismissed as inappropriate, or simply down to the convenient butnegative classification to fit Western patterns, binds of "non-Western:" With anincreased awareness of the ideological intrinsic to such a processan awarenessundoubtedly fostered both internally and externally in thewake of the various Europeancolonial systems and the rise oftransnational capitalismcameefforts to eliminate, or at least adjust, such askewed perspective. has The dream of (forced)homogeneity through Western hegemony largely given way to a diversifiedunderstanding of culture and its various products. Within the generalattack on Eurocentrism, however, there are two related flaws:first, the amalgamation ofeverything European into a fictive unitythat, even if it might have some corre.- in a spondence to the dream ofhomogeneity, has no real counterpart fragmented and divided Europe, moreoften than not torn against itself exactly of and amongst its constituentmembers; second, the forgetting those parts of Europe that"Europe" itself tends to forget,its own, anything but central, dominatedothers.

Case in point: a book on Frenchlitetature in Belgium begins withthe generally flat assertion that "Belgianliterature does not exist. This is n'existe pas. accepted in educated Belgiancircles" ("La littérature beige Dans les milieux cultivés deBelgique c.ette these estgéneralement admise" (qtd. in Vlasselaers 139).Clearly, the process of exclusion within Europe is not a peculiarityof Portuguese literature; itextends literature might to all nondominantEuropean literatures. Portuguese its own language even enjoy morevisibility than Belgian since it has 43

5 b 44 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

and it too was used as a norm to be imposedon other people. Yet, as with Belgian literature, its existencecan also be denied through a kind of vicious circle of exclusion. Ifa country appears outside of the mainstream, its cultural production tendsto become isolated, is de- preciated outside of its borders, and generallyceases to have any currency whatsoever. In this sense, Portugal's decentering datesat least to the beginning of the demise of its imperial pretensions,when it was temporarily annexed by Spain (1581-1640). Withthe waning of its political and economic role within the frameworkof an expansionist Europe, any culture produced in Portugal becameever .more nearly invisible to European eyes, becoming confused withSpain or forgotten altogether along with its language. Thereemergence of Portuguese culture only occurs, and then alreadyas a mere oddity, when political circumstances warrant itduring Napoleon's invasions(1807-11) and during the standoff with (and ultimate capitulation to)England over competing claims in Africa (1890). The real diminishing ofpolitical influence immediately translates intoa perceived diminishing of cultural relevance, which in turn leads to a lack of reception, until itbecomes impossible to distinguish between perceived and realirrelevancea process culminating in exclusion. In other words, consideration of Portuguese literaturebecomes more and more difficult as its perceived irrelevance hinders criticalreception and translation, the two processes whereby it could hope forrecognition as part of world literature. As a consequence, even withina strictly European context it becomes possible to deny the existenceof Portu- guese literature out of ignorance. Whenever European lettersare mapped Portuguese literature can be, and usually is, elidedsimply because of its invisibility. For instance, its exclusion fromTextual Liberation: European Feminist Writing in the TwentiethCentury (an otherwise excellent collection of nineessays dealing with British, Scandinavian, German, Eastern European, Russian, French,Spanish, Italian, and Turkish feminist writers) is symptomatic.There can be no doubt that either a priori, because of its focuson feminism and thus on counterhegemonic strategies, or in its breadth, extending to Eastern Europe and Turkey, an effort has been made tomove away from a privileging of dominant, Western European, centralliteratures and traditional valuations. In this context, the lack ofany mention, even casual, of Portuguese feminists such as the authors of theNew Portu- guese Leuers makes clear the extent and pervasiveness of the exclu- sionary process. A related form of exclusionbut more important andat the same time more difficult to pinpoint than denial throughignoranceis

57 tt

Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire 45

categorical denial. It reinforces ignorance while stemmingprecisely from an attempt to combat ignorance. As a casein point, Aubrey Bell's 1922 Portuguese Literature is still the onlyhistory of Portuguese literature available in English and thus not only aprivileged example but the only one, its uniqueness reinforcing itsunwitting success and failure. Bell's express purpose is the correction ofcritical neglect and the dissemination of knowledge of, and appreciationfor, Portuguese literature; yet his own introduction, when read today,reveals a pater- nalistic logic that completely undermines its projectarid is in fact a form of categorical denial. The book's success as"authoritative" and normative goes hand in hand with its failure to bringabout a renewal of interest in its subject matter. Bell's desire to establish his tex: as foundational,declaring itself as the first systematic, comprehensiv e treatmentof the topic is accomplished at the expense of his predecessors. These are seen asunsystematic and provisional (Teophilo Braga), or limited tosingle periods (Fidelino de Figueiredo). What is striking about this is not somuch Bell's attempt to justify his enterprise, but rather thedislocation of other "histories," which has the effect of turning his outside perspectiveinto the first realized (comprehensive, methodical, scientific)codification of the "native" (Portuguese literature). Referring to yetanother previous history (by Mendes dos Remedios), Bell allowsthat it is "the only completely methodical [history] ... since itcontains that rarity in Portuguese literature: an index," but qualifies it as "abrief manual" that excludes living authors and, further,questions its chronological accuracy. The one of hispredecessors Bell values highly, noting how "she has, indeed, laid the Portuguese peopleunder an obligation which it will not easily redeem" (15n3), is German(Bouterwerk). Allied to this controlling process, indeed inseparablefrom it, is the construction of Portuguese literaturethe literatureof the one Euro- pean nation with the oldestfixed national structure and bordersas a "new" and "emergent" literature. Although Bell at onepoint goes so far as to consider that Portuguese literaturealso includes extensive works in Latin and Spanish ("over 600 names")by Portuguese authors from various periods, he starts his"Introduction" with the categorical assertion that "Portuguese literature may be said tobelong largely to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (13).Clearly, what allows Bell to make such a remark is a twofold processof invisibility, whereby many important works had beenignored until the philological interest of the nineteenth century brought them back tolight, and that ignorance was exacerbated by the lackof interest outside Portugal in its literature.

58 46 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

Bell does mention some works resuscitated by Portuguese scholars, but for the most part his listing of the discovery of manuscripts and their publication tends to give the impression not only that Portuguese literature, for all its antiquity, has been "produced" principally since the nineteenth century, but also that, strangely enough, this production has taken place, first and foremost, outside of Portugal and at the hands of others. After the declaration that "Europe can boast ofno fresher and more charming lyrics than those which slept forgotten in the Vatican library until the late Professor Ernesto Monad published //Canzoniere Portoghesein 1875" follows a small but impressive list of similar recuperations in which foreign initiative is notable. For instance, Bell notes that Gil Vicente, Portugal's most important dram- atist, was "almost unknown before the Hamburg (1834) edition, based on the Gottingen copy of 1562," and that "in prose, the most important Leal Conselheiroof King Duarte was rediscovered in the Paris Bib- liotheque Nationale and first printed in 1842..." (13-14). In this view Portuguese literature is a sort of sleeping beauty who depends on the saving kiss of the foreign prince to return to lifeexcept that in many respects one can even doubt whether the princess is Portuguese at all. The reasons Bell adduces for the greatness of some works and the "originality" of the literature in general are a mixture of an idealized projection of Portugal as a backward but attractivelocus amoenus ("absence of great cities"; "pleasant climate" [191) and a consideration of Portugal's maritime enterprises and historical role as natural providers of literary material. In fact, Bell's views here both exoticize Portugal and reflect Portugal's own assumption of those "differing" qualities in a move designed to retain some sense of "positive" identity. Bell's benevolent paternalism leads to a moral chiding of the Portuguese for their own lack of capacity to exercise judgment as regards their own (?) literary creation:

The excessive number of writers, the excessive production of e ch individual writer, and thedesleixo[abandon, moral lassitude] by which innumerable books and manuscripts of exceptional interest have perished, are all traceable to the same source: the lack of criticism. A nation of poets, essentially lyrical, with no dramatic genius but capable of writing charmingly and naturally without apparent effort needed and needs a severely classical education and stern critics, to remind them that an epic is not rhymed history nor blank verse mangled prose, that in !w.f.:lie poetry the half is greater than the whole, and to bid theabandon abstrac- tions for the concrete and particular and crystallize the vague flow of their talent. (20-21)

59 47 Beyond the Looking Gldssof Empire in these There is obviously a perverse,almost schizoid, tension Bell's obvious devotion toPortuguese literature comments whereby shortcomings. The clashes with his perceptionof its "faults" and arrogance of the"outside" observer who bringshis reason (criticism) and simplicity of "nature"is inescapable. This to bear on the charm "natural" characterization of Portugueseliterature as "excessive" and included) is virtually indistinguishablefrom other European (Portuguese colonized peoples and cultures:"noble sav- colonial attitudes toward values without ages" incapable of evenappreciating or preserving their metonymy, Portugal the discerning rule ofthe colonizer. In a curious of poets" and its prosenaturally "of lyrical is viewed as "a nation Portuguese character, personal, fervent,mystic" (20). Consequently, but impossible. Bell'sthree examples only philosophy is deemed all the themselves as examples:Spinoza, "the greatest if not serve to deny while Francisco only Portuguese philosopher ...left Portugal as a childr Sanchez "lived in Franceand wrote in Latinrand Dt Leonardo is only "a notable butsomewhat abstruse Coimbra contributed what made evident in work.. . :' (20). Ultimately,the colonizing attitude encapsulated in a categoricaldenial of the value these remarks is best the loss of the of Portuguese literature:"Had one to choose between Shakespeare, and that of thewhole of works of Homer, or Dante, or literature must go . .." Portuguese literature, thewhole of Portuguese (19). Before proceeding, it is necessaryto take a stepbeyondlest all demonization of Bell, a dubiousenterprise in that is accomplished is a decades after the itself and much more sofrom hindsight and seven only to deny the viewfrom inside fact. If the view from outside serves must ask (which would toleratemediocrity, according to Bell), one inside might in fact be.If Portuguese literature what the view from what might be the only obtains a reflection onthe outside as inferior, view from the other sideof the looking glass? approached in two ways: oneis to concentrate This question can be literature, on a searchfor excellence, the"originality" of Portuguese of its perceived inferiority orof its debt which might thus be redeemed Jacinto do Prado towards the rest of Europe, asthe influential critic The other way Coelho did inOriginalidade da literatura portuguesa. interiorization of a ?..)erceivedinferiority and is best represented in the outside view as superior subsequent explicit orimplicit privileging of the forms. In its implicit and normative. Suchinteriorization can take many the form of definingliterary movements, intheir state it can assume in reference to entirety, as characterizedprincipally by their tardiness 6 48 "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives

the rest of Europe. This is thecase specifically of Portuguese romanticism as viewed by another prominent critic, Carlos Reis, in a 1990survey. The explicit form of suchinteriorization of inferiority isperhaps nowhere better expressed than precisely in the translation ofBell's Portuguese Literature into Portugueseand its continuous reprinting. The preface, added to thePortuguese translation and writtenby the translators themselves, is appallinglyclear in detailing the "indebted- ness" of Portuguese culture to a normative, outside, perspective.The terms of this preface furthermore insertsuch a rhetoric squarely in the field of a literary economy completely derived from Goethe'snotion (as given particular expressionin his letter to Eckermann ofJuly 15, 1827) of the "corrective" valueof the outside perspective(qtd. in Strich). After listing Bell's contributions to Portuguese studiesand reserving the right to disagreeon particular interpretations, the lators state: trans-

A capital point cannot, however,suffer from contradictionor even reticence on our part: the gratitudethat Portugal owes to one of the foreign experts [sabios] whoin the present century have given greater attentionto the study of its literary genius. This study has a double advantage:it makes Portugal's literary genius known and appreciatedoutside, at the same time that it projects to this side of the bordera clear and serene critical light, greatly favorable to the just gradationof our ways of being, which risk building deformations ofreality. The myopia of abandon Idesleixo] and the easily aberrantperspective of patriotismcan be corrected with great profit bythe impartial perspective of the alien gaze when sharp and educated.(xi) This internalization of therationalist discourse that discreditsone's own claims of cultural emancipation issymptomatic of a colonizing process. For the colonized elite, self-identificationwith the colonizer appears as an easy way of escaping itsown marginalization. This view, however, runs counter to that ofEduardo Lourengo, a prominent intellectual who has devotedmany studies to the related questions of national identity and the interactionsbetween Portugal and Europe. Although Lourengo clearly maintainsthat "our famous complex of cultural culpability did not originatesolely from the gaze,more or less ignorant, disdainful, or condescending,that hegemonic nationsor cultures projected overour creations or our knowledge" ("Mse a Europa" 55), he still prefers to view the situation of Portugal(together with Spain) as a unique case. Specifically, when addressing therelations between French and Portugueseliterature, Lourenço is atgreat pains to avoid considering the Portuguesesituation in terms of cultural

61 Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire 49 colonization. For Lourenço, cultural relations imply a mutuality characterized as much by the superiority of one of the agents as by the lacks and needs of the other. Consequently, to add to thisbasic assumption "a supplement of incomprehension" that would.view the history of cultural relations as a "typical example of acolonizing cultural hegemony" would be unnecessary and fruitless ("Portugal- Franca" 129). Obviously, any process of relation includes some form of exchange. When there is an a priori imbalance, however, such a relation canbe termed unilateral. And when the processes of inequity becomeines- capable one can speak of colonization. No one doubts that theimpor- tation of chocolate, coffee, and potatoes from the New Worldradically changed Europe; but no one doubts as well that theexportation of cultural norms and, initially, technology, is what assuredEuropean domination. Lourengo bases his denial of the colonization of Portuguese liteiature on the "fact" that French hegemony was not planned as such by the French (129) nor forced upon the Portuguese (130). Thisdefense remains at a level of naiveté that is discordant with the restof his arguments, for literary colonization does not necessarilyrequire forced territorial occupation. When Lourenço points to the exportationof people and talent that characterizes .Portugal from the beginningof its imperial enterprise he attempts to see in that still an expressionof being European in the extremeas if Portugal's eccentricsituation in Europe would not constitute its marginalization but rather itsexaltation ("Nós e a Europa" 27). What allows Loureneo to invert the process of valuation,ultimately, is .not only a necessary if momentary blindness to theconditions underlying such an export of talentreligious and political persecution, cultural suffocation, and economic annihilationbut anunfinished processing of Portugal's relation to the idea of Empire. To Lourenco as to Boaventura de Sousa Santos,Portugal's imperial past is the key to an understanding of Portugal's marginalsituation. But whereas Lourenco still clings to a view of the Portuguese as "creators"of a Latin American reality (27), Sousa Santos tends to put Portugal's past in a more critical light, defining Portugal as a semiperipheralnation that was at the center "in relation to its own coloniesand [at] the periphery in relation to England" (14). On April 25, 1974, whenthe Revolution precipitated political democracy and the end ofempire, Portugal was "the least developed country in Europe and at the same time sole possessor of the largest and longest lasting Europeancolonial empire" (14). Given this condition, it is no surprise that outsideviews

62 50 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives emanating from a European center such as Bell's would carry special weight in informing the "inside" views of the Portuguese.

When Sousa Santos declares that Portugal was "simultaneously a colonizing and colonized counn" he obviously has in mind both complete colonizationPortugal's political, military, religious, and economic occupation and exploitation of vast territories outside of Europeand cultural colonizationthe major role played by foreign (chiefly French) culture in shaping Portugal's cultural expression, which as a result assumes a subaltern position: minor, dependent, and imi- tative. This view of cultural dependency can and should be related to the notion of territoriality itself, Portugal has not only been dependent on foreign tastes; its territorial integrity, either as a European nation or as a European empire, was successively challenged from the onset. On the one hand, one could refer to European opinion on the status of the Portuguese nation. E. J. Hobsbawm, for instance, while deline- ating nineteenth-century ideas of nation, calls attention to the " 'liberal' concept of the nation" and its stress on the necessity of a country's possessing a "sufficient size to form a viable unit of development" (30). Accordingly, Hobsbawm continues, such a notion "seemed too obvious to require argument. ...The Dictionnaire politique of Garnier-Pages in 1843 thought it 'ridiculous' that Belgium and Portugal should be independent nations, because they were patently too small" (30). On the other hand, Portugal's independence, beyond any real or imagined Iberian affinity, had been constantly challenged by Spain and once even effectively annihilated for sixty years (1580-1640). During this period, Portugal's identity was forcefully submerged under a Spanish one and its imperial claims and territories became the target for systematic expansionist strategies, mainly on the part of England and Holland. Furthermore, the recovery of independence in 1640 was illusory, for Portugal's colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia remained in part under foreign control or were in the process of being wrested away. Indeed, Portugal continued for a long period to be involved in open war or engaged in direct military confrontation with France, England, Holland, and Spain. For instance, Dutch infiltration in Brazil was not halted until 1653, and peace only achieved in 1661. The succeeding decades also failed to bring any permanent normalization. In spite of renewed treaties and alliances, as well as royal marriages, Portugal remained immersed in various wars within Europe, continually losing parts of its empire either as a result of concessions to its allies or through force. 1697 marks both the publication of a Portuguese Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire 51 translation of Boileau's Art poetique and theFrench occupation of Amapa. in Brazil. By 1710 a Portuguesefleet is still fighting a French one for the possessionof Rio de Janeiro. In effect, then, Portugal's territorial identity as a European nation and as acolonial empire was significantly questioned for over a century to an extentthat makes the question of cultural colonization much morethan a rhetorical one. The deterritorialization of Portugal asempire assumes yet another unique facet, one which raises interestingproblems in terms of the relationship between center and periphery incultural as well as political terms. With the imminent threatof a French invasion in 1807, the Portuguese court fled to Brazil. From1808 to 1821, when D. Joao VI returned to Lisbon, Portugal and its empire wereruled from one of its colonies. It should be stressed that thisevasive action on the part of the Portuguese Crown was not simply a way toavoid being imprisoned by Napoleon's armies, for after thethird and final expulsion of the French troops from Portugal in 1811,the Court decided to remain in Brazil and only returned to Portugal whenpolitical revolt there made it imperative. Even a sketchy look at some of theimmediate consequences of this transfer of the Court will illustrate beyond adoubt that the establishment of the seat of the empire in Brazildid imply in effect a reversal of power and not just anominal alteration. Brazil, which had already had insurrectionary movements of note,starting with the "Inconfidencia Mineira" of 1789, was elevated to the categoryof Kingdom in 1815, just one year before the Prince Regent wascrowned as Joao VI. With the arrival of the Crown in 1808, Brazil,which until then had suffered from strict censorship and did not evenhave a single printing press, saw the creation of one newspaper,the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, and the importation of another, theCorreio Brasiliense, published in England. In 1810, only fourteen yearsafter the creation of the "Real Biblioteca Pablica de Lisboa," the"Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro" opened its doors. Perhaps even moresymptomatic was the establishment of a central bank, the "Bancodo Brasir in 1808, whereas the first metropolitan bank, the "Bancode Lisboa," was only founded in 1821, precisely when the Court returned toPortugal. Immediately following that event, in 1822, Brazilclaimed its independence. Signif- icantly, Brazilians did not opt forrepublican government, choosing instead to crown D. Pedro IV of Portugal(the son of D. Joao VI) as emperor. At the sametime, José da Silva Lisboa's Imperiodo Brasil ("The Brazilian Empire") was publishedthere. Subsequent developments in Portugal andBrazil make it even more nearly impossible to delineate whichis the center and which the

64 52 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

periphery. With the death of D. Joao VI and theassumption of the Brazilian Crown by D. Pedro IV,a power vacuum ensued in Portugal. While Portugal was being governed byone of his daughters, D. Isabel Maria, D. Pedro, who had remained in Brazil,was in fact for a brief period both King of Portugal and Brazilian Emperor.A solution was obtained in 1826 with his abdication of the PortugueseCrown in favor of his other daughter, D. Maria da Gloria, whowas seven years old and with him in Brazil. She was then married in absentiato her father's brother, D. Miguel, who had been exiled to Austria becauseof his previous attempt to usurp the Crown. In 1831, whenthese convoluted arrangements failed (due to D. Miguel's absolutist coup), D. Pedro abdicated the Brazilian Crown and left for Europe withD. Maria da GlOria in order to launch an invasion that wouldrestore her to power. Consequently, in 1832 he assumed the Regency ofPortugal in his daughter's name and arrived in Lisbon in 1833. In 1834the struggle for control culminated in D. Miguel's expatriation,D. Pedro's death, and the beginning of D. Maria's reign. Given such a political conflation betweencenter and periphery, metropolis and colony, it becomes especially difficultto determine with any precision what constitutes colonial or postcolonial literature. Clearly, noted authors of the period just before Brazil's independence,such as Tomas Aquino Gonzaga (1744-1810)are claimed by both countries. Or one could even go further back in time and considerthe case of AntOnio Josk da Silva (1705-1739), who had been born inBrazil but went to Portugal, where he authored the period's most important playsonly to be executed by the Inquisition. Taking the notion of "the concern with place and displacement"as a "major feature of post-colonial literatures" that Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin advocate (8), one would have to includemany "Portuguese" texts as postcolonial. Even those that have been usedto promote colonialism, such as Cambes's celebrated Os Lusiadas(1572), are already implicated in the alienation produced by imperialism.Camaes's poem is at once a national epic and already a lament for the forced effects of deterritorialization brought about by colonialexpansion. If one turns to the romantic period in Portugal, one of its most salient features has to have been the impact madeon Portuguese literature by those authors, chiefly Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano,who had been forced into exile. Their introduction ofa literary revolution came as a consequence both of their expatriate condition and their received foreign influence, and of their desire to resist foreignpolitical intervention. Garrett's poem Cam Oes (1825), which is generallycredited with inaugurating romanticism in Portugal,was written in England Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire 53

and published in France, and has tobe seen as directly involved in the political turmoil that I havejust outlined. While the Renaissance poet is the explicit topic, thepoem's themes revolve precisely around the concept of nation and thecondition of deterritorialization, which Garrett identifies in CamOes, inhimself, and in their nation. In the contemporary perioddeterritorialization is even more acutely a determining factorin much of Portuguese literature.The end of the dictatorship and the final dissolution ofthe empire in 1974 led to a renewed search for identity based on thepossibility of freely expressing such a concern. The need to rethinkthe nation in light of its having been returned to its original Europeanterritory became imperative. Portugal, no longer capable ofperpetuating a self-aggrandizing self- image, had to contend immediatelywith its Europeanness, that is, with its peripheral situation. Sousa Santos notes,for instance, that although in the euphoria of the revolutionit was possible to think of Portugal as going beyond Europe,economic and political realities in theform of the International Monetary Fundquickly brought the nation back to reality (14). While someauthors eschew these realities, some ofthe more prominentAnt6nioLobo Antunes, Lidia Jorge, JoseCardoso Pires, Jose Saramagohave consistentlypursued postcolonial issues in their novels. In some cases Portugal's past isrevisited specifically to demystify it and to provide an alternativeview of history. In this regard one of the most influential texts isJose Saramago's Memorial do Convento(1982; translated as Baltasar and Blimunda,1987). This novel bases one of its main characters on a Brazilianwho went to Portugal, distinguished himself by creating a rudimentary flyingmachine and other inventions, and was finally executed by theInquisition. In another of Saramago's novels, 0 Ano da Morte de RicardoReis (1984; translated as The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, 1991),Portugal's most celebrated modernist poet, Fernando Pessoa, isreworked through the character of Ricardo Reis, one of the poet's heteronyms.Whereas Pessoa had created the fiction of Reis leavingPortugal for Brazil, Saramago hasReis returning to Lisbon to search for Pessoa.In A Jangada de Pedra (1986) Saramago treats deterritorializationforcefully by having the whole Iberian Peninsula magically separatingfrom the rest of Europe at the Pyrenees, thus literalizing a seriesof metaphors related to Portugal's condition with regard to Europe.Drifting in the Atlantic the Peninsula NI= becomes itself a trope for thePortuguese condition. Jose Cardoso Pires, who has alwayswritten what can be termed a literature of resistance, provides a scathingindictment of life under the dictatorship in A Balada da Praia dos(Wes (1982; translated as Ballad

66 54 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

of Dog's Beach, 1986). Ant6nio LoboAntunes, in a series of novels, takes as his theme the problems of colonialism,particularly as they relate to the war Portugal led against the various Africanmovements of liberation and the irrevocably changednature of Portuguese society In one of his most important works to date, Fado Alexandrino(1981 translated, 1991), Lobo Antunes mercilessly details the1974 revolution as well. Lidia Jorge relentlessly pursues the issues of the colonialwar (0 Cais das Merendas, 1982) and of the revolution(0 Dia dos Prodigios, 1980), while focusing on Portuguese society froma feminist perspective. All these texts share two features: first, theycan be regarded as political interventionseven after 1974giventhe level of intensity with which they attempt to unmask the conditions ofPortuguese society and rework its past and present; second, theyare intricate metafictional narratives in which the complexity ofcontent is readily matched by that of form. Lidia Jorge's 0 Dia dos Prodigios, for instance,insistently foregrounds its textuality and the problematics of polyphony,constantly mixing in different voices and even graphically accentuatingthat effect with running glosses on the main narration. Inmany respects these texts can be considered both postcolonial and postmodern. Assuch, they further reflect Portugal's semiperipheral conditionand the combined needs or desires to decolonize Portuguese literature,to reterri- torialize it as always already deterritorialized, andto challenge its continued invisibility. Writing in Portuguese, then, is, ina sense, a practice of invisibility. Moreover, Lusophone literatures suffer froma double invisibility, with gender and race serving as additional veils of concealment.For instance, from all the examples of contemporary Portuguese literaturethat I have mentioned only those by Lidia Jorge havenot yet been translated into English. Or one could point to The New PortugueseLetters, which, in spite of its momentary popularity, quickly wentout of print and is rarely discussed. Works by Afro-Brazilians, especiallywomen, remain buried under numerous layers of invisibility, not only lackingtransla- tions but remaining largely unknowneven in Brazil and Portugal, where the literary market appears almost entirely closedto them. While Portugal's entry into the Common Market hasmade its cultural production more recognizable, effective decolonizationof Por- tuguese literature would necessitate further translations, critical studies, and curricular inclusion. Beyond specialized articles andmonographs, moreover, the proceSses of exclusion outlined above have started to change. Books such as Toward Socio-Criticism: SelectedProceedings of the Conference "Luso-Brazilian Literatures, A Socio-C'riticalAp- proach," edited by Roberto Reis,serve as agents of that change. Of

67 55 Beyond the Looking Glass ofEmpire Literature: special note is Phyllis ReismanButler's "Writing a National The Case of Jose LuandinoVieira." *Also noteworthy areAlfred J. MacAdam's Textual Confrontations:Comparative Readings in Latin American Literature, in whichthe Brazilian Euclides daCunha is Hardy, and Vargas Llosa,and Earl E. treated together with Carlyle, in a Fitz's Rediscovering the NewWorld: Inter-American Literature Comparative Context, which sets outfully to compare the diverse literatures of North and SouthAmerica as an integral unit.Furthermore, thematic, and many Portuguese textscould be used in general, genre, autobiography, nar- period courses, and offeringsin women's studies, such texts as rative poetics, or evenpostmodernism could integrate nationalism, The New Portuguese Letters.Courses in world literature, important sources in much or politics andliterature would also find of the contemporary Portugueseand Lusophone literatures. simple replace- The interest in curricularchange should go beyond a ment of this or thatcanonical text by one writtenin Portuguese, and focus on how those issues arepresented from a decidedlydifferent the issues perspective, one always informedby deterritorialization and question that still remains,however, is of the semi-peripheral. The literature whether, and to what extent, attemptsto integrate Portuguese attempting might still be a process of falsereterritorialization. That is, in colonized and to show how Portugueseliterature has been consistently side of the Atlantic, made invisible, whilewriting or teaching on this of Portuguese literature one could stillhopelessly repeat the inscription would like to think, however,that such a into a forced context. I in A Jangada process might rathercorrespond to Saramago's gesture de Pedrapulling Portugalinto an Atlantic drift.

Works Consulted Quixote, 1983. Antunes, António Lobo.Fado Alexandrino. Lisbon: Dom Rabassa. New York: Grove Press, .Fado Alexandrino. Trans. Gregory 1991. and Helen Tiffin. The EmpireWrites Back: Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, York: Theory and Practice in Post-ColonialLiteratures. London and New Routledge, 1989. da Costa. Novas Barreno, Maria Isabel, MariaTeresa Horta, and Maria Velho Cartas Portuguesas. Lisbon:Futura, 1974. Letters. Trans. Helen R. Lane. .The Three Marias: New Portuguese Garden City, NY: Doubleday,1975. Press, 1922. Bell, Aubrey F. G. PortugueseLiterature. Oxford: Clarendon

es 56 "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives

Literatura Portuguesa. Trans. Agostinhode Campos and J. G. de Barros e Cunha. Lisbon: ImprensaNacional, 1971. Bennington, Geoffrey. "Postal Politicsand the Institution of the Nation?' Nation and Narration. Ed. HomiK. Bhabha. London and New York: Rout ledge, 1990. 121-37. Boubia, Fawzi. "Universal Literatureand Otherness?' Trans. Jeanne Diogenes 141 (1988): 76-101. Ferguson. Butler, Phyllis Reisman. "Writinga National Literature: The Case of Jose Luandino Vieirar TowardSocio-Criticism. 135-42. Chamberlain, Bobby, Jr. PortugueseLanguage and Luso-Brazilian Literature: An Annotated Guide to Selected Reference Works. New York: MLA,1989. Coelho, Jacinto do Prado. A Originalidade de Literatura Portuguesa.Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura e Lingua Portuguesa,1977. Eagleton, Terry, Fredric Jameson, andEdward W. Said. Nationalism, Colon- ialism, and Literature. Minneapolis:U of Minnesota P, 1990. Fitz, Earl E. Rediscovering the New World: Inter-AmericanLiterature in a Comparative Context. Iowa City: U ofIowa P, 1991. Fors Os-Scot, Helena, ed. TextualLiberation: European FeministWriting in the Twentieth Century. Londonand New York: Rout ledge, 1991. Garrett, Almeida. Cam Oes. [18251.Porto and Braga: Chardron, 1880. Hobsbawm, E. J. Nations and Nationalismsince 1780. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. Jorge, Lidia. 0 Dia dos Prodigios.Lisbon:Europa-America, 1980. 0 Cais das Merendas. Lisbon:Europa-America, 1982. Lawall, Sarah. "The Alternate Worldsof World Literature?' ADE Bulletin (1988): 53-58. 90 Lourenco, Eduardo. Nas ea Europa ou as duas Raafes. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1988. Mac Adam, Alfred J. TextualConfrontations: Comparative Readingsin Latin American Literature. Chicago andLondon: U of Chicago P, 1987. Pires, Jose Cardosa. Balada da Praia dos ales. Lisbon: Dom Quixote,1982. . Ballad of Dog's Beach. Trans. Mary Fitton. London: J. M. Sons, 1986. Dent and Reis, Carlos, ed. Literatureportuguesa moderna econtempordnea. Lisbon: Universidade Aberta, 1990. Reis, Roberto, ed. Toward Socio-Criticism: Selected Proceedings of theCon- ference "Luso-Brazilian Literatures:A Socio-Critical Approach." Tempe: Center for Latin American Studies,Arizona State U at Tempe, 1991. Saramago, Jose. Memorial do Convento.Lisbon: Caminho, 1982. . Baltasar and Blimunda. Trans. Giovanni Pontiero. New York:Har- court Brace Jovanovich, 1987. . 0 Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis. Lisbon: Catninho, 1984. The Year of the Death of RicardoReis. Trans. Giovanni Pontiero. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1991. A Jangada de Pedra. Lisbon: Caminho,1986.

69 At.4,

Beyond the Looking Glass of Empire 57

SerrAo, Joel. Cronologia Geral de Histbriade Portugal. 3rd ed. Lisbon: Iniciativas Editorials, 1977. Sousa Santos, Boaventura de. "11/1992(Onze Teses por OcasiAo de mais uma Descoberta de Portugal)."University of Coimbra: Oficina do CES (Centro de Estudos Sociais) no. 21 (1990):1-28. Strich, Fritz. Goethe und die Weltliteratur.2d rev. ed. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1957. José Luandino. Luuanda. [1964]. Lisbon:Edicaes 70,1981. .Luuanda. Trans. Tamara L. Bender andDonna S. Hill. London: Heinemann, 1980. Vlasselaers, Joris. "Belgian Literature? SomeReflexions on Socio-Cultural and Geopolitical Identity." Proceedingsof the 12th Congress of the Inter- national Comparative Literature Association.Ed. Roger Bauer, Douwe Fokkema, and Michael de Graat. Vol. 4.Munich: Iudicium Verlag, 1990. 139-44.

70 5 "Yes, I Can": Empowermentand Voice in Women's Prison Narratives

Sharon Hileman Sul Ross State University

In her poem "Requiem," Anna Akhmatovapresents herself as observer and chronicler of Stalinist abuses andterrors. The poem is prefaced by an explanation of how it came to be written: ... I spent seventeen months in the prison lines of Leningrad. Once, someone "recognized" me. Thena woman with bluish lips standing behind me, who, of course, hadnever heard me called by name before, woke up from the stupor to whicheveryone had succumbed and whispered in my ear (everyone spoke inwhispers there): "Can you describe this?" And I answered: "Yes, I can." (2:95) In diverse ways, the writers of political prisonnarratives accept the same challenge. Whether coming to voice angrilyor meditatively, immediately or years after incarceration, these authorsconstruct a variety of literary forms and topoi, shaped by thehistorical, social, and political circumstances of their lives. Prison literature as a genre has existed for centuriesand is anthologized in collections such as The Great Prisoners,whose table of contents reads like the traditional Europeancanon: Socrates, Boethius, Sir Thomas More, Daniel Defoe, Fyodor Dostoevsky,Honoré de Balzac, Paul Verlaine. The American prison experience hasbeen discussed and anthologized by H. Bruce Franklin in a two-volume work, TheVictim as Criminal and Artist: Literature from the American Prison. Franklin demonstrates that most American prison narratives have theirroots in African American culture and history French women'sprison writings from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuryare discussed in Elissa Gelfand's Imagination in Confinement, anda general anthology of women's prison writings, We Tappings,was edited by Judith Schaller in 1986. (The last fifty pages of Schefller's work providean invaluable annotated bibliography.)

58 59 Empowerment and Voice in Women'sPrison Narratives L'Homme Criticism of prison literaturebegins with Albert Camus's révolté. Camus regards the prisoner as asocial rebel, one whochallenges literature in toto is society, and he furthermorecontends that modern rebellion, a literature thatrejects the world and expresses a literature of Contemporary critics who a desire fordestruction and transcendence. believe that male prisonauthors still construct study prison narratives (Ielfand 20), while images of transcendence andrebellion (Scheffler 17; by women inmates exploredifferent issues. such accounts written contrasting present Women focus on questionsof self and identity, often investigate the relationshipsthat the "incarcer- and former selves, and well as with prison ated self" enters intowith fellow prisoners as personnel. Women arealso interested in theprison environment, women's prison depicting it both realisticallyand imagistically. Although writings before the twentieth centurytended to be confessional narra- narrative blends tives, the voice now speakingfrom the woman's prison discourse. the solipsistic and communalinto unique autphOgraphical added; when the writer is a Further enriching the blendis the element society that structure political prisoner, aware ofconditions in the larger woman, individuals' lives and restrictgroups' options. Marginalized as a ethnic, racial, or political group,and then as a as a member of an distanced and prisoner, such a writermaintains a perspective at once engaged. of political prisonnarratives written by This cross-cultural study the the 1960s and 1970s willinvestigate the blending of women during the very different individual, the communal,and the political into articulate prison experiences.We will focus voices that emerge to Speak!, a Bolivian primarily on Domitila Barriosde Chungara's Let Me in her country; activist's description of theexploitation of mineworkers African's account Joyce Sikakane's Window onSoweto, a black South Terrorism Act; and Barbara of ap*ieid andimprisonment under the Demitt's Prison Notes, a whiteactivist's chronicle of afreedom walk excellent point through Georgia to demandcivil rights for blacks. An of departure for these morerecent narratives isEugenia Semyonovna imprisonment during Ginzburg's two-volumedepiction of her lengthy of the 1930s and 1940s. the Stalinist purges study, not realizing Ginzburg is the most naiveof the authors in this real possibility and thatadvice to flee in 1934 that her arrest was a Communist and Moscow should be seriouslyconsidered. As a loyal unsuspecting party member, Ginzburg,like thousands of others, was an "personality cult:' The factthat Ginzburg spent victim of the Stalinist confinement to penal eighteen years in prison,moving from solitary 60 "New" Traditions,Genres, and Perspectives

servitude in laborcamps, also sets her experience and narrativeapart from those of theother women in thisstudy. Ginzburg's narrativeseems closer to fiction than because of its panoramic to memoir, perhaps scope. As the narrativepeogresses from its starting pointnear Moscow to its termination thousands of milesaway in Kolyrna, vividdescriptions of historically vided; dialogue from famous prisonsare pro- interrogations is fullyrendered; and ongoing relationships are charted,including the protagonist's camp doctor, which leads love affair witha to marriage. Only therepeated coincidences in Ginzburg's lifeare unbelievable, and she they are too improbable remarks several timesthat to include inany fictional text. Because the lines distinguishing autobiographyand fiction are bhirred in any approachto the two genres, reminder of the Ginzburg's narrativeserves as a problem of authenticityor veracity in a work that claims to be basedon fact. Any retrospective political prisoner's account, whether ina narrative or a canonicalauthor's a%tobiography, subject not onlyto the vagaries of is impulse that exaggerates, memory but also to theshaping omits, and patterns inany literary undertaking. Yet Ginzburg evidentlyhad a phenomenal how she would recite memory. She explains Pushkin's poetry tokr fellow prisoners, even being accused of having once a book (a fo!hidden object)from which she must be reading.Early in her prison experience shewas suddenly able to visualizean entire page of Vera Nikoláevna Figner'sexplanation of the code to interpretwall tappinss. According able to recall perfectly to Ginzburg, shewas what she had readyears earlier (Journey 71). So when Ginzburgsays that she is making a special point ofremem- bering her experiencesin order to set them down on paper later (Within 418), her ability to doso may well exceed that of Unconcerned with the the ordinaryperson. question of memory'sreliability, critics have compared Ginzburg'swork to fictional reviewing Journey into accounts. Harrison Salisbury, the Whirlwind forthe New York TimesBook Review, remarked, "NoteVen Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Dayin the Life of !vanDenisovich matches it" like Ginzburg's (4). The fictionalDenisovich, narrated self, "Geniaris an individual physical survival whose simple seems to have a symbolicsignifieance that extends beyond the pages of thetext. Perhaps Salisbury's acknowledgment of the comment is an indirect narrative and symbolicpower residing in an account that chronicleseighteen years of survival of a single day. What as opposed to that Ginzburg documentsmore fully than the other prison writers in thisstudy is the process of change thataccompanies survival. Physical changeis inevitable and unique moment in which Ginzburg describes the it is viewed bywomen who have long been 61 Empowerment and Voice in Women'sPrison Narratives

denied access to mirrors: "Hundredsof anxious, mournful eyes,all searching for their own reflectionin the bluish glass .. . Irecognized myself only by my resemblance to mymother" (Journey 315). Accompanying physical changeis a psychological orbehavioral change that can render anindividual unrecognizable to thosewho knew her before incarceration.Ginzburg believes that the camps, not prison, transformed "normal"people into brutal andself-serving war- ensure dens, willing to acceptbribes and impose death sentences to their own survival. In prison cells, on the otherhand, Ginzburg perceives aspiritualized to transformative power. She comparesher own solitary confinement that of a nun or monk in amonastic cell. The small andsilent space reading of her cell at Yaroslavl providedopportunity for meditation, self-immersion. Yet (once library privileges wererestored), and total because of continued zealoussentencing, the number of prisoners soon surpassed the amount of spaceavailable to contain them.Ginzburg's acquired a solitary confinement wascountermanded, but, even so, she cellmate with whom she couldconduct philosophical discussions. This idyllic life gave way to a verydifferent environment when the Ginzburg prisoners were moved. Fromthis point on in the narrative, using describes cells where womencould sleep only by taking turns were the available bed andfloor space. Later, when seventy-six women crammed into a railway carfor transport across Russia,they were thrust into incredulous that an additionalthirty prisoners were to be acceptance their car. Yet this initialhostility and resentment gave way to shaved heads. when the car's residentsnoted the "new" prisoners' Seeing others' degradationtransformed Ginzburg's cadre into compas- sionate and welcoming hosts. But Ginzburg does notidealize relationships amongprisoners. Ar- members of dif- guments and name-callingabound, especially when ferent parties and factions areforced to share space. One woman, an because she inveterate smoker, would notsmoke Ginzburg's cigarettes believed it would compromiseher integrity as a SocialRevolutionary to accept gifts from aCommunist (Journey 112-13). Ginzburg's narrating of suchfactionalism and her descriptionof being agents several prisoners who persistedin suspecting others of regardless show that such divisiveness wasfoolish at best. All prisoners, equally mistreated. of guilt or sentence, were almost Even though Ginzburg isarticulating her own story in an format, her voice clearlytestifies to the traditional autobiographical prisoners she en- experiences and sufferings ofthe numerous other narrative for countered over the years.Ginzburg makes space in her

74 62 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

the voices of these otherwomen, incorporating their spoken exchanges and speeches. Because her book is writtenretrospectively, Ginzburg can add parenthetical comments to explain whathappened to many of these prisoner-comrades. Within eachcell-goup, women had mem- orized the names and addresses ofone another's relatives in order to transmit news of the sender's existenceand whereabouts shouldan opportunity to do so everoccur. Ginzburg's text brought to the print medium the oral commitments made inthe crowded cells and doubt- lessly provided information for familiesthat might never have obtained it otherwise. Ginzinirg's narrative, then, hasa dual purpose: it tells the story of the "I," its first-person protagonist,but it is also the "eye" that Anna Akhmatova became for "Requiem:' Theeye observes and records for future generations; Ginzburg, in fact, imaginedshe was writing for her grandson. But she was also jubilant that reformsmade by several Party Congresses made it possible for her workto reach a larger audience of Russians than had already readparts of the manuscript in its samizdat (underground) forms. It may be that Ginzburg also soughtto justify herself before an audience, demonstrating both herown innocence and the Stalinist regime's inordinate excesses. Sucha desire is marked in the text by the refrain, "The Moor has done his duty;the Moor can go:' Genia and her comrades gleefully repeated this maximeach time a prison admin- istrator, party mogul, or former interrogatorsuddenly became the accused instead of accuser. One suchman, coming face to face with Ginzburg after his fall frompower, murmured contritely, "Canyou forgive me?" What such anecdotes reveal is thetenuous line between prisoner and imprisoner in Stalinist Russia. Whileno other narrative in this study describes a similar fluidity, BarbaraDeming's Prison Notes explores the fluctuating and ambivalentrelationships between the incarcerated and their jailers in Albany,Georgia. She even includes "all those who put us in there"on the list of people to whom the book is dedicated.Unlike Ginzburg andmost other political prisoners, Dem- ing chose to go to jail. U.S. civil rightsactivists of the 1960s believed that conducting fasts during jailsentences would publicize their cause and perhaps serve as a catalyst for change.Deming begins her narrative with a reference to her first incarcerationtwo years previously. And at the end of Prison Notes, when thegroup has successfully achieved its goals and been released, a temporarymisunderstanding about passing out literature on the streets of Albany bringsthe physically and emotionally exhausted protesters to the pointof risking jail again.

75 Empowerment and Voice in Women'sPrison Narratives 63

Exhilarated at being free, they arenonetheless ready to repeat the entire cycle if the action seems necessaryto advance the cause ofcivil rights. Such a repetitive pattern alsocharacterizes the lives of the inmates who share the general Albanyjail facilities and sometimes eventhe actual cells of the politicalprisoners. People who have beenarrested for violence and drunkenness willbe arrested again, and when"Ruth" they will and "Flo" are released,theirphrasing of farewells attests that be back. This rendering of the prisonexperience gives Deming's bookitself a cyclical rhythm.Being in jail is not a climactic orlife-altering experience as portrayed in hernarrative; for political activists,going chosen to achieve a specific purpose,part to jail is a tactic deliberately that of a larger strategy of nonviolentresistance. This is not to deny Deming's experience is transformativeand significant. Her daily, dated chronicle of the physical andemotional changes wrought byfasting is Given the frailties as frightening asanything described by Ginzburg. and health problems of Demingand several of her group, not to mention the unwillingness of theprison doctor to treat prisoners as "un-American" as these, it is quitepossible that jail fasting could have resulted in several deaths. Even against such a negativebackdrop, however, Deming,like Ginzburg, finds a prison cell aplace for contemplation.Pursuing thoughts generated in herprison cell, Deming elaborates uponthe distinction between being insideand outside prison. She reinvokes an eighteenth-century image of prison asHell and further defines prison whose existence implies there issomething wrong with as an institution deny the people's lives. Prisons, shecontends, are built to exclude, to treat humanity of prisoners, and forthis reason prison guards tend to beings. prisoners as animals or nonrational of Throughout Deming's narrative,guards, matrons, the sheriff Albany, the prison doctor,and all prison staff becomethe "other" What is against whom the prisonerswill struggle to define themselves. especially difficult is that theseactivists want to communicatewith and eventually change the attitudesand beliefs of their jailers. To this end, the fastingprisoners deliberately objectifythemselves, themselves. turning the institution'sprivacy-invading devices back upon of fasting The gaze of the incarceratorsis forced to witness a display bodies and the fast's effects:weakness, dizziness, scurvy,diarrhea, and eventual immobility. Theassistant police chief lingers in spite of himself, peerssilently, in turn, at each one of us ... perhaps hedoesn't know how to define tohimself a certain

76 64 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

look about her [Yvonne Klein,a thirty-year-old professor from the University of Minnesota]. She lies theresmiling at him strangely.... [Her smile] makesa complicated mixture of an- nouncements, to others and perhaps to herself. Ita4mounces: I am ready for the venture. It asks: Howare you going to cope with me? (34-35)

Michel Foucault points out that the evolutionof puniShment techniques belongs not to the history of lawor ideas but to "the history of the body" (3-31). In prison, the body isdepersonalized to become part of a network of power and control. If "controlover the body" (6) is the issue in prison, as Judith Scheffiercontends, Deming and her group deliberately employ the body as a sign of theirpower. The Albany police chief, fully aware that thephysical body is the locus of power in this struggle, reiterates threats to forcibly feed theprotestors should their fasts become life-threatening. Again, it is important to realize that the Albanyprisoners themselves chose to use their physical bodies to exhibitsigns of deprivation and suffering. This element of choice is atypicalof most political prisoners' circumstances. More commonly, the body isunwillingly subjected to hunger, physical searches, rape, andtorture. Perhaps because choice has beenan element of her experience, Deming can be analytical rather than fearfulin describing the effects of the fast. "One begins to bea stranger to oneself," she comments, referring to new mental and physical sensationswhich include mind/ body dissociation. A little later she asks,"Am I sure it is I? How much of me can waste away andmy self remain?" (147-48). For Deming, the self is very much a cerebralconstruct, but what she seems to be suggesting is that the erosion of :he body alsolimits the mind's capacity. If her mind rambles out of control,she will no longer be a thinkeror writer, no longer be able to claiman identity Deming, perhaps more than any of the otherauthors in this study, is aware of the power inherent in writing.Ginzburg recited lines of poetry to cheer herself and her comrades; Deminginscribes William Blake's lines on the walls and ceiling of her cellto affirm the need for physical and intellectual freedom. One chapterof Prison Notes calls attention to its status as a written documentby appearing as a letter. Its salutation, "Dear ," enables Deming to address the critical or hostile reader as well as her hypothetical audience,an audience that does not understand the philosophy of nonviolentaction and does not believe that the twenty-six Albanyprotesters can make a difference in race relations.

77 Empowerment and Voice in Women's Prison Narratives 65

By placing one form of writing within another, Deming mayhope to intensify her arguments, refuting heraddressee while she confirms her own points. Certainly this chapter articulates most fully thenecessity of communicating with "the enemy:" However, Demingdeliberately rejects the terms "enemy" and "outsider," terms which she believesthe nuclear age has made obsolete. Part of her group's struggle is to convey this knowledge of commonality to their own hostile audience: Confronted by people who were treating us as though we were not human, one of us has managed, by a look or aword or a gesture, to assert: I am human; treat me as though Iwereand has succeeded in making the others do just that. (58) Later Deming describes such an event as a "magic moment"(60) and compares it to the Quaker conceptof "speaking to that of God in another man" (61). If people recognized one another as humanbeings and as godlike, then labels, racist slurs, and stereotypeswould not create dual systems for blacks and whites in theAmerican South. Of course, Deming's whole point is that barriers orboundaries do exist, not only between races but also between "insiders"(prisoners) and "outsiders" (guards and community). But Deming'sprison experience, in many ways the opposite of Ginzburg's, shows that thebarriers can be broken down from theinside out. Deming's narrative, which ultimately becomes very much like Ginzburg's, moves fromits medi- tative, repetitive format into rising action that willculminate in a climax of political triumph for the protesters. Being released from prison, though, is an ambivalent and ironic experience. Deming describes the sense of estrangement the groupfeels after being removed from their cells: they look back at theinmates who remain and see them not as individuals but as a groupin a cage. It seems that the very bars of the cell immediately createthe dehumanizing effect the group has itself been subjected to andfought to overcome. Deming concludes the narrationof the actual imprisonment with characteristic musing and questioning: "If, afterail these days spent in a cage myself, I canfeel this distance, how can I hope that others will learn to cross it?" (173). Deming's voice is philosophical, not angry or resentful.Prison has given her the opportunity to explore what it means to be"inside," and she is free to resume her life "outside" once she walksthrough the prison's doors. There is no such "outside," however, for JoyceSikakane, a black woman who has grown upin apartheid South Africa. Although her "crime" is not very different from Deming's, Sikakaneis jailed under the Terrorism Act and eventually forced to leaveSouth Africa.

76 66 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

Sikakane's voice is not philosophical; it is both angry and matter- of-fact. She uses citations from newspapers and reference books to document her description of life in Soweto, "the largest single modern ghetto in Africa" (8). These textual features are in keeping with Barbara Harlow's suggestion that Third World women's prison narratives typ- ically combine "formal questions of literary convention with the urgent demand for documentation and records," and that this combination is the definitive sign of contemporary Third World literature (506). Because Sikakane's narrative is not entirely devoted to her prison experience, she can provide documented social and economic data on Soweto even as she describes her family and childhood. Like Wole Soyinka's Ake (a more conventional autobiography), A Window on Soweto is the story of a place, not just a person. But while Aké was a place where people were able to maintain their traditions and dignity with little interference from European colonizers, such is not the case in Soweto. Sikakane's grandfather considered himself a "detribalised African" (18) and bought land and property in a South African township. These achievements were nullified when the Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 and implemented apartheid. The Party declared that no permanent urbanized African population existed and forbade African home or land ownership in urban areas. Sikakane's grandfather, along with many other Africans, lost his property. Shantytowns like Soweto were constructed to house the African work force; here Africans could live as tenants in overcrowded, poorly constructed four-room houses, which Sikakane illustrates with sketches and photographs, another form of documentation. Living beneath the poverty line, Africans in Soweto were not allowed on the streets without a work pass and were subjected to frequent searches, harassment, and arrests. Sikakane, trained as a journalist, was the first African woman to be employed by the Rand Daily Mail, a liberal Johannesburg newspaper whose workers showed no liberal traits regarding apartheid. Sikakane tells of an incident when an emergency forced her to use the white women's p!stroom in the newspaper office. Immediately, a group of angry white women pulled her off the toilet. Sikakane can present this incident humorously, but her humor pales as she continues with accounts of the threats, physical dangers, and lack of recourse experienced by South African blacks. Although Sikakane had lived a lifetime under apartheid and was intimately acquainted with its injustices, she never realized her vul- nerability until incarceration. Then, asked to become a state witness,

7.9 67 Empowerment and Voice inWomen's Prison Narratives

against others like her friendWinnie Mandela, Sikakane to give evidence for Ginzburg by confronted the same dilemmathat had been posed her interrogators: has to judge what toadmit and what From what they know one mind what risk to others to hide ...because it flashes into your the possibility of beingtortured yourself is involved, and also dying for. and whether the type ofinformation you have is worth (62) her "crime"trying to arrangefor families of Sikakane reasoned that considered "terror- prisoners to visit theincarceratedwould not be so she admittedwhat she had done. istic" by any rational person, resulted in her being However, she refused toimplicate others, which additional months and thenput on trial. kept in prison for seven epiphany of her In two crucial paragraphs,Sikakane describes the occurred the day beforeher trial. For some prison experience, which who were to stand reason, the securitypolice brought the five women been placed in solitary)together in one room. trial (and who had if to give them Sikakane lists the namesof the other four women as textual substance. Thenshe describes the and this experience concrete realized that no one in this .women's feelings of joyand victory as they group had agreedto give evidence. during the trial andretrial of the five female From this point on, the pronouns "we" and and seventeen maledefendants, Sikakane uses collective nature of theexperience. Like American "our" to describe the Franklin describes, the black prisoners, whosenarratives H. Bruce that their prisonexperience was part of a South Africans realized individual. society's attempt to control anentire group, not any one what Franklin calls a"collective aesthetic," Such awareness creates representative of others. which is expressed by awriter who speaks as a made possible the verybonding and unity Ironically, imprisonment tried that the white SouthAfrican government had among Africans would be difficult for for twenty years to prevent.Under apartheid, it effective political protest,but, an individuallike Sikakane to stage an imprisonment provided herwith an opportunity to again ironically, empowering resist and be heard. Saying"no" to her interrogators was she had published were for Sikakane; not zventhe newspaper articles although the prison experience as effective asthis monosyllable. And few short chapters of AWindow on Soweto, fr itself is narrated in only a it seems to have beenthe catalyst for theentire book. raise Sikakane'sconsciousness as it did Being in prison didn't like Deming's. The Ginzburg's nor provideopportunity for reflections

'a 0 68 "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives

prison experience trulychanged Sikakane's life. In spiteof, or perhaps because of, her acquittal, Sikakane was served withbanning orders, which virtually prohibited her from finding work inSouth Africa. After numerous attempts to support herself and her child had failed,Sikakane eventually arranged her own escape from a homeland thatwas never really a home. Her narrative,then, was written from the of the West, where she, relative security unlike her twenty-onecodefendants, facedno threats of reimprisonmentand retrial. Sikakane's prison experience and post-prison life illustrateone woman's rebellion againsta dehumanizing system. Justas she refused to assume the political role of state witness that the interrogatorspressed upon her, Sikakane also refused to accept the cultural and socialroles that apartheid prescribed. Afterescaping from South Africa,she was reunited with her Scottish fiancé, whom she eventually married.(This reunion was unplanned andcoincidental, like somany of the reunions narrated by Ginzburg.) In herlife, as in her narrative,then, Sikakane remained defiant, refusingto accePt restrictions imposed line. by the color A defiant, subversivewoman who rejects societal expectations also become a subversive might writer, challenging literaryparadigms and conventions. But in Let MeSpeak!, Domitila Barriosde Chung= goes even further and calls into questionthe act of writing itself. Her narrative exists asa written text only becausea collaborator has transcribed her spoken words from taped interviews,conversations, and speeches. As its subtitleand the subheadingon its first page proclaim, this work existsto provide "testimony,"a word connoting oral as well as writtenstatements. Like Sikakane, Barrios de Chungara's purpose is to describeand denounce exploitation, whichin Bolivia was directed against rather than a race. Invited a class to participate in the 1975International Women's Tribunal sponsored by the United Nations, Barriosde Chun- gara attended but rejected its premise of gendered solidarity.Instead, she reiterated that class differencesmade it impossible for share goals. Her only women to purpose in attending the conference, sheinsisted, was to speak in behalf of the Bolivianmineworkers. Interestingly, itis because Barrios deChungara did not behave according to Latin Americancultural codes of feminine she was treated behavior that so harshly. Even her husband didnot approve of her activist role, which caused himto lose his job. His boss at the explained: mines

It's your wife's fault we're firingyou from the company, because you're a sissy. You know who'swearing the pants inyour family. 81 Empowerment and Voice in Women's PrtsonNarrattves 69

Now y3u'll learn to control yourwife.... What do you want with a political wife? .. . A womanlike that isn't any good for anything.... She doesn't even seem like a woman.(137) It is this tension between the rolesof political activist and traditional wife and mother that underlies thenarrative. Barrios de Chungwra acknowledges its presence but believes thatultimately most compafieras accept women as part of "thepeople." However, the militaryregime does not look favorably upon an upstartwoman, as one brutalincident illustrates. Unlike the civil rights protestersin the United States, Barrios de Chungara and most Third Worldprisoners are not able to exercise "control over the body" while inprison. At the time of her second incarceration, Barrios de Chungara was pregnantbut was nevertheless accosted sexually and then physicallybeaten when she resisted. The narrative depicts a defiant and violent womanwho bites a large piece of flesh from the hand of her persecutor.This image, like many others in Let Me Speak!, accords with theimagery of violence, rebellion, and rejection of society said tocharacterize male prison narratives. As Harlow has observed, it is difficult toapply gender criticism to many Third World narratives because theyreflect an experience "not based on bonds of gender, race, orethnicity" (503). However, the most graphic imageryin Barrios de Chungara's account could occur only in a woman'swriting. Since the mah whose hand she had bitten was a colonel's son,the colonel himself intervened to ensure that no woman as"unnatural" as this one would bear achild. Barrios de Chungara lapsed intounconsciousness as a result of the beating the colonel inflicted uponher and the labor that followed. When she recovered, she locatedher baby in the dark cell bytracing the umbilical cord. The narrationthen climaxes with the nightmare vision of all mothers: the baby isdead. During her first imprisonment,Barrios de Chungara had almost believed her incarcerators' lieswhen they claimed to haveimprisoned her children. Unlike Ginzburg andSikakane, she was ready to sign papers, to betray others,if it would save her children. Oneof her fellow prisoners forced her to reconsider,however, by reminding her thatshe must think as a leader, not as amother (125). Barrios de Chungara followed thQ advice. Even the painfulloss of her baby during her second impris6nment led to reaffirmation of apolitical identity: "With everything I'd suffered in the arrests, injail, and in Los Yungas, I'd acquired myself" (160). a political consciousness.In other words, I'd found That self, as the "testimony"of her narrative demonstrates,is a spokesperson for the marginalizedtheworkers and even the peasants of Bolivia. Like Sikakane,Barrios de Chungara invokes the pronoun

82 70 "New" Traditions, Genres, and Perspectives

"we," but in this narrative, it appears in politicalstatements on behalf of groups like the Housewives' Committee:"We think our liberation consists primarily in our country being freed foreverfrom the yoke of imperialism" (41). The plurality suggested by thisstatement seems strictly rhetorical, however; it does notconvey the communal or collective sense of shared experience that Sikakanecreates. Barrios de Chungara would probablynot mind having her speech labeled "rhetorical"; she emphasizes that her narrativeis didactic and clearly expresses its purpose in the book's concludingparagraph: ... this testimony now returns to the working class so that... [it] can learn from the experiences, analyze and also learn from the mistakes we've committed in the past, so that through correcting these errors we'll be abk to do better things in thefuture... see the reality of our country and createour own instruments ,to improve our struggle.... (235) Unlike the other writers in this study, Barrios deChungara has constructed her narrative for one specific audience,and she has deliberately had her story transcribed into writingso that it can serve as a permanent blueprint for her audience. Speaking to and forothers, Barrios de Chungara comes to authorship and voice ina unique way. Nonetheless, her opening words in Let Me Speak! couldapply equally well to the other writers discussed in thispaper: "I don't want anyone at any moment to interpret the story I'm about to tellas something that is only personal" (15). All of these women authors of contemporary prisonnarratives have developed voices that in some way incorporate those of others.The resulting concept of self projected by ihe narrativeparticipates in a group as well as an individual identity. No longer do suchwomen write confessionally, acknowledging a transgression against theirsociety's laws or mores. Instead, as a result of the political awareness they develop or deepen through the prison experience, each is able to identify the injustices in her society that have resulted in incarceration.Coming to voice in her writing, each author counters thestereotype of the silent, passive, conforming woman, the role prescribed for heras prisoner and citizen, whether in the capitalist, communist,or Third World. Refusal and subversion are both strategies employed bywomen in prison, and articulating them in a narrative allowswomen to counter the male prison voice that has spoken so dominantly, with imagesof destruction and transcendence. The four women in this study have drawnon numerous genres to construct their narratives, including oral history, testimony, traditional

3 Empowerment and Voice in Women's PrisonNarratives 71 autobiography, letter, diary, and textbook.Not satisfied with the spoken and written word alone, they haveused photographs, maps, sketches, and statistics to communicatetheir stories. Most significantly, in addition to contributing new voices and newliterary constructs within their narratives, these writersreflect triumphs external to narrative: release, escape, agquittal, socialchange. In such a way, the individual, communal, and r;olitical truly merge.

Works Cited

Abramowitz, Isidore, ed. The Great Prisoners:The First Anthology of Literature Written in Prison. New York: Dutton,1946. Akhmatova, Anna. The Complete Poemsof Anna Akhmatova. Vol. 2. Trans. Judith Hemschemeyer. Somerville, MA:Zephyr, 1990. Barrios de Chungara, Domitila, andMoema Viezzer. Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, A Woman of the BolivianMines. Trans. Victoria Ortiz. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978.Trans. of "Si me permiten hablar. . ." testimonio de Domitila, una mujerde las minas de Bolivia. Camus, Albert. The Rebel: AnEssay on Man in Revolt. Trans.Anthony Bower. New York: Knopf, 1957.Trans. of L'Homme revolte. 1951. Deming, Barbara. Prison Notes. New York:Grossman Publishers, 1966. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish:The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1977.Trans. of Surveiller et punir: Naiss- once de la prison. 1975. Franklin, H. Bruce. The Victim asCriminal and Artist: Literature fromthe American Prison. New York: OxfordUP, 1978. Gelfand, Elissa. Imagination in Confinement:Women's Writings from French Prisons. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP,1983. Ginzburg, Eugenia Semyonovna. Journeyinto the Whirlwind. Trans. Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward. NewYork: Harcourt Brace and World, 1967. Trans. of Krutoj Marsrut. New York: Harcourt Brace .Within the Whirlwind. Trans. Ian Boland. Jovanovich, 1979. Harlow, Barbara. "From the Women'sPrison: Third World Women's Nar- ratives of Prisonr Feminist Studies12.3 (1986): 501-24. Salisbury, Harrison. "Loyalty Wasthe Error." Rev. of Journey intothe Whirlwind, by Eugenia Ginzburg. NewYork Times Book Review 19 November 1967: 4. Scheffler, Judith. Wall Tappings: AnAnthology of Writings by Women Pris- oners. Boston: NorthwesternPress, 1986. Sikakane, Joyce. A Window on Soweto.London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1977.

84 6 Sacriture: The Sacredas a Literary Genre

Mackie J. V. Blanton University of New Orleans

Of all the questions we might confrontourselves with, one of the most puzzling, notes Isaac Bashevis Singer, is "Whymust we die?" (qtd. in Farrell 200). This question, ofcourse, remains unansweredbut this does not necessarily mean that it isunanswerable. Indeed, the fact that it is unanswered and yet continuallyasked suggests that perhaps it is answerable, and thus various cultures andcivilizations take their turn in formulating anansweror rather, a response. The more we look through the history of our species, themore we realize that the interesting questions in life are not so much those withanswers as those that elicit responses, for such questions challenge the species andits cultures to evolve, both morally and intellectually.The responses become stories, narrative moments for us, about each briefstay of a life on earth. Because these narratives attemptto explain or solve the riddle of human existence, they become,over time, sacred reckonings. They are what I call (borrowing from Lacan's "stecriture,"the discourse of the state) sacriturethe discourse of the sacred. Sacritureconstitutes our stories. Hence, the most puzzling of questionsleads, in our attempt to respond, to yet another question"Whydo we tell stories?" Perhaps wc do so simply because we must die; perhapswe die so that some of us may telt siGlies for all of its before each ofus does individually die. Our stories, therefore,are ways we work out narrative explanations of human nature; they areways of leaving a record behind; for these reasons, thty are sacred to us. And so, perhaps thepurpose of unde- cipherable death is that it leads to the questionabout death, for without death perhaps we would not turn towardourselves and toward one another with narrative explanations. Ifwe did not die, we perhaps would not pay attention to life. Perhapsthe purpose of the bewildering question about our death is that,to respond to it, we must all see ourselves as open texts where the real answerthereal storymight lurk.

72 85 73 The Sacred as a Literary Genre

The differences that separate theworld's religions may seem so overwhelming as to deny one another'sexistence. It is, however, their like-mindedness, their shared traits,that must become evident to students of sacred discourse.And in order to recognize these com- monalities, the student of sacriture mustrecognize an alternative, sacred concept of time, one putforth by Steinsaltz in The EssentialTalmud:' "Time is not an ever-flowing streamin which the present always obliterates the past; it is understoodorganically as a living and developing essence, present and futurebeing founded on the livingpast" (8). Because the present is where weexperience change and flexibility, it is apparently the present thatis mutable while the past isimmutable. But the work of creation isself-renewing, ongoing into the present, and therefore what is immutableis always part of our own essence which originated in the pastandof the essence of the sacred,which is unoriginate. This is theessential living past on which weraise the present and the future. We query the living past, not because wedoubt, but as if we doubted. is Expressing a sense of doubt,questioning the original sacred books, but it is also not only expected inthe practice of sacred language, indispensable to sacred study. Indeed,this questioning, which is essential the future to the practice of sacredlanguage, is how the present and speak to us in the organic,living past. It is as if the sacred(or the divine) through us is continuallysaying at the moment ofcreation, "What shall I do next?" And we arethe ones who have the opportunity to respond. But we respondby asking further questionsofourselves. We also query Our queryingis a response to the divinequestion. One who studies sacred languageis not able to act like aneditor who refuses to publish yourthoughts on a topic becauseof the comradictions or the incompletenessin the work submitted. These contradictions must be encountered,and therefore released, byothers, who also find release in the process.The submissionthe offerof a work, like the work of creation,is a never-ending, self-renewing process. "After absorbing the basicmateriar Steinsaltz explains,students are expected to pose questions tothemselves and to others and to"voice be attained doubts and reservations. ...True knowledge can only through spiritual communion,and the student mustparticipate intellectually and emotionally .. .becoming, to a certain degree, acreator" (9). within At some beginning point, asingle individual or a small group ever-evolving sacriture. a communityinitiates "the basic material" of an One of these individualswill develop some explanationregarding creation, or the environment, or somephenomenon in nature not yet

tit; 74 "New" Traditi.dns, Genres. andPerspectives

perceived as natural and taken,therefore, as a miracle or as supernatural; and feeling inspired,even divinely inspired, this seer will talk about his or her hunches with others.At subsequent times, therest of us open up those canons, thereby creatingcommentaries on the basic material. We do this by becominginterpreters, by finding ourselves in the very basic conversations.The commentaries areresponses and, as responses inducing further responses, becomepart of an endless chain. And thus we see that it is themanner rather than the content that becomes the praxis of texts of sacredconversation. We listen in order to respond, in order to interpret. Eventually, the content of sacredconversations become recordedon stone and, over time, scribbledon papyrus or parchment, or keystroked across a computer screen. This sacred discoursemay P. ssume any one of a number of possible formswhen it is written: it mayappear as different editions ofa text or as translations of an original editionor as commentaries on an edition oras commentaries on commentaries. The sacred text may also take theform of prophecies, proverbs,songs and hymns, newsannouncements (i.e., gospels), letters,enactments, laws, and commandments. Wisdom.literature as a form or structure may also be received into a cultureas illustrations, glossaries, bibli- ographies, or indices. Andso, a thought or hunch has becomea conversation and discussion; theconversation and discussion eventually become stories. The oral storirs eventuallybecome oral traditions. Oral traditions become written trsditions.Traditions generate commentaries and glossaries. So a bunchor thought about the sacred eventually generates forms that converse withus in ongoing, textualized sacred conversations. All sacred texts, then, start froma posed questionand the rest is commentary G ft that question. At times"the rest" becomes basic scripture or enrolving, spiritual, canonicalcommentary on what emerges as the basic canon. To a certain extent, allexegetical commentary is framed by questions andresponses. In sacred study, scripture isa statement, a declaration. Whenwe read a literature of this sort asa context for making potentially universalstatements, we reconstruct the question that we assume must havebeen posed in the first place, that engendered the declarations that becamesacred scripture. In other words, all thoughts originatingas questions are themselvesresponses to prior questions. A truly sacredtext is one that encourages others to question it. Sacriture offers the study of the sacredas a literary genre, focusing on selections from the exoteric and esotericwritings of believing communities, perhaps thereby alsoproviding a dose examination of

8 '/

I I r 75 The Sacred as a LiteraryGenre

and linguistics of themystical experiences the history, demographics, of study I am suggesting of the peoples underdiscussion. But the courge focus on reli&ms(religions do not occupy the here would not be a and future in living past: they carve outblocks of time into present historicism or to guarantee anot-yet-here order to justify a personal accounting of the future existence). Norwould our course be a mere literature; that too would be analtogether different sacred in secular of the sacred arises in the course. I am moreinterested in how a sense examination of the presenceof the sacred as a literary first place; in an sacred is constituted and linguistic experience;in how the genre of the experience, and byinterpretation. by language, by Literary genres Literary genres do not existbecause categories exist. "Poetry," "drama," and exist because the languageof categories exists. not genres, just asthe poem, the dramatic "the novel" are categories, dramatic or piece, or the novel is not a genre.The genre is poetic or language of the text, prosodic language. Languageis genre. It is the the category that the textfits into, that is the not the text itself, nor understand this concept genre. There is nobetter evidence to help us the language of sacred than the impulse ofsacred texts, that is, than texts. of interpretation that we engagethe practice of It is through the act Jew's Tanakh, or the sacred language, not theholy bookssuch as the Christian's Evangelion, or theHindu's Vedas, or theMuslim's Qur'aan language. The sacreddwells in these holy books, that contain sacred become human nature; but thesebooks, like human beings, as it does in interpretation, we open them,releasing open canonswhen, through the furthering practiceof language. the sacred through of the sacred. Sacred texts are apresentation of the intuited presence intuition. As linguists, Sacred language is a theoryabout human spiritual choose any number critical analysts, teachers,rabbis, or priests, we may sacred language, in order toinstruct it, for example, of ways to objectify Furthermore, in some way, as we or simply todescribe it for others. need to demonstrate abelief in converse aboutsacred language, we of the sacred intuitedin language assumed to the suspected presence for the be sacred. For such aconversation, because of its reverence general, can itself become student's intuition andfor human intuition in These conversations in theclassroom can becomeinspired a sacred text. sources of revelation. responses to thesacred in our midst and act as how we revere evenseemingly /t might very well turnout one day that sciences or the liberal arts, secular subject matter,such as that of the can transformthese texts into textsof sacred language.

86 76 "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives The set oftexts that effectively one might select forsuch a course over the rich andvaried tradition should range of spiritual of teachingsand practices communities (seethe Supplemental instructor should, Bibliography). The to the extentpossible, select communitiesaccessible, thereby texts that makeall such and discussion. inspiring thestudent to further The majorfocus in the reading texts selected for course will be thoseprimary study, interpretation,and analysis, critical studies.Aprimary text is supplemented by But again: a more direct we must bear inmind that source to the sacred. may become, just any text referringto the sacred because of theway that it is studied, to the sacred.Inspiration, of a source leading The inevitable course, may verywell lead to outcome ofcourses in sacriture revelation. for apost-postmodern will be thepossibility mysticism, forsr zh courses will and experiencingby examining, be examining, nature for transcendent the ç mistentyearnings of experience. human

Works Consulted

Blanton, Mackie."Many Sentences Essays in Honour and Difficult of Michael Texts?' In LanguageTopics: gold. Amsterdam: Halliday. Ed. RossSteele and Terry John. Benjamins,1987. 401-11. Thread- . "Places of the Self: The Arkansas Quarterly Good AnalyticHour in Robert 2.1 (1993):42-57. Penn Warren?' Camphausen, Rufus C. The DivineLibrary: A to the SacredTexts and Spiritual Comprehensive Reference Inner Traditions Literature of the Guide International, 1992. World. Rochester,VT: Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred andthe Profane: New York:Harcourt Brace The Nature ofReligion. 1959. Farrell, Grace, Jovanovich, 1987. ed. IsaacBashevis Singer: Mississippi, 1992. Conversations.Jackson: UP of Steinsaltz, Adin. The EssentialTalmud. Trans. Books, 1976. Chaya Galai. NewYork: Basic

Supplemental Bibliography: Towarda Study of Sacriture Arid, David S. The MysticQuest: An Introduction York: Schocken,1988. to Jewish Mysticism.New Armstrong, Karen, A History ofGod. The Judaism, Christianity.and Islam. New Four-Thousand-YearQuest of ben haKana, York: Knopf,1993. Rabbi Nehunia.The Bahir. Aryeh Kaplan.York Beach, ME: Translation andcommentary by Blofeld, John. Samuel Wciser,1979. Taoism: The Roadto Immortality. Boston: Shambhala,1978.

89 The Sacred as a Literary Genre 77

Bloom, Harold. Kabbalah and Criticism.New York: Seabury Press, 1975. Belief from the Bible to the .Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Present. Cambridge: Harvard UP,1989. Climacus, John. The Ladder of Divine Ascent.New York: Paulist Press, 1982. Epstein, Isidore. Judaism. New York:Penguin, 1975. Green, Arthur. Devotion andCommandment: The Faith of Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination. Cincinnati: HebrewUnion College P, 1989. Green, Arthur, and Barry W. Holtz,eds. Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer. NewYork: Schocken, 1987. Giller, Pinchas. The Enlightened WillShine: Symbolization and Theory in the Later Strata of the Zohar. Albany:State U of New York P. 1994. Helminski, Kabir Edmund. Living Presence:A Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self Los Angeles: JeremyP. Tarcher, 1992. Ibn, Muhyiddin 'Arabi. The Wisdomof the Prophets. Aldsworth, Gloucester- shire: Beshara, 1975. Kaplan, Aryeh. Sefer Yetzirah: The Bookof Creation. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1990. Kristeva, Julia. LanguageThe Unknown:An Initiation into Linguistics. Trans. Anne M. Menke. New York:Columbia UP, 1989. Le Gai Eaton, Charles. Islam andthe Destiny of Man. Albany: The Islamic Texts Society, State U of New YorkP, 1985. Mann, John, and Lar Short.The Body of Light: History andPractical Techniques for Awakening Your SubtleBody. New York: Globe Press, 1990. M'Bow, Amadou-Mahtar. Islam,Philosophy, and Science: Four Public Lectures Organized by UNESCO. June 1980. Paris:UNESCO, 1981. Meyendorff, John, ed. and collector. GregoryPalamas: The Triads. Trans. Nicholas Gendle. Classics of WesternSpirituality Series. New York: Paulist Press, 1983. Mendes-Flohr, Paul. Ecstatic Confessions:Collected and Introduced by Martin Buber. Trans. Esther Cameron. SanFrancisco: Harper and Row, 1985. From the 1909 German edition. Mitchell, Stephen. The Enlightened Heart:An Anthology of Sacred Poetry. New York: Harper and Row, 1989. Murata, Sachiko. The Tao of Islam: ASourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. Albany: StateU of New York P, 1992. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Knowledgeand the Sacred. Albany: State U of New York P, 1989. Neusner, Jacob. Midrash in Context:Exegesis in Formative Judaism. Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1983. Palmer, G. E. H., Philip Sherrard, andKallistos Ware. The Philokalia. 5 vols. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist:Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crest- wood, NY: St. Vladimir's SeminaryP, 1988. Schimmel, Annemarie. Decipheringthe Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam. Albany: State U ofNew York P, 1994.

9 78 "New" Traditions, Genres, andPerspectives

And Muhammad Is His Messenger:The Veneration of the Prophetin Islamic Piety. Chapel Hill: U ofNorth Carolina P. 1985. Scupoli, Lorenzo. Unseen Waifare: TheSpiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli. Crestwood,NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary P, 1987. Steiner, George. Real Presences. U ofChicago P, 1989. Steinsaltz, Adin. The Thirteen PetalledRose. New York: Basic Books, 1980. Tigunait, Pandit Rajmani. SevenSystems of Indian Philosophy. Honesdale, PA: Himalayan International, 1983. Tresmontant, Claude. The Hebrew Christ:Language in the Age of the Gospels. Chicago: Franciscan Herald P, 1989. Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Church.New York: Penguin, 1964. Weiner, Herbert. 9 1/2 Mystics: TheKabbalah Today. New York: Collier Books, 1969. Williams, Benjamin D., and HaroldB. Anstall. Orthodox Worship: ALiving Continuity with the Temple, the Synagogue,and the Early Church. Min- neapolis: Light and Life, 1990. Zalman, Rabbi Schneur (of Liadi). LikuteiAmarim Tanya. Brooklyn: Kehot Publishing Society, 1984. Zizioulas, Jean D. Beingas Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir'sSeminary P, 1985.

91 III Pedagogicaland Curricular Concerns

9 2 7 NonnativeEnglish Literature and the WorldLiterature Syllabus

Ismail S. Talib National University ofSingapore

right, his head Some of the townsmensaid Okolo's eyes were not This they Said was the resultof his knowing too was not correct. others said it was much book, walking toomuch in the bush, and by the river. due to his staying too long the world So the town of Amatutalked and whispered; so Okolo had no chest, theysaid. His chest talked and whispered. Everything in this world was 11%1 strong andhe had no shadow. they said of him, all becausehe dared that spoiled a man's name his inside and to search for it. He wasin search of it with all with all his shadow. school and Okolo started his searchwhen he came out of people. When he returnedhome to his returned home to his thing, people, words of the comingthing, rumours of the coming flying like birds, swimminglike fishes in the river. were in the air what was there But Okolo did not jointhem in their joy because and things had no moreroots. So he started was no longer there from slapping their his search for it. Andthis stopped the Elders thighs in joy because ofthe coming thing.

ah beng is so smart, already he can watch tv& know the whole story. your kim cheongis also quite smart, what boy is he in theexam? this playground is not toobad, but i'm always so worried, carhere, car there. at exam time, it's worse. because you know why? kim cheong eats so little. give him some complan. myah beng was like that, now he's different,if you give him anything he's sure to finish it all up.

81 ir

82 Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns sure, sure. cheong's father buys him vitamins but he keeps it insidehis mouth & later gives it to thecat. i scold like mad but whatfor? if i don't see it, howcan i scold? on saturday, tv showed a newtype, special for children. why don'tyou call his father buy some? maybethey are better. money's no problem. it'snot that we want to save, if we buy it & he doesn't eat it, throwingmoney into the jamban is thesame. ah beng's father spendsso much, takes out the mosaic floor &wants to make terrazzo or what. we also got new furniture, bought fromdiethelm. the sofa is so soft, i darenot sit. they all sit like don't want toget up. so expensive. nearly two thousand dollars,sure must be good. that you can't say.my toa-soh bought an expensive sewingmachine, after 6 months, it is alreadyspoilt. she took it back beng, come here, come, don't play the fool. your tuition teacher is coming. wah! kim cheong,now you're quite big. come, cheong, quick go home & bathe. ah pah wants to takeyou chya-hong in new motor-car. The first of these two passages is from The Voice, by Nigeriannovelist Gabriel Okara; the second is "2 mothers in a hdbplaygxound," by a Singaporean poet, Arthur Yap. It is obvious that bothpassages are .in English; it is just as obvious that this is not the kind ofEnglish generally found in the United States, Great Britain, or otherpredominantly white Anglophone countries. Moreimportant, these two worksare from different parts of the world,reminding us that there isa world literature in English. While this concept is probably unfamiliarto many literary scholars and teachers, there is infact a growing body of worksin these new varieties of English, many of which have been favorablyjudged indeed. Some of the authors writing in "world English"include Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, Ngeglwa Thiong'o (before his abandonment English for Gikuyu), Wole of Soyinka, Buchi Emecheta,Wilson Harris, Olive Senior, George Lamming,Raja Rao, Anita Desai,and R. K. Narayan. There are also several anthologies devoted to worldEnglish (discussed later in thischapter) as well asa number tl academic

94 83 Nonnative English Literature andthe World Literature Syllabus journals, such as World LiteratureWritten in English, Kunapipi, and ARIEL (A Review of InternationalEnglish Literature). The existence of this rich newliterature creates a unique opportunity world for the world literaturecurriculum, for unlike the traditional literature course, which is heavilyreliant on translation (see Aldridge world 10- I 1, 19-25; Block,"Objectives," 5-6; Freedman; Will), a English syllabus has the majoradvantage of foregrounding language. As we know, in the traditionalworld literature course the onlylinguistic factor that is usually mentioned,if at all, is the accuracy oftranslation. The approach proposed here,however, is not without its own language-related problems, particularlyregarding the use of dialect. The fear of letting students readdialects, along with a moreorthodox often led to concept of comparativeliterature (see Aldridge 38), has the avoidance of these texts.There is the belief among someteachers of English (a belief that is notalways clearly or honestly put)that literature in English should dealwith the "best" English, thatworks in "nonstandard" English are inherently"substandard," and that therefore nonnative English literature has nolegitimate place in the curriculum (see Talib, "Why Not Teach . .51). In spite of these inhibitors,the restriction of literature in English tothat produced in the traditional V. S. countries is no longer possibleafter the advent of writers such as Naipaul and Salman Rushdie,who have had a greatimpact on English in contemporary literaturegenerally, and on literature in particular. Even if we want ai regardNaipaul and Rushdie as British writers (since both reside in Britain), we maynot be able to understand works their works adequately unless weview them in relation to other in English by other Caribbeanand Indian authors. While the existence of a worldliterature in English is a faitaccompli, the presentation of these worksin terms of the educationalcurriculum is not, and the creation of asyllabus based on this new "worldEnglish" literature remains problematic.One solution would be toinclude translated works and divide the courseinto two units, translated work.; and works written in English.A syllabus designed in this waycould also be used for a comparativeliterature course (using non-English would be the texts in their original)in which the focus of study This similarities and differences betweenEnglish and non-English texts. focused on would be particularly importantif the course were further the influence that a literaturein a particular language mayhave had on the English texts, asin the case of the direct orindirect influence of Amitav of the language and literatureof Urdu or Hindi on the novels Ghosh or Anita Desai (bothof whom write in English).One might also recall the influence thatEast and West Asian literaturehas had

96 84 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

on European writers, a prominent example beingthe founder of world literature himself, Goethe (Alberson45; Aldridge 30-31; Jackson; Yu). But there are other programmaticchoices; for example,a world literature in English syllabus mightalso be designed in relationto a program in English linguistics; while literary studyis generally avoided or minimized in such programs, in thiscase there would be a particular advantage, for texts could be studiednot only for their intrinsic merits (however defined), but alsoas illustrations of the use of English around the world. Furthermore, the intimateconnection between, on theone hand, a world literature in English,and, on the other, Englishas a world language, is a much-neglectedtopic, one that could be fruitfully explored. In this regard, theuse of nonnative literary texts in English, especially those whose languageis markedly different from standard British or American English, wouldhighlight the variety andrange of world English, which would inturn help students understand both the extent to which English must indeed beregarded as a world language, with all the attendant complexitiesthat such "worldness" entails. As mentioned, there is a tendency inlinguistics courses to view only samples of language from literarytexts. Viewing these works holistically, however, is important, not merely foraesthetic reasons: it may facilitate language teaching as well, for theexclusive reading of extractsmay result in students regarding themas representative of actual language use, whereas reading entire textsmay enable them to understand how (and why) writers take creative libertieswith language. One linguistic subtlety that couldbe fruitfully studied would be the negotiation between dialect and standardEnglish in this literature. For example, Okara has pointedout that The Voice attempts, nota representation of an actual dialect ofnonnative English, but rathera literary representation of the Ijawlanguage in English (Lindfors 137- 38). Much the same may be said ofYap's poem, in which there is frequent and systematicrecourse to certain features of English which one associates with more standardizedusage, such as singular number concord in the verbs ("buys," "keeps:'"gives:' "spends," "takes," and "wants"), the simple past tense ("showed,""bought," and "took"), the copula, which also conforms to theappropriate tense and number of the subject ("is," "was:' and "are"),contracted forms of the copula, which again conform to theappropriate number concord (as inthe use of "is" and "am" in "i'm," "it's," "he's," "money's,"and "you're"), and contracted forms of auxiliaryverbs of negative polarity (as in "doesn't" and "can't"). The English of many works differsfrom standard British or iNmerican English only in relation to their lexicons,and even in this regard, there 96 Nonnative English Literature and the World LiteratureSyllabus 85

are usually only a few words notfound in standard British or American English, which can be defined in a shortglossary at the end of the work. For instance, the problems inunderstanding Yap's poem are easily cleared up by pointing out to the readerthat "what boy in the exam" refers to the boy's academic standing,"jamban" (a Malay word) means "toilet," the verb"chya-hong" (a Hokkien word) refers to the act of taking a ride or of goingfor a short break, and "h 4 b" stands for the Singaporean Housing and DevelopmentBoard. And in Okara's The Voice, some expressions ("knowing toomuch book," "had a chest," "had no shadow," and "in search of itwith all his inside and with all his shadow"), although apparentlyderived from Ijaw idioms, are highly effective metaphorical expressions in English,and, in my view, are not more difficult to understandthan, for example, the symbolism employed in Yeats's poetry A teacher whose primary focus isIniguistics may choose excerpts instead of whole texts, or design a nonnativeEnglish literature syllabus consisting of short works and extracts from longerworks. The extracts must of course be judiciouslychosen by the teacher, who should have a good knowledgeof the text's source dialect, and whoshould point out whether it is faithfullyrepresented in the text. The alternative is to depend on a textbookwhich does this. Unfortunately, such a textbooka well-annotated anthologyconsisting of short works and extracts from longer works collectedby a group of co-editors, each of whom is conversant with the language andliterature of the works he or she selectsis notpresently available (although Ramraj's recently published anthology, Concert of Voices, is a stepin the right direction). Such an anthology might allow a moreextensive exploration of texts with different linguistic varieties, whichwould otherwise be restricted by the limited expertise of the teacher. In most instances, however, a worldliterature in English course would not have a rigorous focus oneither comparative literature and translation or on linguistics; it would morelikely appear in the general education (or "core") curriculum, in which casethe main organizational principle would probably (and mosteffectively) be that of geographic regions. Although the regional groupingof texts may create some pedagogical problems, such as the difficultyof establishing thematic linkages among texts fr., 'in variousregions, not to use a regional organization might result in the erroneousassumption that there is a unity of the various nonnative literatures.While there may be some merit to a thematic organization, asyllabus arranged in accordance with regional categories places textsin appropriate cultural, sociopol- itical, and historical contexts, since thereis indeed a strong correlation 86 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

between region and these other contexts. Inany case, the regional approach would ultimately make thematic comparisonseasier, for such comparisons would be more sophisticated if thestudent were to first become more familiar with the cultural context of eachregion. Once having decided on a regional schema,one must face some logistical problems. It is of course possibleto determine a fixed number of texts per geographical category; thismay be inevitable if there are separate lecturers dealing with the literature from each region,and each of them has an equal workload. But if the worldliterature in English course is taught by one person (as is more likely), sheor he may wish to use other criteria, which would entailan unequal regional distri- bution. One criterion which might be used is that of"literary merit." Such a criterion, however, may be too hazy forsome, and hence they may employ thematic criteria, which may also entailan unequal number of texts in each geographical category. In thatcase one might select some additional texts from underrepresented regions,even if they do not strictly meet the valuative and thematic yardsticksset up at the start of the selection procedure. This wouldserve the purpose of preserving the course's focus on the phenomenon ofa newly emergent monolingual world literature. Another organizational difficulty arises in regard togenre, a familiar method for presenting texts in a generalsurvey course but one which is somewhat problematic when combined withthe concepts of world English and regionalism. One could, without too muchdifficulty, design subunits on fiction, drama, and poetry for each regioncovered; however, the possibility of dealing with each of the majorgenres may depend on the availability of texts. This is less of a problem today than itwas two or three decades ago; nonetheless, it is still somewhat difficultto provide an equitable selection of texts from each ofthe designated regions. For example, drama in Englishappears to be particularly strong in Africa, with such major writersas Athol Fugard and the Nobel Prize-winning Wole Soyinka, but thereare at present few published dramatic works of quality from India, Singapore,or Malaysia. Another problem with generic divisions is the underemphasis theymay place on some important cross-generic features or themes, suchas the nature of the nonnative English used in poetry, drama, and fiction(especially when its nonnative features are striking), and the colonial themerunning through works of different genres. These problems, however, are truly minorones, particularly when compared to the major educational advantages to be reaped fromthe development of these courses, one of which would bea more effective presentation of lyric poetry from around the world. It hasoften been

96 < ,1\

Nonnative English Literature and theWorld Literature Syllabus 87 observed that in the case of lyric poetry,the problem of translation is particularly vexing, for the sound,the idiom, and some of the metaphorical features of short poems areoften language-specific, and are (For inz.d virtually untranslatable(Aldridge 30; Will 24-26, 28-29). this reason, it is not far-fetched tosuggest that if one isinterested in literary quality and wishes to giveequal treatment to each of the genres rely in the general world literaturesyllabus, one would do well to heavily on nonnative English poetryin the poetry section of the syllabus, even if one does not wantto concentrate onliterature originally written in English elsewhere in thesyllabus.) Fortunately, there are anumber of readily available anthologieswhich provide us with a representative selection of poetry in Englishfrom particular regions, such asThe Hetnemann Book of African Poetryin English, Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets, and The PenguinBook of Caribbean Verse, whichdoes job of presenting the whole rangeof Caribbean a particularly good includes a verse, from Bob Marley toEdward Kamau Brathwaite, and number of poems written invarieties of English strikinglydifferent from standard British orAmerican English. Having discussed some of theproblematics of a world English syllabus as well as some of the more narrow,curricular reasons for the creation of such a course, itis time to discuss some of thebroader social reasons for instituting such acurricular reformreasons that are well-illustrated by the first stanzaof "The Song of the BananaMan," by Evan Jones: Touris, white man, wipin his face, Met me in Golden Grove marketplace. He looked at m'ol' clothes brownwid stain. An soaked right through widde Portlan rain, He cas his eye, turn up his nose, He says, "You're a beggar man,I suppose?"' He says, "Boy, get someoccupation, Be of some value to yournation:' I said, "By God and dis bigright han You mus recognize a bananaman:' (In Burnett 222-24) One reason such a poemshould be taught has to dowith linguistic awareness and tolerance,which may in turn have aconnection with other values which teachers maywant to instill intheir students. Literature that uses a distinctnonnative variety of English canbe used of belonging to enhance the students'cultural identity and their sense to the community inwhich the variety is spoken(Talib "Why Not of world literature will enhance Teach ..."). And of course, the study

9j 88 Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns the students' awareness or understanding of the worldat large; this argument is a familiar one, andwas in fact advocated by Goethe, the first significant proponent of the teaching of worldliterature (Alberson 45-51; Friederich 11, 19-22;Williams 76). In additionto these two reasons, we can also advancea more specific integrative aim in relation to the teaching of nonnative Englishliterature as a world literature, and this has to do withan enhanced integration of the worldwide community of English speakers. Many of these speakers donot .use standard American or BritishEnglish, and, as English isnow a world language, perhaps the time hascome to dissociate English fromany simplistic association with one or two of its varieties (see Hope165; Aldridge 38-39). As I have saidelsewhere, the English language longer a British, American, "is no or Anglo-Saxon preserve," but is "alanguage which is truly international" (Talib,Letter 10). Consequently, the of usage, especially norms among peoples that use it asa second (i.e., not as a foreign) language, should no longer be invariably eqablishedand perpetuated by Britain and theUnited States (see Kachru; Phillipson). Melchers; Although the world is saturatedwith the English languagethrough pop songs, movies, and television, thevarieties of English used in these media are largely American o! British. There are of coursesome notable exceptions to this, such as in the field of popular music, withcalypso and reggae music from the Caribbeanand the use of Black Vernacular English in rapnonetheless, songs sung with nonnative accentsare still relatively rare. The F tdirect promotion of American andBritish varieties of English through popularculture (cultural colonialism through inadvertent means) does not give us a true picture of theEnglish language today. As popu'ar culture,at least in its usual forms, help to expose students cannot to non-American or non-Britishvarieties of English, especially withinAmerica or Britain itself,one of the ways students can gain such exposure (quite apart from undergoinga course in "global English" [Melchersl),is through acourse in nonnative English literature, witha representative selection of texts suchas those quoted earlier. Sucha course will put students ina better position to understand the "naturalness" ofnonnative varieties of English in countries outside Americaor Britain, and the ane aaly of theattempt to conform to standard Americanor British English in these countries. This will in turn help themdevelop not only anawareness of, but also an appreciation for, either varieties ofEnglish, which will inturn enhance their awareness of Englishas a world language. Given the importance of English in the world,such an awareness and appreciation may contribute to international understandingas well.

1 0 litimmonsmisommom Syllabus 89 Nonnative English Literatureand the World Literature

Works Cited Literature Program?' Alberson, Hazel S. "Non-WesternLiterature in the World Block, Teaching 45-52. Reemergence of WorldLiterature: A Study of Asia Aldridge, A. Owen. The Associated U Presses, and the West. Newark: Uof Delaware P; London: 1986. Block, Teaching 1-7. Block, Haskell M. "TheObjectives of the Conference?' World Literature. Proceedingsof a Conference ,ed. The Teaching of 1959. Chapel Hill: Uof at the Universityof Wisconsin. 24-25, April North Carolina P. 1960. Verse in English. London: Burnett, Paula, ed. ThePenguin Book of Caribbean Penguin, 1986. in Translation?' Freedman, Ralph. "Correlatingthe Teaching of Literature Block, Teaching 109-19. Planning?' Block, Teaching Friederich, Werner P. "Onthe Integrity of Our 9-22. Literary Criterion 15.3/4 Hope, A. D. "TeachingAustralian Literature?' The (1980): 157-65. the Ideas in AmericanThought?' Dictionary of Jackson, C. T. "Oriental York: Charles Scribner's, History of Ideas. Vol. 3.Ed. Philip P. Wiener. New 1973. 427-39. Burnett 222-24. Jones, Evan. "The Songof the Banana Man?' "Institutionalized Second LanguageVarieties?' In The English Kachru, Braj B. 1985. 211- Language Today. Ed. SidneyGreenbaum. Oxford: Pergamon, 26. World Literature Written in Lindfors, Bernth. Interviewwith Gabriel Okara. English 12 (1973): 133-41. Book of African Poetry Maja-Pearce, Adewale, comp.and ed. The Heinemann in English. Jordan Hill,Oxford: Heinemann, 1990. Book of African Poetry inEnglish. xiii- .Introduction. The Heinemann xvi. 'Global English: " In ASense of Place: Essays Melchers, Gunnel. "Teaching English Dept. in Post-Colonial Literatures.Ed. Britta Olinder. Gothenburg: of Gothenburg U, 1984.210-25. London: Heinemann, 1964. Okara, Gabriel. The Voice. Indian Poets. Delhi: Parthasarathy, R., comp. anded. Ten Twentieth-Century Oxford UP, 1976. Burden?" The English Lan- Phillipson, Robert. "ELT:The Native Speaker's Journal 46 (1992): 12-18. guage Thaching of World Writing in English. Ramraj, Victor J. Concertof Voices: An Anthology Petersborough, ON, Canada:Broadview P. 1995. Conscience: Studies in Com- Rao, Raja. "The Casteof English:' Awakened Delhi: Sterling P. monwealth Literature. Ed. C.D. Narasimhaiah. New 1978. 420-22. 1.5 (June 1992): 10. Talib, Ismail S. Letter.The Council Chronicle

1 0 90 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

"Why Not Teach Non-NativeEnglish Literature?"The English Language Teaching Journal46 (1992): 51-55. Will, Frederic. "The Evaluationand Use of Translations?' Block, 23-30. Teaching Williams, Weldon M. "Intensive and Extensive Approaches in theTeaching of World Literature:' Block,Teaching.73-81. Yap, Arthur. "2 Mothers inan HDB Playground:'Down the Line. Heinemann, 1980. 54-55. Singapore: Yu, Beongcheon. The Great Circle: American Writersand the Orient. Wayne State UP, 1983. Detroit:

1 0 8 ContemporaryLatin American Theater: Theatricality asa Key to ClassroomPerformance

Howard vl. Fraser College of William andMary

classroom stages Teachers have frequentlyassumed the role of actor on audiences; they may,however, find that byreplacing before their student of directorthey will this more traditional rolewith a new onethat varied stimuli for classdiscussion. This revision produce more acute and to literature in of roles is particularlyvaluable in courses dedicated where heightenedproficiency in the target languages other than English, means for language serves, not only as anend in itself, but also as a This directorial communicating the literaryvalues of foreign cultures. in general, open-ended,sensitive to students' approach, moreover, is, class members differing personalities andlearning styles, and regards developing and refiningtheir productive andreceptive as capable of the content of the language skills at the sametime that they master literary selections. censo," the Cuban Plays such as the MexicanEmilio Carballido's "El Sergio Vodanovié's Anton Arrufat's "Larepeticiem," the Argentinean and (also Argentinean)Griselda Gámbaro's "El "El delantal blanco," the traditional boundaries campo" use theatricality as ameans to revise audiences. It seemsappropriate, therefore, between actors and their traditional roles played by that in the teachingof these works the might also be revised. teachers and students theatrically based An excellent point ofdeparture for our interactive, Carballido's "El censo:'This one-act playcombines several course is principally that of a world themes associated withthe modern era, expressed within a thoro,ighgoing theatrical frame- turned upside down, theatrical: a Mexican work. In "El censo," thesetting is appropriately For obvious reasons,this seamstresses' shop locatedin a private home. of considerable dramatictension. When a dual setting is the source workers close ranks census-taker arrives, the ownerof the shop and his within a play. Thinkingthat the census-takerwill to act out a play government, they pretendthat report their illegalhome industry to the 91

1 92 Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns they are the members of a family and not workers ina private enterprise. Their anxiety over being foundout is matched by that of the taker. In fear of losing his census- job for falling behind in hisdaily quota of interviews, he rashly accepts their advice and assistance to falsifycensus interviews. The end of theplay brings the question ofdeceit and theatricality full circle whenthe seamstresses expertlycombine their wit and instinct for survivalas they and the census-taker embroider upon the truth and, in so doing, revealthe fabrication and fictionthat are the basis of the government'srecords. One way in which theinstructor can preparestudents for class discussion is with questions referring to the construction ofthe play, and one reference tool thatis exceptionally useful inthis regard is Aproximaciones al estudio de laliteratura hispknica. This isan anthology of literary texts coveringfour genres (narrative,poetry, drama, essay) and their historical backgrounds and basicstructures, as well as a glossary of critical terminology anda reader's guide that prompts students to discover the most salient points of the literaryworks under study. The "Guida general para el drama" contains questionssuch as "i.Cufil es el marco escénico de la obra? iSe explicaen detalle o no?": "i,Quiénes son los personajesy cudles son las relaciones entre ellos? i,Cuales son actores y cuales son actantes?"; "i,Qué situacióndramfitica se presenta en la obra? 2,C6moprogresa la acciOn de la obra? LCuales son las etapas de esa acción?"; "i,Cuales el tema principal de la obra? iCuales son los temas secundarios? LTiene la obra un fin didActicoo comprometido?" The list also containsmore challenging questions, such as: "En la obra, Lse pone mas énfasis en la creación deuna empatia entre actory espectador (lector) o enuna separación senti- mental y un acercamiento intelectual a la situaci6n dramitica?i,Hay ejemplos de metateatro?" (229). Work in small groups (ofno more than four students each) should also be one of the principalorganizing features of class this kind of course, for discussions for such groups permit studentsto interact more freely and express themselves at length in the target language.Fur- thermore, students who wouldotherwise seem shy and whomight feel intimidated by the presence of students in a larger class willtypically speak more in a smaller group and will gain self-confidencethroughout the semester. The compositionof groups should changedaily so that students are eventually grouped with all others in the class.Operating independently for ten to twentyminutes during class, each have a specific assignment group should (such as one or two of theabove list of study questions) to accomplish.

104 Theatricality as a Key to Classroom Performance 93

In "El cense students should be able to develop thesebasic questions into fuller commentary upon the dual setting, whichmirrors the general sense of confusion and ambiguityevident in this farcical play. In a sense, the world of appearances anddeceit staged in the seamstresses' shop is clearly distinguished from the so-called realworld as expressed from the point of view of the shop's clientele at the startof the play. Disorder and the chaotic obliteration of this divisiontake hold of the action once the census-taker enters the shop, ultimatelyinfecting the entire world surrounding the play. The deceptiveatmosphere of the seamstresses' shop serves as a microcosm of the society outof which it grows because it reflects the sham of a census thatis the government's claim to accuracy and truth. I"...cause the visual impression a theatrical productionmakes affects the viewer's and reader's understanding of the play, one groupmight work on proposing a set design to the class that placesthe actors and props in strategic locations. Inthis way, students will call attention to objects crucial to the play's development (i.e., adeforming mirror, sewing machines, etc.) and explain how theyenhance its meaning. Another excellent play for our purposeshere is Arrufat's "La repetición," which, with its masked characters andsymbolic settings, entails to a remarkable degree a theatricalvision of the world. Even the title underscores the notion of the playwithin a play, for "repetición" suggests that the play's action endspoised to repeat itself, thus producing an infinite series ofidentically circular plots which reiterate the main action endlessly. As a commentary on thefutility and pessimism of modern life (Dauster 9), notions reinforcedby the image of circularity, "La repetición" presents the story of two womenwho live in structurally similar apartments. Despite their similarities,however, the two apartments symbolize the cruel passageof time that has left the dwelling of the downstairs neighbor, an older, married woman,in disarray and eisrepair. Her furniture is old and soiled; her householdplants, withered. In contrast, in the young woman's upstairsapartment, pots and pans shine in the afternoon sun, and her plantsflourish. Her youth and vitality soon attract the attentions of adoor-to-door salesman, who asks her out to a Saturday night dance. Hisinterest in her suggests the possibility of change, perhaps progress, in herlife, but this bright promise fades as rapidly as it arrived. Afterthe salesman leaves, the young woman descends to herneighbor's apartment, enters and exchanges masks with her, thus closing thecircle which opened at the outset of the play. Students should, first and foremost, be able tovisualize the set design, complete with details of the placementof furnishings and

103 94 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

significant objects, in order to commenton the similarities and differences in the two apartments. Of particular interest is the stairway which connects the two places. Reinforcing the play's action and themes, this winding stairway ("escalera de caracol") denotes physicallywhat is suggested by the action: repetition, reiteration, and circularity. In another sense, it serves to remind the audience of the futility associated with the women's desire for change andprogress. As the play opens, the downstairs neighbor bewails her poverty and the stagnation in her life with the lament: "Te digo que es imposible vivir asi. te parece que ya va siendo hora de que las cosas cambien?" (39). As she contemplates her arid future, she sees the only possibility of change and prosperity in the hope of winning the lottery In this regard,students should discuss her statement, "La cosa es entraren el juego" (40), as a statement with a broad and ambiguous set of possible references as much in praise of the sense of chance in each of the women's lives as an acknowledgment of the absurd nature of life without meaning and substance. The teacher should propose several areas for class discussion that focuses on characters, their masks as an indication of how people play roles in daily life, the use of time, both in the pacing of the action and in its treatment as a thematic underpinning of the work, anduniversal themes such as our need for routine, the nature of work, andthe possibility of change. Role-playing and the need for change form the backdrop of Voda- novié's "El delantal blanco." Perhaps the most disquieting portrait of modern life turned upside down included in these one-act plays, this piece highlights the characters' sense of frustration brought aboutby society's inertia and injustice. An article of clothing, the white uniform of the title, becomes the symbol of thegross di :parities between social classes in the Latino world, as characterized bya wealthy woman, "La Senora," and her maid, "La Empleada." While on summer vacation at the beach, "La Senora" dixussesher desire to see the world from the maid's perspective, andso they exchange clothes. More than merely to overcome her boredom and loneliness, the wealthy woman chooses this theatrical ployto prove her hypothesis that "clase," i.e. her innate personal style, social position and status, will still be visible tiP:ough the maid's attire. Once they change their appearance, however, the Senora's theory of her innate power disintegrates as the Empleada assumes the imperious identity of her employer. The action moves toward a shocking climax whenthe Senora, now entangled in the dramatic intrigue she herself has written,

1 b 95 Theatricality as a Key to ClassroomPeifonnance original role but fails asks spectators on thebeach to restore her to her to convince themthat the Empleada is animpostor. students are often fascinatedby the various I have found that which takes the form treatments in this playof the theme of power, employment. Of of domination in marriage,in the family, and in foremost in the piece aswell course, questionsof social injustice are applies to these two womenwho as the generaltheme of freedom as it ways, captiveswithin a rigid social system.As are, both in their own broadcast evidence of society's semioticnature, clothing serves to position, and wealth for eachof the characters. distinctions such as class, their own To the extent that these samedistinctions form a part of values, students will be eagerto discuss complex system of signs and setting, both as how clothing functionswithin a theatrical social costumes and masksin their own lives. questions groups shouldaddress in their class One of the principal of the play. discussions is Vodanovies choiceof the beach as the setting criticizes her son for topplinghis sister's sand Early on, the Señora by castle. This offstage gestureimmediately disarms the spectator pastimes of life at the seashore.Events describing one of the innocuous indicate that the and statements occurringlater in the piece, however, destruction of the sandcastle is a central imageof the play, which is unsatisfactory marriage to anabsent, philan- reflected in the Seflora's symbolic exile dering husband and whose mostviolent reflection is the the end of the play as sheis dethroned by her of the Seflora herself at seemingly offhand remark a own Empleada.For this reason, the witnessing the struggle betweenthe two women spectator makes upon "Es el simbolo is bitterly ironic. When"El caballero distinguido" says, La subversion del ordenestablecido. Los viejos de nuestro tiempo.. .. los pobres quieren quieren ser jóvenes; losjóvenes quieren ser viejos; (12-13), he unwittinglydescribes ser rkos y losricos quieren ser pobres" transfer of clothing and rolesthat the audience the somewhat bizarre referring to the Señora's has witnessed, althoughhe thinks he is unsuccessful attempt to restoreherself to power. "Mi nuera va todas las But there is anotherirony here as he adds, de poblaciones callampas.lY le gusta hacerlo!" tardes a tejer con mujeres makes to work (13). As he scoffs at theattempts his daughter-in-law in the slums of the city,he draws a joyfully side by side with women and the distinction between thesituation in his family very sharp to say that the spectacle we have justwitnessed on stage. He seems his daughter-in-law's sharing of life's meagermeal is possible, as in sisterly love should notbecome case, but this kindof demonstration of an everyday occurrence.

1i 96 Pedagogical andCurricular Concerns Since "El delantalblanco" directly playing, it is comments on theact of role- a particularly goodchoice forone of the most compelling directorial methods,one which allows the involvement in the students amore dramatic action of the playthrough a dramatic role-playing. Dependingon the interests and reading or the reading of talents of thestudents, a portion of a playcan be a valuable first comprehension of the step in their language as wellas of the psychological of the characters.If the students dynamism demonstrate fascination characters, orsense an affinity with with the organize a panel them, the teachermay wish to or roundtable discussionin which the characters themselvesappear to exchange ideas. dramatic to assume the rolesof the characters Students may volunteer characters. The teacher and express opinionsas these or other class membersshould feel free the studentrole-players questions to ask relevant to the action about their actionsand attitudes of the play. Orstudents speaking characters mayspeculate on their through their and individuals. responses to contemporaryissues An excellent companion pieceto "El delantal length play by blanco" is a full- Griselda Gfimbaro,"El campo," whose is society's injusticetoward women. central theme the Holocaust by While referringto the horrors of setting the mainaction in a Gfimbaro's drama concentrationcamp, simultaneously focusesupon the systematic torture and repressionin Nazi Germany, use of Argentina during the Vietnam (Cypess 103),and "Dirty War"(1976-82) (Albuquerque 10). The playcontains an exhaustive 141; Taylor physical and verbal inventory of violentacts, including abuse directedprincipally toward prisoner, as wellas toward Martin, Emma, awoman organize the camp's an accountant whoarrives to finances but whofinally discovers irration-ality rule insuch a place. that chaos and As dramaticspectacle, "El campo" assault the audience's projects a series ofstimuli which senses. References to the the sounds of d odor of burningflesh, gs barking, and theimages of acts of the full range (.)1'techniques of repression torture present audience. that shock yetedify the As a reflection ofthe human deformity cultivated in thiscamp, the systematic distortionand subversion of appropriately named language by the camp'sdirector, "Franco," mightstimulate class dents should besensitive to the discussion. Stu- use of euphemisms andother forms of verbal deceptionas weapons used to and inhuman control victims ofa complex institution suchas the Holocaust. For Emma states, "El example, when trabajo engendralibertad" (Work she utters asentence which contains brings freedom) various half-truths.Of course, this

1 o Theatricality as a Key to Classroom Performance 97 statement translates the phraseemblazoned over Auschwitz ("Arbeit macht Frei") and thus parrots the Nazi'sdeception of camp prisoners regarding their role in the Wehrmacht. ButEmma also underlines how the concept of "freedom" has beenredefined in this camp to justify suffering and death as the reward for herlabor and that of other victims. Other deceptions, such as theroles characters play within the play, serve as Brechtian distancingtechniques in "El campo" that further underscore the importance offraud as an underpinning of the theatricality of ble Hol ,caust. lb focus class discuzsion onGeimbaro's use of theatricality, the teacher might have students payspecial attention to the staged movements and gestures of the characters.Emma's seemingly uncontrollable scratching, for example, suggests the presenceof insect infestations or of a paranoid obsessive-compulsivedisorder, and is thus symptomatic of the infectious dehumanizationfostered by the camp. Such gestures as Emma exhibitsreinforce the sense of corruption that saturatesthe camp, especially in the personof Franco, himself a Kafkaesqueinsec- toid. Since "El campo" provides a sustainedexamination of the use and abuse of language, it is an excellentopportunity to employ an activity that combines all receptive andproductive language skills. This method requires that class members first writecritical comments about one or more aspects of the playthey have read and then form groups tocollect all of their comments about a single aspect.After groups discuss these comments, the reporters summarizeeach group's observations, which are then "published"i.e.,distributed to the class and the teacherfor further comment. For best results,the teacher should schedule this activity several times, most effectivelylate in the semester when the students have refined their oral andwritten expression to such a extent that they feel comfortable writingfor an audience of their peers as well as receiving andtransmitting the opinions of others.Students should feel free to write whatever theythink about the subject the teacIrr poses for their responseand to write anonymously; and groupmembers will collect, react to, andsummarize their peers' comments andwill not criticize them judgmentally. In addition to the directorialteaching techniques presented herein, the teacher should, as in other coursesdevoted to literature, make basic reference tools available to students.Whether these be histories of theater or articles relating toindividual authors and works,critical sources will aid teachersand students in shaping a vocabularythey will use in the course as well as inproviding a body of critical judgments that are essential to supportingthe students' own research andwritten

109 98 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns work. In addition to the material inAproximaciones, useful critical discussions of contemporary Latin American dramamay be found in Leon F. Lyday and George V/ Woodyard's Dramatistsin Revolt: The New Latin American Theater, William I. Oliver'sVoices of Change in the Spanish American Theater, and GeorgeE. Wellwarth's The New Wave Spanish Drama: An Anthology. Andrecent books by Diana Taylor (Theatre of Crisis: Drama and Politics in Latin America)and Severino Joao Albuquerque (Violent Acts: A Study ofContemporary Latin American Theatre) highlight the context of violence, politicaland social, which forms a strong undercurrent ofcontemporary Latin American drama. From these sources as well as other recentessays (Stephen M. Hart's "Some Examples of the Topos of the World Upside-Downin Modern Hispanic Literature and Art"; Evelyn Picon Garfieldand Ivan A. Schulman's Las entranas del vacio: Ensayos sobre lamodernidad hispanoamericana), several themesemerge which characterize contemporary Latin American literature in general and the theater in particular. The instructor might discuss the vision of life in theLatin American world as depicted in specific plays. Furthermore, whilethe subject of theatricality as an organizing principle fora course in literature has received limited attention in scholarly literature,two relatively recent studies of this topic should be considered essentialfocal points for future discussions: David Gies's Performance Guidesto Spanish Texts (1987, 1989), and M. Clare Mather's article, "Getting Offthe Page and Making a Scene: Teaching Drama in the Classroom"(1989). Both of these works comment upon the energy teachersare able to instill in their students through the use of theater in the classroom,whether this activity be the adaptation to the stage ofa work of fiction or poetry (Gies) or the theatrical performance ofa text included in a drama course (Mather). The expansion of the instructor's repertoire of teachingfunctions to include directing alongside acting permitsgreater flexibility in organizing and managing stimulating class discussions. Studentsappreciate the variety of activities used in the classas a means to discuss the works in depth. Because they are expected togenerate much of the class discussion, students feel responsible for thesuccess of the course, and they take advantage of the instructor's invitationto participate more effectively than they might under other circumstances. It ishoped that these approaches and practical suggestions fora new theatrical approach to a course on Latin American drama may be adaptedto a variety of courses in literature in which all participants will enjoy takingan active role in developing their ideas while refining their language skills.Given

1 99 Theatricality as a Key to ClassroomPerformance who feel that the dramatic worksdiscussed here present characters victimized by the profoundchanges running rife in modernsociety, analysis and who ultimately discoverthat the world defies empirical because of the deceptive appearances,illusions, and general disori- appropriate that in entation of the modern age,it seems particularly theatri- teaching these works we employmethods that underscore the their vision. cality of their construction aswell as the humanity of

Works Consulted Contemporary Latin Albuquerque, Severino JoAo.Violent Acts: A Study of American Theatre. Detroit: WayneState UP, 1991. Arrufat, Anton. "La repeticiOn."Dauster and Lyday, 39-50. Scribner's, 1969. Buero Vallejo, Antonio. Enla ardiente oscuridad. New York: Historia de una escalera. Madrid:Escelicer, 1972. Carballido, Emilio. "El censeDauster and Lyday, 55-65. Chang-Rodriguez, Raquel, and Malva E. Filer. Voces deHispanoamerica. Boston: Heinle and Heinle,1988. Plays of Griselda GámbarorIn Dramatists Cypess, Sandra Messinger. "The George in Revolt: The New Latin AmericanTheater. Ed. Leon F. Lyday and W. Woodyard. Austin: U ofTexas P, 1976. 95-109. Woodyard 3- Dauster, Frank. "The Theaterof AntOn Arrufat." Lyday and 18. Dauster, Frank, and Leon F.Lyday. En un acto: Diez piezashispanoamericanas. 2d ed. Boston: Heinle andHeinle, 1983. Dauster, Frank, Leon Lyday, andGeorge Woodyard, eds. Nuevedramaturgos hispanoamericanos. 3 vols. Ottawa:Girol Books, 1979. Gfimbaro, Griselda. "El campo."Oliver, 47-103, del vacio: Garfield, Evelyn Picon, andIvan A. Schulman. Las entranas Ensayos sabre la modernidadhispanoamericana. Mexico City: Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, 1984. Guides to Spanish Texts[including Jorge Luis Gies, David. Performance de la Borges, Ficciones; Miguel deCervantes Saavedra, Don Quijote Romancero gitano y Bodas de sangre, Mancha; Federico Garcia Lorca, escriba; Ana Maria Gabriel Garcia Mfirquez, Elcoronel no tiene quien le Matute, Historias de la Arthmila;Pablo Neruda, Veinte poemasde amor Manual Bueno, Martin]. y Canto general;Miguel de Unamuno, San Charlottesville: U of Virginia P,1987, 1989. Examples of the Topos of theWorld Upside-Down Hart, Stephen M. "Some de Estudios in Modern Hispanic Literatureand Art." Revista Canadiense Hispânicos 12 (1988): 459-72. in Revolt: The Lyday, Leon E, and GeorgeW. Woodyard, eds. Dramatists New Latin American Theater.Austin: U of Texas P, 1976. Woodyard 3:7-58. Marques, Rene. "Los solestruncos." Dauster, Lyday, and 100 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

Mather, M. Clare. "Getting Off thePage and Making a Scene: Teaching Drama in the Classroom:' ADFL Bulletin20.2 (Jan. 1989): 58-63. Oliver, William 1., ed. Voices of Changein the Spanish American Theater: An Anthology. Austin: U of TexasP, 1971. Taylor, Diana. Theatre of Crisis:Drama and Politics in LatinAmerica. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 199'). Virgil lo, Carmelo, L. Teresa Valdivieso, and Edward H. Friedman,eds. Aproximaciones al estudio de la literaturahispknica. New York: Random House, 1989. Vodanovi6, Sergio. "El delantal blanco."Dauster and Lyday, 3-14. Wellwarth, George E., ed. The NewWave Spanish Drama: An Anthology. New York: New York UP, 1970.

112 9 Mass, Multi, andHigh: Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogyof "World Lit."

Michael Thomas Carroll New Mexico Highlands University

One of the most important new collegetexts is the Heath Anthology of American Literature (1990), edited byPaul Lauter, a proponent of canon reform in Americanliterary studies. In this work we witness the attempt of institutionalized literarystudies to "correct" itself. There are, for example, excerptsfrom the literature of Spanish exploration and colonization as a supplement toalready familiar works of the English colonial period.. Also included arefugitive slave narratives other than that of Frederick Douglass, and moreworks by contemporary women and minoritywriters. And so, it would seem, theHeath text presents a peaceable kingdom inanthologized form; but before academia begins to congratulate itself for its ability toreformulate around a more inclusive cultural vision, we might want totake a closer look. In the contemporary section, we find aselection of poetry by Sonia Sanchez. The introduction tells us thatif Sanchez's poems are to be appreciated at all, then the reader must"forget all conceptions of what a 'poem' is, andlisten attentively to Sanchez's attacks onthe Euro- American political, social, and aestheticestablishments:' We are furthermore told that the unorthodoxiesof Sanchez's poetry must be understood in the social and aesthetic contextof African American culture; and that her poetry "echoesthe style of popular artists like Aretha Franklin and James Brown"(Joyce 2440). My question isthis: if these popular artists are so influential onSanchez's practiceas indeed they arethen why has theirwork been excluded from this revolutionary anthology, whose overtaim is nothing less than to bring the literary canon into alignmentwith the diversity of Americancultural practice? Why are figures from contemporarymusic (both black and white) who are, after all, the popular poetsof this era, excluded? The answer, of course, isthat they are not, in the sensepromoted by the academy, "poets." Thus, theeditorial stance of the Heath doublesback on itself: we are asked toabandon our conceptual baggageregarding 101

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what constitutes poetry, and yet in its compositionthe anthology covertly draws a very clear line between whatmay be regarded as poetry and what may not. Similar examples include the exclusion from the anthologies of, on the one hand, Charles Bukowski,a poet and fiction writer with a kind of cult status,a sizable international audience, and a penchant for munch, and on the other hand,the objectivist poets, most notably George Oppen, a "poet's poet" who is perhapstoo difficult to "market" in the classroom (see Young, in thisanthology). Another recent anthology whose apparatussuggests similar ideological underpinnings is Donna Rosenberg's World Mythology,which likewise, and I think admirably, seeks tocorrect the academy's Euro-. centric predispositions. In addition to the familiar mythologyof the Greco-Roman and Norse worlds, Rosenberg has wisely includedstories from ancient Babylon, Egypt, India, China, the Americas,and Nigeria. However, the exclusion of anything from the cornucopia ofmythological materials to be found in contemporary popular cultureencourages the student to view myth as a dead thing. One wishes that theeditor had remembered the words of Joseph Campbell, whowas well aware of the mythic structure of much of popular culture. "The latestincarnation of Oedipus," says Campbell, stands today at thecorner this very afternoon "waiting for the traffic light to change" (4). In both of these recently published anthologieswe witness an expansion of the canon of official culture through the inclusion ofnon- Western material, and yet an apparent reluctance to deal withmaterials from popular culture. And just as the Heath, in spite ofdisclaimers to the contrary, endorses an elitist definition of "poetry,"so does the Rosenberg anthology endorse a similar concept of "myth." Thereare numerous examples of this kind of thing; but more to the point, while it is true that the North American academy has openedits arms, perhaps somewhat narrowly, to the productions of other cultures,the culture most familiar and accessible to students,contemporary popular culture, remains, for the most part, excluded. Why? That we as human beingsare "socially constructed" is a truism of contemporary critical theory; this, however, isa rather monolithic rendering of the cultural superstructure, and I thinkit would be more productive to look at how we are institutionallyconstructed. A methodological point of departure to this endmay be found in the "charter theory" of institutional function. Accordingto Bronislaw Malinowski, a myth is a story which serves to provide "charter" that is, it performs the function of justifying an institution in thepresent and thus sustaining and ensuring its continuance. To providesome examples: in Max Gluckmann's study of Zulu culture, he concludes thatthe feud, far Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogy of "World Lit." 103 from threatening the stability of the culture, actually works to maintain order by providing a "safety valve' More obviously, the"myth" of British royalty serves to strengthen the moral consensus of British societyor so conclude historians Shils and Young in their studyof the coronation of Elizabeth H. Institutions, in other words, are,above all, self-perpetuating, and the notion of charter helps explainhow institutional structures persist while the individuals who constitute them continually change. However, as the functionalist model has been critiqued for valorizing social stability, it needs to be said that in all cultures (and particularly in dynamic and institutionally diverse ones) much of social change may be understood as the antagonisticinteractions of institutions, and that in such an atmosphere of institutional diversity, one institution might gain dominance, cause systemic instability, and thus cause other institutions to fall in line by characterizing themselves in terms of the dominant. Thus, institutions can survive not only by resisting change, but by embracing it, if not in essence then in terms of charter. Consider, for instance, paradigmatically, the institutional changes that occurred in the eighteenth century. At that time, thescientific and philosophic institutions, which in the preceding centuries had been dominated by the church, now rose to dominance themselves. Advances in the natural sciences occurred at a nearly exponential rate,outstripping philosophy; and philosophy perforce became obsessed with the problems of epistemology, for epistemology is concerned with the groundsand limits of knowledge of the natural world. The arts, too, characterized themselves in terms of rationalism in order to maintain theircharter, and thus Samuel Johnson claimed that it is "justly considered asthe greatest excellency of art, to imitate nature:'There are of course complications and subtleties: Johnson combined this focus on the imitation of nature with the new Protestant, middle-class morality based on self-interest and common sense. The fictionalnarrative, says Johnson, should "help us avoid the snares which are laid for usby treachery for innocence" and give us "the power ofcounteracting fraud, without the temptation to practice it" (326)an ethosbest expressed not in Johnson, but in the novels of SamuelRichardson. To know vice from virtue, Johnson would assert, the facultyof reason must be consulted. The institutional strategyimplied herethat of an institution characterizing itself in the guise of a more dominant one is only one of many. The Roman Catholic Church, with Rubens as a kind of ad campaign manager, took the tack of selling whatProtestant Rationalism could notmystery and beauty. In this regard one must also consider Immanuel Kant, whose phenomenologicalaesthetic, one

lb 104 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns which valorized complexity over all other considerations, is, in the final essence, the aesthetic of a philosopher and perhaps more important, a mathematician. There are still other, more radical approaches to shifts in interinstitutional structure. There is the example of Laurence Sterne, who, in Tristram Shandy, propounded an aesthetic practice that lionizedan unbounded, eccentric creative vision over that of philosophicreason, as seen in his critique of Locke. For example, his preface, which, with typical Shandean wit, appears in the middle of the text, claims that philosophic efforts to separate wit and judgment are unwise, for they "never go together, inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.So says Locke;soare farting and hiccupping, say I" (140). In Sterne, then, we have that segment of the literary establishment that chooses not to characterize itself in terms of the dominant, but rather to challenge the dominant on the basis of art's unique characteristics. As Helene Moglen notes, Sterne's novel is an attempt to supersede philosophy: much more than a "naive disciple of Locke," the hypotheses of the novel "demand that Sterne be taken seriously as a perceptive and creative critic of philosophy" (10). This kind of complex interinstitutional dynamic has played itself out within the academy, and more specifically in literary studies, in more recent times, and again we witness a number of institutional strategies. Most notable among them are what I regard as the retreat strategy, informed by linguistics, versus the "adjust to the dominant" strategy, characterized by narratology. The linguistic orientation of much of contemporary literary studies has its roots in Saussurian structuralism, the rudiments of whichare familiar but worth reviewing. Saussure describes languages in terms of differential relationships, sign systems which are only (with theexcep- tions of onomatopoeic words) arbitrarily related to the nonlinguistic objects they name. In other words, language functions notso much because of any relationship between signifier and signified, but because we recognize differences between wordswe know "bat" because of its difference from "hat" and "cat," for example (Shumway 161). In the second phase of structuralismpoststructuralismthe connotative power of this system of linguistic difference is deemphasized in favor of the notion that there is always a slippage between signifier and signified, that meanings are always unstable. This view is associated with the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and the Yale School of deconstructive literary criticism (Geoffrey Hartman and Paul De Man) critical moves which are now somewhat dated yet which have left a firm and admittedly valuable impress on critical thought and meth-

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odology Nonetheless, the linguistic orientationof poststructuralist literary criticism is, in institutional terms, likethe New Criticism that preceded it, a centrifugal move, one which attempts(in spite of its own overt declarations) to find safety in some"essence" of literature and language; in short, a secure and isolated baseof authority. Conversely, the movement toward narratologyis, in institutional terms, centripetal rather thancentrifugal. In Recent Theories of Nar- rative, Wallace Martin notes the shift incritical discourse from "the novel" to "narrative" during the course of the1960s, but as his purposes lie elsewhere, he does not investigate theinstitutional causes of this shift. This period saw the rise of communications as anacademic discipline, the European "art" film, auteurcriticism, and, in general, the MacLuhanite assault on the print medium.Given this, it is not surprising that the literary establishment shiftedthe terms of discussion in order to characterize itself in terms ofthe dominant and broaden its area of claimed authority to includeother narrative forms. In this regard, it is interesting to note the slightly nervousconclusion to Scholes and Kellogg's Nature of Narrative, in whichthe MGM lion, once a bit of kitschy amusement, lies down with thelamb of literatureperhaps W with devilish intent. A more recent phenomenonis the movement, in many college philosophy departments,toward the new field of cognitive science, a kind of interdisciplinary phenomenologywith the computer as an informing model andmeiaphor. The institutional strategs the structural intent, is obvious: as the universitiesshift their orientation from arts to technologies, the philosophy departmentattempts to change its now-deadly liberal arts coloration.

Institutional history and the charters or mythsthat justify the existence of a given institution must be understoodin order to grasp the conflict between traditional academic culture andpopular culture. The institutional structure of the literary academy hasits clearest origins in the rise of the middle-class in (to return there onceagain) the eighteenth century, an economic event thatentailed a new superstructural phenomenon which Jtirgen Habermashas termed the liberal bourgeois "public sphere"the world of coffee houses,discussion groups, and, perhaps most important, journals such asAddison and Steele's Spectator with its "gentlemanly" and urbane discourse.As we have looked briefly at religion, aesthetics, and moralityduring this period, we now need to turn to a detail of theeconomic/technical sum structure. Starting in the 1730s, the public sphere faced thechallenge of increased "bookseller power" and by midcentury theestablishment of "the

117 106 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns profession of letters" as the obsolete system of literarypatronage gave its slow death rattle (Eagleton 30-31). Theseevents, Terry Eagleton notes, signaled the rise of Grub Street power and the first inklings of mass culture as we know itdriven by capital, technology population growth, and a dynamic class structurein short, commodified literary production. As Kathy MacDermott (drawing on Raymond Williams) notes, it is at this time that the term literary, which up until thenwas synonymous with literate, began to take on the connotations of "ele- gancer "refinementr "polite learning"markers that could beused to deepen the furrow between the public-sphere intelligentsia and the Grub Street hacks and their ever-growing audience. This cultural separation remains with us to this day, and it isone of the reasons the eighteenth is the first century which has a distinctly modern character. And of course it is no accident that this is also the period in which many of our modern institutionsmedical, legal, educationalcome into being; for in fact, what I am arguing is that the highbrow/lowbrow dichotomy could only take place in an institutionalized atmosphere. It was in the mid-nineteenth century however, that academic culture as we now know it took firm root. As Eagleton notes, it is in the Victorian era that the man of letters learns the "unpalatable truth that the public taste he seeks to form is now decisively determined by the market. The sage, partly in reaction to this dismal condition,removes himself from the social arena to the less contaminated heights, but inso doing merely lapses into ineffectual idealism." This turn in institutional history exemplified by Matthew Arnold, completes the withdrawal of the academic from the public life and into a ,hermetically sealed academic sphere, encircled as it is by what was regarded asa "society incapable of fine discrimination" (60-63). It is from within the Arnoldian academy that our notions of high culture, and of world literature and thecanon of great works, emanates. In short, Arnold formulated the charter of the literary academy, and it is one which still functions. After all, it was only a few years ago that Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, an Arnoldian text if ever therewas one, achieved its momentary notoriety.

Once upon a time, an aristocrat was trying to impressupon his servant that he, the aristocrat, was to be revered because hecame from a very old family; the servant, either innocently or with ironic intent, said that he did not understand, for certainly any given family isas old as any other family. Although we don't normally think of it in such terms, popular culture is also institutionally structured and historically rooted.

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The electronic forms of media we now have,which are generally understood only ahistorically, have theirantecedents in the popular culture of the Old World. Henry LouisGates, for example, pointed out at the 2 Live Crew obscenitytrial in Florida in 1990 that rap dates back at least to the confrontation betweenWest Africans and the Portuguese in the sixteenth century And ashistorian Peter Burke notes in Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe,between 1500 and 1800 a great many travelingperformers enjoyed a kind of fame as a ey promulgated a lively popular culturethroughout Europe. As Burke notes, these performers included"ballad-singers, bear-wards, buffoons, charlatans, clowns, comedians, fencers,fools, hocus-pocus men, jug- glers, merry-andrews, minstrels, mountebanks,players, puppet-masters, quacks, rope-dancers, showmen, tooth-drawers,and tumblers" (94). It has been the practice to regard theLitlture of the people before the industrial revolution as folk ratherthan popular culture, the basis of the distinction being that in folk culturethere is a unity of audience and performer (the exemplar being theAppalachian family that enter- tains itself by making its own music) and inpopular culture the product is passively consumed; Burke's study ofthe popular entertainment of the latter Middle Ages establishes thehistoricity of popular culture. And so, just as academic poets and artists canclaim an Eliotic lineage with a Great Tradition, popular culturefigures can do the same. (Perhaps the best single study of this isfound in Roland Barthes's essay on professional wrestling,which suggests a homology between this pseudo-sport and the commedia dell'arte.) Andjust as popular culture is historically determined, so is it, forbetter or worse, institutionally manifested; if high literary culture has itsuniversities and museums, so too does popular culturehave its Warner Brothers Corporation and its multiplex malls. And if the Arnoldianacademic charter may be understood by the phrase, "the best which hasbeen thought and said," then the charter of the popularculture establishment is likewise crystallized in phrases like "entertainmentvalue" and "nonstop action:' We have, then, in the conflict betweenhigh and popular culture, an institutional standoff. This at least partlyexplainsto return to the beginning of this papen=the resistance, onthe part of the editors of college literature anthologies, to popularcultureand anthologies are, after all, the attempt, in textualfcrin, to institutionalize culture, to package it, to make it coherent anuconsumable according to one or another "official" concept of culture. And sowhile change is taking place in the academic world, a good dealof traditionalism is preserved by importing only materials which areeasily converted into the commodities of official culture. My hunchis that popular culture, as 108 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns opposed to "foreign import" or "multi" culture, is problematic for the academy precisely because its "non-foreignness," its omnipresent familiarity (everyone has knowledge of it), and the vast financial power of its institutions present an explicit challenge to the academy's claims of cultural monopoly and thus to the academy's charter, a charter which is based on a myththe myth of the authority of knowledge.

It was one of those moments which one knows to be significant before the significance is grasped. I was late to class; I set my lecture notes atop the wooden lectern and set some books and papers into the lectern's enclosure. It was then that my pencil rolled into the depths of the enclosure. I tilted the lectern in order to thrust my arm inside more fully, and then I saw the label on the underside. It read as follows: MANUFACTURED BY NEW MEXICO CORRECTIONAL INDUSTRIES.. I WaS stunned, first by the image of prisoners on an assembly line turning out one lectern after another (just as I was turning out one lecture after another). How many of these things did they make? Did they enjoy the work? What crimes had they committed, or, what crimes were they accused of? Who, in short, were they? In addition to serving as an unsettling reminder of just what kind of world we live in, this ominous label, to my way of thinking, serves as a metaphor for what we as teachers can do with popular culture and the institutional structures that inform cultural hierarchy. The university is an institution, existing in a web with other institutionsin this case, prisons (as Malinowski says, "a culture functions. .. by a means of a system of related institutions" [Freedom 35]). And there may be more parallels than initially meet the eye. Both prisons and universities, after all, are ways of warehousing people, and both attempt to somehow improve people. Universities cannot be understood without an inquiry into their relationships with other institutions, and of course I do not mean simply in the form of material culture, as my anecdote might suggest. Perhaps, then, to return to the main argument, we should reject the prevailing ghettoizationin our critical discourseof popular culture, for its separateness from high culture is an illusion, a kind of mirror- trick rigged by institutions and their charter/myths (as Gerald Graff notes, "we too are part of the culture industry" [28]). The nature of this illusion is well-illustrated by the fact that the distinction between high and low cultures, though institutionally clear (as with universities and prisons), is not always o clear when manifested in texts and artifacts. The touchstone questions of such a pedagogy, then, would

1 4r' L. Aeneas, Rambo, and the Pedagogy of "World Lit." 109 be: how is culture mediated? What kinds of instructions do wereceive as to the status of cultural artifacts, andwhy? What kinds of institutional charters are embodied in given cultural/textual objects? The contextual webbing (social, institutional, and historical) in which texts exist is precisely what we should seek to expose, analyze, and discuss. We can work with the concept of aesthetic hierarchy, endeavoring toshow where it comes from and how it operates. In my "World Literature to 1700" class, I have a sectiondealing with various culturally specific definitions of national heroism.One of our assignments is Virgil'sAeneid, after which we view the most successful of the rash of early 1980s war films (part of a movement Greenberg calls "the new Decaturism"), namely, Rambo: FirstBlood, Part Two. What is first of all curious is the way in which theseartifacts are, before the student has giventhem any serious consideration at all, already commodified, already institutionally identified by thehighbrow/ lowbrow dichotomy. A good place to get a fix on thepreconceived notions regarding The Aeneid can be found in Cliff's Notes, odd artifacts in themselves, attached to the academic institutionin an underground way, resented by college teachers (yet written by them), and popular with students (perhaps because they are resentedby teachers); and thus providing a fairly good indicator of how students are preconditioned. Cliff's Notes, then, getsinto Virgil with a rather astonishing opener: "The Aeneid of Virgir we are told matter-of-factly, "is probably the single most important poem to have beenwritten in the history of Western Civilization" (Milch 5). The undeniable greatness of Virgil's poem (which the student must, apparently,passively and uncritically imbibe), however, rests upon an evaluative fissure:The Aeneid, as we know, was never completed by Virgil, and thus it lacks, in the Latin, the poetic polish of the Georgics; and in any case, our students in the world literature survey will not be readingVirgil in the Latin. Scholars have often bemoaned the fact that muchis lost in translation. Certainly, I should not want to "level" all aesthetic artifactsand practices, all difference; on the other hand, there may be someadvan- tages to translation, and we may term thisadvantage the law of narrative redwlion. That is, in the absence of competence in the original language and culture of a given text, the reader will rightly defer alljudgments to a work's mythic and/or narrative virtues.Similarly, in the relative absence of aesthetic value in the text itself, the readeroften proceeds similarly, and thus aesthetically questionable works such as Stoker's Dracula and Cooper's Last of the Mohicans often succeed,particularly in terms of cultural mythos, in spite of themslves. In like terms, our

121 110 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns students experience Virgil primarily through the grid of narrativity, and thus plot, characterization, and scene will perforce be the focus of their attention. This is far from a bad thing; in fact, perhaps this is precisely how it should be, for narrative more fully exposes the workings of ideology than does poetics. And so, we find that our students respond most fully to the characterization of Aeneaslaconic, quietly suffering, a higher goal always in mind. In this narrative reduction, we quickly come to expose the propagandistic qualities of the text, and it is of course well known that Virgil was greatly influenced by his patron and protector, the instigator of fascistic rule in Rome, Caesar Augustus: both Virgil and Augustus were preoccupied with Rome's mission in the world. Virgil and Stallone: one would have to look long and hard for a greater cultural antipathy. On fie one hand, we have Homer's poetic son, Dante's poetic father, the "virtuous pagan" of Roman letters; on the other hand, we have a contemporary popular icon who has been rejected by the reactionary intellectual right (who regard all popular culture as degenerate) as well as by the intellectual left (who see a complicity between the Rambo series and Reagan-era militarism). Given this cultural frame, one might find it difficult to get students to leave their ideological baggage outside the classroom door. Nonetheless, students quickly perceive a parallel between Virgil's suffering hero of Roman patriarchy and Stallone's martyr for the cause of the American failure in Vier, am: a- Charles Molesworth points out, Rambo is "about power, th e.! pov. er of nations and the rower of individuals" (109), and much the same may be said of The Arneid. Like Aeneas, Rambo is pagan (he cHms American Indian blood and prefers primitive weapons), and yet he oddly conforms to the sacrificial model of Virgil's hero (as well as to Campbell's monomyth and Slotkin's "cultural archetype"). And like Aeneas, Rambo goes through a hellish underworld; more important, just as Aeneas must forsake the loving arms of Queen Dido, Rambo's newfound love, Co Bao, a beautiful and virtuous Vietnamese confederate who wants to go with Rambo to America, is cut down by enemy gunfire. A similar ideological imperative is at work here: according to the almost gyno- phobic model of patriarchal heroism, the true national hero, as evidence of his pure masculinity, must proceed sans female: as William Warner observes, Co Bao must die after receiving Rambo's fatal kiss, "because any special entanglement with another, especially a woman, would imperil his isolation:' (681). My students even saw a similarity between certain devices. Aeneas' and Achates' tour of Carthage under the

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"cloudy mantle" provided by Venus struckstudents, and for that matter me, as being uncannilysimilar to Rambo's ability to disappear, as in the scene in which he emerges from abank of mud to slay one of his enemies. Furthermore, the well-known"pre-Christianity" of Virgil (both in The Aeneid and in the fourth Eclogue)is likewise echoed in Stallone's fable of national heroism, for at least twicein the film Rambo assumes the crucifixion postureonce on anactual cross and once on an electrified box spring (the brainchild of a nowanachronistically evil Soviet officer). I would imagine that, traditionally,teachers of world literature have discouraged these kind of discussions. However, Ifeel that such parallels should not be suppressed: they shouldbe encouraged and used. To return to the case at hand, moreinteresting than the question, "Which is 'betteeThe Aeneid or RamboT' arequestions pertaining to our cultural preconceptions. How are weinfluenced by these preconceptions, by institutional structures and theircharters? Why is one high and the other low? And how is a university like a prison? Although space does not permit me tomultiply examples of how the ideological and institutional frameworkof cultural hierarchy can become part of the pedagogical imperativeof "World Lit.," I can briefly catalog a few examples from my ownpractice. Some literary works already contain within them opportunitiesfor doing so. Flaubert's Madame Bovary, for example, specifically addressesthe problems of mass-mediated consciousness. In part 2, chapter15the well-known opera scenewe find anexample of how critical consciousness may be broLght to bear on all forms ofculture, for it is here that Emma momentarily penetrates the illusion ofsentimental romance and concludes that the happiness presented insuch entertainments are "a lie invented to cause the despair of all desire:'Soon thereafter, when, with her newly acquired critical consciousness,she glimpses the prop man, in spite of his black camouflage "shesmiled to herself with disdainful pity" (217). In this scene Emma thushas a moment not unlike that in which I found the insidious label on mylectern. She has glimpsed the otherwise invisible hand ofinstitutional power and ideology, and her moment is a good model forwhat it is that we can do in the teaching of culture and cultural hierarchy.The tragedy of course is that Emma's moment is a brief one, and she soonsurrenders to a passive and uncritical reception of the dictatesof romantic ideology. Similarly, Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" is awork that addresses the question of mediated culture, with thesuffering protagonist representing

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the "artiste" of high culture drowning ina sea of commercial entertainment, handled, as he is, by an impresario who limits hisfasting to forty days in order to manipulate the public interest inmuch the same way that Colonel Tom Parker controlled Elvis Presley's publicexposure over the years (thus ensuring Presley's godlike status while otherteen stars from the 1950s faded, due to overexposure, into obscurity). It is furthermore interesting to note that Kafka doesnot, in this story glorify the "artiste"; in fact, the story may easily be readas an argument in favor of mass culture, for the panther who replacesthe hunger artist is a symbol of health and vitality: "Even themost insensitive felt it refreshing to see this wild creature leaping aroundthe cage that had so long been dreary.. . they braced themselves, crowded round the cage, and did not want ever to move away" (462). Indeed, the hunger artist and the panther embody, on the one hand, the charter ofhigh culture (the patience of the artist, the need for understandingand patience on the part of the audience, suffering, monasticdedication) and on the other, the charter of popular culture (action,excitement, danger). In closing, perhaps I should acknowledge that Imay be accused of presenting an all-too-rosy picture of popular culture pedagogy.Indeed, there is a problem, perhaps unavoidable, in teachingabout popular culture. Popular culture, already and by definitiona commodity within the general economy, can only berecommodifiedfor the academic subeconomy if it can be defamiliarized, thus allowing institutional "agents" (professors) to present themselvesas possessing the power- knowledge which alone confers their status within the institution.This double bind is accurately described and analyzed by LawrenceGrossberg in his discussion of a "rock and roll pedagogy" which ledto resistance on the part of his students, who "jealously guarded their music, claiming that, in the very attempt to dismantle and interpret itssignificance, I not only demonstrated my lack of understanding but also betrayed the music by contributing to rock and roTs unwanted legitimation"(179). In other words, Grossberg's studPats bemoaned the factthat since popular culture is not an area of scholarly interest,now you need academics, so the academics say, to explain and perhapsruin your entertainment for you. While in all candor it must be admittedthat this problem is a persistent oneperhapsan inevitable one given the institutional structure of higher educationit neednot be a debilitating one if we focus our gaze unflinchingly on those very institutional structures which inform the cultural worlds we andour students endeavor to inhabit, enjoy, and understand.

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Works Consulted

Abrahamson, Mark. Functionalism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1978. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. 1957. Trans. RichardHoward. New York: Peter Smith, 1983. Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the AmericanMind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe.New York: New York UP. 1978.

.Sociology and History. London: Allen and Unwin, 1980. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.New York: Meridian, 1956. Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976. Colomy, Paul. Neofunctionalist Sociology. Brookfield,VT: Ashgate, 1990. Eagleton, Terry. The Function of Criticism: From TheSpectator to Post- Structuralism. London: Verso, 1984. Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. 1857. Trans. MildredMarmur. New York: Signet, 1964. Gluckman, Max. Custom and Conflict in Africa.Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1965. Graff, Gerald. "The University Is Popular Culture?'Democratic Culture. 3.1 (Spring 1994): 28-30. Greenberg, Harvey. "Dangerous Recuperations: Red Dawn,Rambo, and the New Decaturism." Journal of Popular Film andTelevision. 15.2 (Summer 1987): 60-70. Grossberg, Lawrence. "Teaching the Popular?' InTheory in the Classroom. Ed. Cary Nelson. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1986. Jewett, Robert, and John Shelton Lawrence.The American Monomyth. New York: Anchor, 1977. Johnson, Samuel. "On Fiction?' The Rambler #4. InCritical Theory since Plato. Ed. Hazard Adams. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1971. 324-27. Joyce, Joyce. "Sonia Sanchez?' The Heath Anthologyof American Literature. Vol 2. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: Heath,1990. 2440-41. Kafica, Franz. "A Hunger Artist?' Trans. Wila Muir andEdwin Muir. In The Norton Introduction to Fiction. Ed. Jerome 13eaty.New York: Norton, 1985. 456-62. Malinowski, Bronislaw. Freedom and Civilization. NewYork: Roy, 1944. 1946. .Dynamics of Culture Change. Glenwood, IL: Greenwood, Greenwood, 1954. .Magic, Science. and Religion. Glenwood, IL: Martin, Wallace. Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithaca,NY: Cornell UP, 1986. MacDermott, Kathy. "Literature and the Grub StreetMyth." In Popular Fictions: Essays in Literature and History. Ed.Peter Humm, Paul Stigant, and Peter Widdowson. London: Methuen. 1986.16-28.

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Merton, Robert.Social Theory and Social Structure.New York: Free Press, 1968. Milch, Robert.Cliff's Notes on Virgil'sAeneid. Lincoln, NE: Cliff's Notes, 1963. Moglen, Helene.The Philosophical Irony of Laurence Sterne.Gainesville, FL: U of Florida P, 1975. Molesworth, Charles. "Rambo, Passion, and Power?'Dissent88 (Winter 1986): 109-11. Rollin, Roger B. "Beowulf to Batman: The Epic Hero and Pop Culture." College English31 (1970): 431-49. Rosenberg, Donna.World Mythology: An Anthology of the. Great Myths and Epics.Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company, 1989. Scholes, Robert, and Robert Kellogg.The Nature of Narrative.New York: Oxford UP, 1966. Sen, Abhijit. "Global Culture: American Pop Culture and the Third World." Proteus. 11.1(Spring 1994): 21-28. Shils, E., and M. Young. "The Meaning of the Coronation?'Sociological Review1.2 (1953): 63-80. Shumway, David R. "Post-Structuralism and Popular Culture?' InSymbiosis: Popular Culture and Other Fields.Ed. Ray B. Browne and Marshall Fishwick. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1988. 160-69. Slotkin, Richard.Regeneration through Violence.Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1973. Sterne, Laurence.Tristram Shandy.New York.: Airmont, 1967. Warner, William. "Spectacular Action: Rambo and the Popular Pleasures of Painr InCultural Studies.Ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Rn4 Paula A. Treichler. New York: Routledge, 1992. Webster, Grant.The Republic of Letters: A History of Postwar American Literary Opinion.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979. Young, Dennis. "Anthologies, Canonicity, and the Objectivist Imagination: The Case of George Oppenr Chapter 12, this volume.

126 10 The Intellectualand Pedagogical Valueof Traditional AfricanLiterature in the WesternClassroom

Erskine Peters University of Notre Dame

ethis essay is with the intellectualfunction of The central concern specific use knowledge and, specifically, withthe pedagogical value and classroom. of traditional African valuesand concepts in the Western Students who are descendantsof the African continentaldispersion certainly stand in profoundontological need of mformationabout precolonial African thought. Butwhile providing Africandescendants thought, one would need to takeadvantage with the legacy of African origins of of the opportunity to introduceall students in classes to the worldview. much of Western thought,particularly the modern Western origins and Few students know enoughabout the specific intellectual their highly currents of Europe andAmerica from which they draw naive are valued modern Westernidentities. Indeed, so intellectually make little general American students thatthey, like the general society, discrimination or see no distinction,for example, between democracy the and capitalist enterprise,particularly since freedom is seen as of both. Because the traditionalAfrican world- common denominator it can view often stands in contrast tothe modern Western worldview, the be intellectually stimulating,challenging, and rewarding to use African cultural view to introduceand discuss the Western. the Much has already been said overthe recent two decades about and spiritual, social, political,emotional, and intellectual processes black Americans have becomeengaged and en- patterns with which and tangled over the last severalcenturies due to the establishment historians,' execution by Europeans of theWest African slave trade. Black articulate, often social scientists, theologians,and artists have sought to of the dilemma as it revealsitself. in similar terms, the deep nature African in Carter G. Woodson and CharlesWesley's early study of the 13.1 (1989): 28-35, This essay appeared in TheWestern Journal of Black Studies and is used here with theirpermission. 115 116 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

American history opens with thestatement that "most historians know practically nothing about the Negroes inAfrica prior to their enslave- ment, and there has been littlesystematic effort to study them" (Woodson and Wesley 1). This unenlightened state is certainlythe effect of the calculation of the slavemaster. Until the enslavedfound themselves gradually ableto remove the dust from their owneyes the crucial bridge leading from the past for clarification of thepresent was often tragically nonexistent. The Trinidadian Lennox Brownstates "You give the human being a link in the continuum, a link to the humanpast when you approach him mythologically" (qtd. in Harrison28)and mythology is actually no more than the parables of history, personalor social, which the African American needed toreassemble. Theologian Albert Cleage perceives it to be of critical importancethat human beings need to know what they believe aboutthemselves and also the nature of the deity in whom they believe. Thus, hehas written that "the existence of Black people in America dependsentirely upon whetheror not it is possible to change the Blackman's theology" (Cleage xvii). To a great degree, then, knowledge,when it is allowed to do its work, heals the wounds ofa peculiar psychological condition. Foras we know rather fully now, most historical-culturalproblems create binds in the thoughts of the peoplewhich cannot be loosened by government mandate alone. Thegovernment mandate is only a signal of what needs to be doneon a psychological level. "The culture of slaverywas never undone for either masteror slave," write William Grier and Price Cobbsin their erstwhile controversial Black Rage."The civilization that tolerated slavery,"they continue, "dropped its slaveholding cloak butthe inner feelings remained. The 'peculiar institution' continues toexert its evil influence over the nation. The practice of slavery stoppedover a hundred years ago, but the minds of our citizens havenever been freed" (26). Even as lateas 1975, the Nigerian Chinweizu could writemost fervently in the opening paragraph of his commanding study,The West and the Rest of Us: "For nearly six centuriesnow western Europe and its diaspora have been disturbing the peace of the world.... And even now, the fury of their expansionist assaultupon the rest of us has not abated" (26). In its best sense, classroom teachingsurely is not a setting in which information packets are given out, but israther the setting for a process in which students and teachersare led out of various levels of ignorance. Thus, in its highest sense teaching isa ritual through which life can be created or restored. Thisprocess of restoration or creation is the essence of what was proclaimed with such fervorin the sixties when African

1 90 The Value of Traditional African Literature 117

Americans said that they needed to move into a stateof black awareness, indicating, too, that without the awareness therecould be no true coming of black power. Needless to say, black Americans still need to beinvolved in this birthing and regenerative process until the essentials seep sopervasively into the black community that the total schoolculture becomes seriously affected. The school culture would need to be soaffected that when the students come to the college classroomthey can be taken far beyond those primary stages of the awakening process.But now, much introductory work still has to be done on the collegelevel in terms of breaking the ground to initiate the student intothe profound resources residing in the traditional African background throughwhich contemporary life can be illuminated. It is rather common knowledge that for mostAmericans, history, which tends to be defined more as a past deemedworthy of recording by the power holders, than as a recordof the general human past, still has its beginning very much in one or twoplaces, that is, in Europe or the Bible or a confusionof both. Because of these very parochial but influential and dominant connotationswhich have gathered around the word history in the West, manywho continue to teach courses related to any aspect of the history of blackAmericans find that a great percentage of black American students arestill inclined to attempt to trace their past, quite exclusively,by way of Europe or the Bible. The culture of the heart of black Africastill has to be given its long-overdue attention if the black student coming of age inAmerica or any Western culture is to arrive at and maintain anadequate mental balance. Black American students must think very critically andconscientiously about what they are imbibing as history. What is it then that seems to happen in theblack American mind when it comes into possession of a greater degreeof knowledge of what 1,as happened during and before the courseof its historical American existence? What, one asks, do black Americanstudents, in general, yet recall of what existed in their African pastback beyond 1619 or so? For the most part, beyond 1619 their mindsbecome hazy or, more often than not, blank except for a fewimages of Egypt or other imperialistic African kingdoms. The generalblack American mind encounters after this point somethingof a psychological gulf, a void, a space of emptiness. Thisis a state of consciousness which can be, and has been, very debilitating, becausein light of this absence of historical knowledge Western history maintainsits dominance in having one believe that this Africanvoid, over which one finds oneself dangling, is yet, fundamentally, a void of degradationand nothingness.

12d 1 18 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns

Materials on the traditional African background suchas John S. Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy'can play a crucial role in quelling the intellectual turbulence in the minds of thosewho begin to entertain the foregoing questions and who undertake this spiritual and epistemological quest. With the use of Mbiti's work, for instance, the students' whole notion of existence is challenged. The firstfifty pages alone of Mbiti's work would be seminal. Essential concepts regarding time space, and religion are presented from anotherangle from that to which the American is accustomed. Theseessential differences cannot but shake the foundations of students' acquired thought patterns, while at the same time providing them withthe opportunity to retrieve an intellectual and spiritual heritage. As with any general study (e.g., de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth),one certainly cannot expect Mbiti to present the African worldview, yet Mbiti does provide an opening to the comprehension of Africa's general thought system and structure. The problem with the average college student inthe West is that he or she has no concrete perception of African traditional life as a developed and coherent system. Mbiti's book seeks mainlyto depict African societies as self-created and self-authenticating organi- zations and systems based upon African thought. Mbiti has been criticized for his obvious monotheistic Christian bias, but henever actually denies the existence of the indigenous spiritual hierarchy. In fact, he gives impressive primacy to the omnipresence ofa life filled with spirits in the African's everyday existence. Many African American students are only distinguishable from their European American counterparts in the same classroom to theextent that the African American student feels and hopes African societywas not savage, i.e., disorganized, incoherent, unreasoned. The black student generally does not have enough specific knowledge toprove that it was not, however. The psychological and intellectual boost for the African American student is in having come to know this specific knowledge rather than having to feel and hope it. Mbiti's work surelycan help Provide an opportunity and the specifics can then be pursued through the study of his bibliography and through investigation of studies published subsequent to Mbiti's. In Mbiti's work one reads, for example, that religion permeatesso deeply all aspects of life that it is difficult for one to isolate it simply as a segment of the culture, as is so often done in Western society. Writes Mbiti: Because traditional religions permeate all the departments of life, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular,

13 1 19 The Value of Traditional AfricanLiterature and between the religious andnon-religious, between the spiritual the material areas of life.Wherever the African is, there ishis religion: he carries it to the fieldswhere he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop; he takes itwith him to the beer party or to attend a funeral ceremony;and if he is educated, he takes religion with him to theexamination room at school or inthe university; if he is a politicianhe takes it to the houseof parliament. (2) Religion has this great an impact,asserts Mbiti, even though alarge vocabularies which number of African languageshave no word in their specifically means religion. In the sameline, and this may be even such as time and space, more revealing tothe Western student, concepts entities, are which Westerners take somuch for granted as separate often denoted by the samewords in African languages.The power of underestimated the revelations stimulated bythis African view cannot be begin not only to perceivehow they are affected by once the students be even these new ways of thinkingand being, but the revelations may more powerful inhelping students understandtheir historical circum- the position of their stances once they areable to place themselves in of the Western enslaved African ancestorswho encountered the shock reconstruct the concepts. Students arethen better able to trace and etc. evolution of African Americanjokes, tales, jazz, sorrow songs, slave trade They come to see through anenriched perspective that the were at war. meant that mental states,not simply men and women, In more specific terms, oncethe students have openedthemselves with this new frame ofreference, they usually find up to dealing and themselves on a new intellectualhorizon. The increased openness subsequent intellectual potency mayenable the students to be stimulated of the okl African to the point that they notonly want to know what all reality was about and waslike, but, ideally, they may bestimulated and still so very into rigorous inquiry aboutthe nature of that essential being con- obscured experience oftransition from being African to fronted with a major attempt totransform one into somethingelse, begin to know 'more slave, wretch, nigger, orwhat have you. Students in feeling of the nature of what thebondmen must have experienced world, because and thought when theybecame aware that in this new secular. not even of the greater separationof the sacred and the conversion to the European'sinterpretation of the Christianreligicn would make them a part ofwhat was considered thesociety of man. el Gibson, who urged For as it was decreed bythe Bishop of London, Dr. that spiritual attention begiven to the African in slavery:

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Christianity and the embracing of theGospel does not make the least alteration in civilproperty, or in any of the duties which belong to civil relations; but in theserespects, it continues persons just as in the same stateas it found them. (qtd. in Jones 21) Beyond the aforementioned, there isa series of other concepts offered by Mbiti which willprove to be just as provocative. If the students have had difficulty in graspingthe idea that religion permeates all aspects of life and that there isno great distinction between the sacred and the secular, chancesare that the students will havemore or at least as great difficulty with theconcept that relates to the traditional African view of the person to hisor her society. This is mainly because of the high emotional investmentsthat the Westerner placesupon the concept of individualism. Since individualismis a phenomenon that Western students assume they haveinherited by birthright rather than by culture, something crucial happenswhen the students encountera different concept of theperson presented through the African worldview. Students begin to see evenmore clearly that if they are to comprehend the world of their Africanancestors they will have to giveup something very great: their Western conceptualization ofthe self. For nearly all of their lives, Westernstudents' greatest ambition has been to live long enough to layclaim to their individuality. Their raison d'etre may very well have beenthe fact that they wanted to grow up and live as they pleased, to do what theywanted to do when they wanted to do it. Thus theymay become quite disarmed to hear Mbiti's assertion that in traditionalAfrican society, "To be human is to belong to the whole community, andto do so involves participating in the beliefs, ceremonies, ritualsand festivals of that community. Persons cannot detach themselves fromthe religion of theirgroup, for to do so is to be severed from theirroots, their foundation, their context of security, their kinships and theentire group of those who make them aware of their existence" (3). This realization can bea difficult and excruciating challenge to the Westerner but, nevertheless, in comingto grasp the distinction between what one may call African personhood,as opposed to individualism, the students find it easier to knowthe meaning of African traditional life when they are challenged aboutthe origin of their own values and their presumptions. If the studentshave been disarmed by Mbiti's assertions, when theyare led back to the origins of modern Western thought they may even becomemore astonished to learn that this individualism which theyseem so certain stems from their blood is not really older than the Protestant Reformationitself Students come to realize that their Westernsense of individuality has much of its basic

113 The Value of Traditional African LiteratUre 121 source in Luther's argumentsthat each person should be directly responsible to God, not to the Pope or hispriests, for the state of his or her conscience; thateach person should be able to interpret the scriptures for him- or herself under theauthority of his own conscience through God; and that these factors, coupledwith the rise of mercan- tilism and, then, industrialism and capitalism, arewhat have bequeathed to Westerners that to whichthey cling with great pride and know best as their individuality. The learning experience is thereforecompounded when African and European concepts are *explored historically.In learning more about their African history the students arealmost compelled to do more research into their European heritage. Theramifications are, of course, extensive. Nevertheless, when the students havehad time to recompose themselves from their new astonishment, they veryoften reenter the world with a much more magnificentintellectual charge. In a sense, they have been made naked, and theirintellectual sense has been magnified to a degree rather similar to that of anawestruck child. Certain ideas and forces, like individuality,while they do exist in various forms outside America neverthelessoften coalesce on the American scene with a peculiar intensity,producing what is called the American personality. Most students do notknow that this acceptable American personality type is not common toall cultures, ancient or contemporary, nor that it was formedby certain historical forces, key among which are Protestantism,capitalism and industriaiism, and the experience of the American frontier. But bybeing introduced to another worldview students can become enlightened notsimply about an African concept of the world but also abouttheir own peculiar historical selves. When the students begin to acquire a newbody of concepts and information, Africa becomes not only new,but actual. Among the numerous creations that havebeen handed down through the centuries from the African past are two works which seemto function exceptionally well in bringing about this newmental ordering through classroom discussion. One is the well-knownepic Sundiata, and the other is the relatively less-known butstupendous work from the region of the Republic of Zaire called TheMwindo Epic. Most of the attention here will be given to the latter. The prefatory remarks to Sundiata: An Epicof Old Mali made by a griot to the recorderD. T. Niane are especially stimulatingfor the minds of the students. From these cogentremarks the students not only acquire historical knowledge itself,but also some very special knowledge about the sacred place given tohistory in the culture of the ancient African empire of Mali and ofthe great sense of reverence

1 3 122 Pedagogical and Curricular Concerns shown to the knowledge-holders by the society. Studentslearn that the ancient griot, the authority of history, perceives himselfas "the memory of mankind." He is thought of as the vessel of speech,a repository which harbors "secrets many centuries old:' He isnot part of some random oral tradition, but is a part of a sophisticated oral tradition and belongs to a group of orators who have trained for longyears in the highly skilled "art of eloquence" (I). Indeed the students learnthat the knowledge and the art through which knowledge is transmittedare held in so much reverence in traditional African societies thatbefore one could attain to the degree of master in the area, the vow ofsecrecy often had to be taken concerning what could be revealed andhow it was to be revealed. In essence, the students learn that the griot is entrusted with preserving the keys to his people'scosmos and existence. They learn that the traditional griot would be grossly underrated ifhe were called simply a historian. The value of a people's cosmos and their interrelation with and obligation to it are the major themes of the centuries-old MwindoEpic. This work serves as a supreme example for presenting thestudents with a coherent African value system. In studying and examiningthis work the students observe an African system functioning for itself, articulating itself, and conserving and regenerating itself, therebysus- taining its people. It is precisely traditional African materials of this nature that can play a particularly significant role in bringing about the rebirth of the African American mind. Once the students are familiar with the world of The Mwindo Epic, they do not have to imagine, fantasize,or wish what was. As they begin to abstract the values and value system from sucha world as is presented here, they come to know whatwas. They begin to see more clearly that after all is said and done, the root of all the facets of oppression that the black American has had to deal with historically whether economic, political, or culturalis actually relatedto values and nothing else. They begin to understand how it is that whenone attempts to strip human beings of their values one is actually attempting to strip away their identity. Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth that "in orderto assimilate and to experience the oppressor's culture, the native hasto leave certain of his intellectual possessions in pawn" (49). Thus, when the students encounter materials suchas The Mwindo Epic, which is so vast in its richness, they understand that to a large degree they have made a journey down the road of time back to the pawnshop to reclaim their original African identity. 123 The Value of TraditionalAfrican Literature in a time long ago, The general story ofThe Mwindo Epic is that Chief Shemwindo, that is, far back intothe mythic-historical past, child, Mwindo, builds avillage called Tubondo. father of an unwanted calling them together Chief Shemwindo marries sevenwomen, and, after the entire community,forbids any of these wives before an assembly of sister, lyangura, him a son. ChiefShemwindo has one royal ever to bear wives, this royal sister and during theimpregnation of all the seven Spirit and moves away to adistant village. marries Mutitti the Water she is supposed to This royal sister isimportant because by custom the chief's actions. have some sway over wives never to bear It is Chief Shemwindo'smandate to his seven that activates the plotof the story. In thetelling of the a male child by Chief Shernwindo story the value systemof the culture, violated the village elders, islaid out for us. Such a with the complicity of male children leads mandate that none of hiswives should bear him personal values andmotivations. us directly towonder about the chief's chief's decree, a series ofquestions is immediately As soon as we hear the it is that drives this generated in our minds.We want to know what greed? Is it jealousy?Or all? Then we want to chief: Is it vanity? Is it against. How and to know what forces andvalues he as chief is going accountable? And probablymost of all, what whom will he be held of posing such questions,then, we as students will be his sentence? In interest in the outcomeof the African past havenot simply expressed simultaneously expressed aninterest in this particular the story but have of the people, andtheir culture's values, themorals and the ethics short, its cosmology Forit is the chief whois judicial system; in of the community's expected to be therepresentative and caretaker therefore of its life. Butthe way we posethese sacred values and own values and questions as Westernersalso says a lot about our expectations. royal wife or preferred As fate would haveit, it is Chief Shemwindo's the line of successionwould naturally proceed, wife, the one from whom is alone among the who is the longest indelivering her child and who forcefully has the chiefmade clear seven wives tobear a male child. So be upheld, that whenthe male child is bornthe that his decree should in the form of a cricket, midwives are terrified toreveal it. It is an agent hut at the time of theboy's birth, who informs who is present in the the chief first attempts Chief Shemwindo of theevent. In his outrage, throwing his spear into thehut while the motherand to kill his son by named Mwindo the midwives are stillthere. But this unusual son, the female births, outof because he is the firstmale child to follow all

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compassion asks the godsfor protection for hismother and the midwives, which the godsdo grant. In time the midwives are able to flee from the danger.The chief is exhausted from his uselessattempts to destroy hisson and proceeds to carry out an alternative solution by calling in his eldersand asking them to take the childout to bury it which they do. this is an unusual child, But, as stated, who, guided by higherspirits, is not only able to understand what is going on soon after his birth, but whowas doing a great deal of meditating andruminating while still in his womb. He is such mother's a precocious and maturelydeveloped child that he even decides how or from whatpart of his mother's body he to be born. He chooses to be wishes born from her medius,that is, her middle finger, because he feelsthat to come naturallyfrom her womb is degrading to one of his foreordainedgreatness or prowess. All of this is because he viewswomen as weaker than men and, not want it thought that he therefore, does emanates from a weaker form thanhimself. Not unexpectedly, then,this unusual child, when buried by the village carried out and counselors and elders, howlsfrom beneath the grave and calls out a curseupon his father, saying in father will be brought essence that his to judgment. Because the childMwindo has the protection of the good spirits,and is, in a sense, theiragent of retribution or justice, at the time of his birthhe was given fouremblems or instruments which he can always call upon to aid in hisdeliverance or salvation. They are (1)a conga-scepter, a sacred emblem instrument of the hero's physical and and mental force; (2)an adze, a small cutting instrument, often associated with those who havethe authority to perform masked dancesor to organize the traditional ceremonies circumcision; (3) a small utility of bag, also symbolic of thespirit of good fortune; and (4) arope or cord, a kind of magkal line is able to use to communicate which Mwindo with his paternal auntIyangura. Thus, making use of these instruments, Mwindo arises from thegrave in the night and returns to hismother's hut. From this point onward the chief engages members ofthe village in a number of acts of desperation.Two swimmersare ordered to take the child Mwindo, who hasbeen sealed in a drum, the river and leave him, to the bottom of and when Nyamwindo hismother is found weeping for her son, the chief turns her into hismost despised wife and threatens to throw herinto the river also. Theearth and the heavens revolt at all the chief'sactions and send rains for and seven nights, bringing seven days much hardship to the village.The appropriate spiritual course for Mwindo to take now is to make hisway to the village of his aunt to call upon her to exert her counsel andsacred

1 3 6 125 The Value of TraditionalAfrican Literature is beset with influence over her brother.Mwindo's path to this aunt there and explains thecir- many obstructions,but he finally arrives becomes apparent nowis that ChiefShemwindo's cumstances. What life and of the steadfastness in his violationof the sanctity of human natural order will betested. finds that more than toseek out his aunt's In due course, one pride, has also gone to influence, Mwindo, in allof his prowess and organize forces to moveagainst his father. In his aunt's village to he also ignores therisks ignoring his aunt's appealsto him to relent, growth as he stands readyto proceed. Sincethe aunt to his own moral decides to accompany understands that Mwindowill not give in, she horrified that in the outcomethe father will him with her maidens, that a complication destroy or vanquish the son.By this time, we notice character of the sonMwindo. Although born has also arisen in the presumptuous about his with the blessings of thegods, he becomes haughty and boastful,overflowing own strengthsand powers, and is begins to some degree tostand in violation with pride. Thus he, too, individual should think of the values of thecommunity in which the of the community and nothimself, and in first about the preservation of the chosen and which youth is expectedto heed the counsel his aunt. For in theend, after all of his experienced elders, such as will himself be called to virtuous triumphs,Mwindo, like his father, gods for his ownunrestrained passions, which give account before the faultily according to lead him to thinkindividualistically and therefore Tubondo culture. intention of entering into In seeing his sonapproaching with the his boasting and arrogance,can onlyperceive combat, the father, in all and arrogance blind the son as a swaggeringfool. The father's pride and the father soonfinds that it is bug for him to his son's strength, ordeals and this point onward,through the many him to flee. From in order to capturehis trials through whichMwindo will have to pass to be focused uponto what indeedwill the father, the suspense seems search or his father once heseizes him. But Mwindo's son subject much a quest oradventure quest for thefather turns out to be as himself, the heir apparentto the throne, has to during which Mwindo he has worthy of that positionand demonstrate that prove himself the responsibility attained the appropriatelevel of wisdom to assume belongs not to anindividual but to thesociety. of the position, which take his father Consequently, before he isallowed by the gods to learn about the true nature captive, among otherthings Mwindo has to self-esteem, dignity,compassion, and true prowess. of pride, respect, to be to teach the The overall lessonof all of these values appears

3 126 Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns

would-be ruler Mwindo thateven the man of heroic make it totally proportions cannot on his own. For in the thinkingof Mwindo's Aunt lyangura, "The lonely pathis not nice; it that could kill never fails to find something a man" (79). All of this hadto be well learned before the guiding spirits reveal to Mwindo that the majorobjective for seeking out his father is notrevenge, as he might have been but instead to bring his inclined to think, father to the bench ofjustice. Thus, when all the lessons are learned,Mwindo is given his forces are about a mandate that when he and to seize Chief Shemwindo,the son is not to lay his hands upon him.It will be the son's duty in bringing their to direct his assistants captive back to thecommunity. Here, in Chief Shemwindo's being broughtto stand in shame for the attempted against his crime he has son, nature, and the communitybecauseof his greed for the dowries ofmarriage which daughters out of jealousy of a could bring, and son as a rival force to hispowerthe misfortunes that the chief hasbrought upon the community reversed. can begin to be But in the shaming ofthe chief also by the community. comes the admission of guilt The shame has to beshared in order forthe redemptive ritual to becompleted; for itwas after all the community elders themselves who permitted the chiefto go as far in hisextremes as he did. There is a reciprocalresponsibility and relationship with a system of values connected which exists between theruler and the people and between the peopleand the ruler if the and live on. The pursuit community is toprosper and expression ofindividual passions putthe future of the societyat great risk. Misfortune is thus turnedinto fortune and the be an agent or tool for past can be made to rebirth and regenerationonce those responsible admit their errors. Such was the lesson Mwindo learned,and when he did become chief ofTubondo he was able laws or commandments to create a set of ninegreat that expressed what hehad learned: (1) May you growmany foods and many crops. (2) in good houses; May you live may you moreover live ina beautiful village. (3) Don't quarrel withone another. (4) Don't (5) Don't mock the invalid pursue another's spouse. passing in the village. (6)And he who seduces another's wife willbe killed! (7) Accept the him; may he also fear chief; fear you. (8) May you agree withone another, all together; no enmity inthe land nor too much you bring forth tall and short hate. (9) May children; in so doingyou will bring them forth for the chief.(144) It is not necessaryto go on at length about of such a work the great moral worth as The Mwindo Epic, exceptto say that everyone should

1 3 427 The Value of TraditionalAfrican Literature and by reflecting experience that greatnessthrough reading the text and how that meaningis artistically achieved.Teachers upon its meaning Mwindo Epic and students may all come awayfrom a work like The informationsome stuff to fillthe void with more than knowledge as leads to insight. Onelearns not only of an but with knowledge which about the rationale actual African value system,but also something value system is grounded.Therefore, one becomes upon which the The void of acquainted with a traditionalAfrican concept of living. being filled, but in itsbeing filled the African heritage,then, is not or it begins to serve aregenerative function ofbuilding psychological students who needsomething to stand on as security for those black knowledge sheds an they walk into the pastbeyond 1619. This new of African American essential light upon theseeds of hidden aspects for the stimulationof new gowth in under- existence and provides for study through standing also the Europeanheritage if undertaken historical comparison. the experience of thevillage of Tubondo, After having learned from witnessed about the African all that one has everread, heard, or European past comesunder a new scrutiny. American past and the possibility and all of Every African Americantale may have a new and phrasings in thefolk ballads and the those tones and moods other degrees of interpre- spirituals take on evendeeper meanings and higher level, one may sensethe intellectual and tation. On a much that in traditional emotional potency of whatMbiti means when he says African society closely linked, and oftenthe same word is space and time are which defines used for both. As withtime, it is the content provides (the people) withthe roots of exist- space.... The land their departed. People ence, as well asbinding them mystically to their forefathers, and itis feared that walk on the graves of disaster to anything separating themfrom these ties will bring life. To remove Africansby force from family and community foreigner can their land is an act ofsuch great injustice that no fathom it. (34-35) discovering and This entire approachof walking into the past, about black Americanlife could be extended, illuminating the unknown of art, include the use oftraditional African concepts no doubt, to revelations which may be music, or dance. Inmusic, there are endless precise knowledge of themeanings associated derived from having more the beats, rhythms, orinstruments; or in art with with various African a knowledge significance of the unique useof proportion. Needless to say, factors combined offersthe of the significanceof all of these many

13 128 Pedagogical and CurricularConcerns utmost challenge to the enlightenment,rebirth, and the African Americanlife-force. The revitalization of the past strengthens new or alternativeway of seeing African Americans'intellectual force, minds, and bringsa new sense of value expands their uncertain regard for to what may havebeen a rather their cultural andracial identity.

Note

I. Some scholarsare skeptical of Mbiti's biases. However,Mbiti's introduction work owing to hisChristian serves as a fine to African Religionsand Philosophy avenue into traditionalAfrican cosmology. for example, findsMbiti's book useful Anozie (52-61), of synchronic for his own discussion and .diachronictime but is critical of the poetics concerning expressionof the future of Mbiti's explanation ularly perturbed tense in African languages. that Mbiti'sconcept of the future in He is partic- sense of time "shouldbe limited to the general African that Mbiti states two years andno more, no less" and quite "categorically,that in Africa, 'people active interest inevents that lie in the have little orno from now (52-61).I think, however,future beyond, atmost, two years other critics, misses that Professor Anozie,like numerous the tone of cautionwhich Mbiti book from theoutset. attempts to inject in his

Works Consulted

Anozie, Sunday a Structural Models andAfrican Poetics. and Kegan Paul,1981. London: Rout ledge Beibuyck, Daniel R,and Kahombo C. Epic. Berkeley and Mateene, eds., trans.The Mwindo Los Angeles: U ofCalifornia P, 1971. Chinweizu. The Westand the Rest of Us. New York:Vintage, 1975. Cleage, Albert B., Jr.Black Christian Black Church. New Nationalism: NewDirections for the York: WilliamMorrow, 1972. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth.New York: Grove, Grier, William H.,and Price M. Cobbs. 1968. 1968. Black Rage. NewYork: Basic Books, Harrison, Paul Carter.Kuntu Drama. New Jones, Charles Colcock. York: Grove, 1974. The ReligiousInstruction of the Negroes States. Savannah:Thomas Purse, 1842. in the United Press, 1971. Freeport, NY: Booksfor Libraries Mbiti, John S.African Religions and Anchor Books, 1970. Philosophy. New York:Doubleday Niane, D. T., ed. Sundiata: An Epic ofOld Mali. London: Woodson, Carter G., Longman, 1965. and Charles Wesley.The Negro in Our Washington, DC:Associated Pubs., 1972. History. 12th ed.

1 4 IV "New" Texts

141 1 1 Haroun'sMystic Journey: Salman Rushdie'sHaroun and the Sea ofStories

Aron Aji and KatrinaRunge Butler University

have Sacred?" Salman Rushdieasks if art might not In "Is Nothing and spiritual worlds;might the power to mediate"between the material both worlds, offer ussomething newsomething it, by 'swallowing' His called a seculardefinition of transcendence?" that might even be And I believe that, atits answer: "I believeit can. I believe it must. Homelands 420). ForRushdie, then, art, like best, it does" (Imaginary "exaltation," "awe," and religion, ought to satisfy ourneed to know "transcendence": that "flightof the human "wonder," and to experience The confines of its material,physical existence, .. . spirit outside the in some way joined tothe sense of being morethan oneself, of being whole of life" (421). Rushdie's Haroun andthe As a number ofcritics have observed, published in the same year,affirms faith in creativity Sea of Stories, Rushdie's fondness formagical and the power ofnarrative and evidences fantastic. David Appelbaumpoints to the "fabulous realism and the Lurie Haroun "is alively, creations" in Haroun(132), while for Alison comic tale with anupdated Arabian Nights wonderfully inventive "supernatural" elements background" from whichit also derives its describes various aspectsof Haroun as being (1). Jean-Pierre Durix "me- "magical" (115),"science-fiction" (121), or "miraculous" (114), both valid and valuable, tafictional" (117). Whilethese observations are of art as "seculartranscend- they fail to accountfor Rushdie's notion his informs not only histheoretical position, but ence"a notion that or well. The onlyallusions to transcendence creative practice as Carlo Coppola, bothof mysticism are made inpassing by Durix and and Rushdie's firstnovel whom observe anaffinity between Haroun draw from the Suficlassic The Conferenceof Grimus, since both texts neither critic explores the Birds (Durix 121;Coppola 234). And yet, journey. the mysticalpossibilities of Haroun's 131

142 132 "New" Texts

The progression of Haroun'sfairy-tale journey froma state of uncertainty and doubt toone of intense commitment and transcendent attainment runs parallel to thatof the mystic questas described by Sufi esoterism and as articulated in the teachings of Jalal al-DinRumi (1207-73). This parallelism holdstrue except for the fact that the ultimate object of theyoung hero's attainment is thesource of all stories, rather than the Sufi'sDivine Beloved, the Source ofCreation. Yet, this variationproves necessary since the fairy tale idea that stories advocates the can offer the kind of transcendent experienceusually associated with religious mysticism,as Rushdie claims in "Is Nothing Sacred?" Our reading of Haroun fromthe perspective of Sufi mysticism involves a parallel examination of, first, the hero's transformationas he attempts to find thesource of all stories (which entailsa fantastic trip to the moon Kahani and its Ocean of Stories), and,second, the mystic path, described in theteachings of Rumi, that bringsthe Sufi initiate to a union with God. Inattempting such an examination,it is useful to outline first the maintenets of Sufi mysticism and its of attainment. path To a large extent, classical Sufi doctrine is derived fromliterary works and inspirational writings, such as Farid ud-Din Attar'sThe Conference of the Birds and Bookof Secrets, or Rumi'srecorded teachings and poetry in hisMasnavi. At the core of Sufimysticism is the longing for God thatmust culminate in the transcendentunion with Him. Such a union is the confirmation of Wahdad al-Wujud(the oneness of body/being), the concept thatdefines the universeas the single and comprehensive creationof God, in which everythingtransient and relative, including the Sufiseeker, is part of His all-permanentand absolute Being. The mystic quest consists of three stages, allentailing arduous learning and discovery about the self, the world, and Godas the source and all-encompassingessence of creation. While an enlightened Sufi teacher provides theseeker with inspiration andguidance during the early part of thequest, the ultimate union with God isan intensely personal experienceand therefore remains theseeker's responsibility. In the firststage, the Sufi initiatesmove from uncertainty to the realization that there isan all-encompassing whole to which they belong. This realization,initially empirical in nature,has to be internalized and rendered sincere(ihsan). To this end, the seekersmust undermine their egos andunderstand their identities interms of this belonging. The seekers thenenter the second stage of surrenderor absorption, in which they striveto abandon conventional and relativistic truths, and to cultivate an inward purification in preparation forthe

143 1 33 Salman Rushdie'sHaroun and the Sea of Stories experience of the divine presence withinand all around them. Only through intense absorption in thepursuit can the seekers ultimately reach the supreme stagethetranscendent attainment or union with the divine that is Wahdadal-Wujud. Inevitably, what follows the "moment" of attainment isseparationthe seekers' return to the mundane. Since every worldly thing nowrecalls the divine, the Sufis experience sorrow and nostalgia, andthey desire the quest, this time even with more intensitybecause of having once tasted theincomparable joy of attainment. Haroun's search for the source of storiesis initiated when his mother, Soraya, leaves him and his father,Rashid Khalifa, because Rashid has too much imaginationfor his own good. As her newsuitor, Mr. Sengupta, tells Soraya: "That husbandof yours.. .. [h]e's got his head stuck in the air and his feet off theground. .. . What's the use of stories that aren't even true?" (20). Rashidis devastated; he loses his ability to tell stories. As for Haroun,he cannot "get [Sengupta's] terrible question out of his head" (20). Hisuncertainty, however, does not signify a loss of his faith in stories somuch as his need to confirm it, a condition similar tothe Sufi's desire concerning attainment.Rumi states, "So long as you have anappetite and exhibit utter desire,[divine blessing] comes toward you and becomes yourfood. But when appetite and inclination fail .. .[i]t hides its face in the veil and does notshow you its face" (129; unlessotherwise specified, Rumi citations arefrom Discourses). An important feature of themystic quest is that its motivation and its object of attainment are closelylinked since the "food" that sustains the Sufi's "appetite andinclination" comes in the form ofworldly phenomena that manifest the divine. Inorder to recognize and benefit from this nourishment, the Sufiinitiate receives the guidance of an enlightened teacher. For Haroun, Rashidand his stories provide similar guidance and motivation. What Rumi saysabout "words" applies to Rashid's stories: "They set yousearching and excite you, not that the object of the quest should be attainedthrough words" (202). For the Sufi, words are linked to meaning as"branches" to "root," or as "forms" to "realit?' (55), offeringguidance and direction toward their source. As Rumi explains,"God revealed this present worldin order that you may acknowledge the other stageswhich yet lie ahead" (32). Likewise, the reason Haroun constantlyasks his father to tell him where "all these stories comefrom" (16) is that they compel him to imagine a source beyond themselves.Rashid's answerthat his stories come from "the greatStory Sea" (17)sounds like yetanother story

144 134 "New" Texts to Haroun and therefore excites himeven more to pursue the source of stories. Rashid's stories also offer Haroun mental trainingsimilar to that offered by the Sufi teacher, whouses poems, stories, and anecdotes in order to prepare the initiate for thequest. One particular effect of Rashid's stories has distinct mystical possibilities:"His stories were really lots of different tales juggled together,and Rashid kept them going in a sort of dizzy whirl andnever made a mistake" (16). The dizzying imagery suggests the kind ofentrancement induced through music, chanting, poetry, and whirling by the Sufis.Moreover, Rashid's juggling causes the stories to blur intoone circling entity, preventing even the loyal listener (Haroun) from recognizing themas single, separate forms. In a mystical sense, this blurringcan lead the mind to free itself from attachment to outward formsand differences so that it becomes ready to bear witness to Wahdad al-Wujud.The more Rashid juggles his stories, the more Haroun is capableof going past the individual talesthe branchesin order tocontemplate where they come fromtheir root. In this regard, hisprogress mirrors Rumi's advice to the initiate: "Though to outward formthey are of various kinds and differ widely in their states andacts and words, from the standpoint of the object it is one thing only, namely thequest of God" (34). Thus having been raised with his father's stories,Haroun turns out to have already begun acquiring the knowledgenecessary to move from a state of uncertainty to the realization that stories domatter. His education continues when he travels to Dull Lake,where he witnesses firsthand the power of imagination and "theuse of stories that aren't even true." Haroun takes the trip with his father, who is invited by the politician Mr. Buttoo to tell stories ata campaign rally. This trip proves important, for everything Haroun learnsprepares him for his mystic quest to the fantastic moon, Kahani. On theway to Dull Lake, he is able to persuade Butt the Mail Coach Driverto speed up so that they can view the Valley of K before sunset and be filled with its legendary magnificence. Because Haroun initially learns aboutthe Valley of K from his father, he believes that the view will uplift Rashid'ssoul and perhaps inspire him to conjure his lost stories. WhatHaroun hopes will happen to his father is akin to the experienceof the Sufi initiate, who is inspired to pursue God through the objectsthat reflect His essenceobjects in which the initiatecan witness shining "the light of the Majesty of God" (48). Rashid needs tosee the magnificent lake so that he can find the inspiration to imagine magnificenceonce again.

1 4 Sa limn Rushdies Haroun and the Sea of Stories 135

Rashid thanks Haroun for bringing him to view the valley, yethe admits, "I thought we were all fixed good and proper, I meandone for, finito, khattam-shud" (39). Responding to Haroun's curiosityabout the last expression, the father explains: "Khattam-Shud ...is the Arch- Enemy of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is thePrince of Silence and the Foe of Speech. And because everything ends,because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at the finish of everything we use his name. 'It's finished,' we tell one another, 'it's over.Khattam-Shud: The End' " (39). Rashid's explanation introduces Haroun to thevillain he will encounter in Kahani and to the fundamentaltruth that opposition and negation are integral to any human venture. InKahani, Haroun will discover that Khattam-Shud is the enemywithin: he belongs in the very tradition of stories that he is intent ondestroying. His condition of belonging, however, is also what givesstories the ability to contain and, by containing, to transcend his destructive power. This is indeed the fate assigned to Khattam-Shud: he is forevercontained in the story entitled "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" thatRashid tells about his little boy toward the end of the fairy tale. Thewisdom about Khattam-Shud that Haroun will come to grasp fully by theend of his journey to Kahani recalls the Sufi creed on the containmentof opposites and the nature of God, who is both manifest in andtranscends things good and evil. Just as evil is in the world to promulgatebelief in God, Khattam-Shud is a constant presence in stories in order topromulgate belief in stories. When the group enters the Valley of K, Haroun notices itswelcome sign, altered to read, "WELCOME TO KOSH-MAR," whichoccasions for him another invaluable lesson with mystical implications.Rashid tells his son that the valley now known as K has had several namesin its past, i.e., "Kache-mer," the "Franj" word for"the place that hides a Sea," and "Kosh-Mar," which means "nightmare" (40).Rashid also instructs Haroun that "all names mean something" (40).In other words, one can uncover the valley's forgotten origin by charting out a path back through its names. The meaning-origin linkageagain recalls Rumi's figurative "branch-root" metaphor representing therelationship between all things created and their divine source. ForHaroun, Rashid's wisdom about the names has to do with how the little boy can rescue his father's stories: by tracing them, as he will, all the wayback to their wellspring. Throughout the tale, Haroun becomes less dependent onhis father just as he becomes more confident in his ability to findhis own answers. In turn, his developing sense of confidence leads todiscoveries of increasing significance, as though the world aroundhim reveals its

146 136 "New" Texts riches according to his ability. "There is no end to words [wisdom];' Rumi asserts, "but they are imparted according to the capacity of the seeker"; this is why "one man comes along whom oceans do not satisfy [while] another man finds a few drops enough, andmore than that would be harmful to him" (41). Haroun makes his most important discovery yet when the travelers reach the Dull Lake, which, to Haroun's amazement, mirrors "the Tale of the Moody Land... oneof Rashid Khalifa's best-loved stories" (47). He notices that the land surrounding the lake is as "temperamental" as the Moody Land in his father's story In both places, "the sun would shine all night if there were enough joyful people around...and when people got angry the ground would shake" (48). Facing a dense "Mist of Misery" hovering over the Dull Lake that he attributes to his father's sadness, Haroun asks Rashid whether the lake is the place in the story The father replies, "The Moody Land was only a story, Haroun.... Here we're somewhere real" (48). Contrary to his father's claim, however, Haroun chooses to conduct an experiment, and with "a new note of authority [that] had come into his voice" (49), he tells the people around him: "Think of the happiest times you can remember. Think of the view of the Valley of K we saw when we came through the Tunnel of I. Think of your wedding day" (50). Sure enough, the mist "tore apart like the shreds of an old shirt and drifted away on a cool night breeze" (50). This incident marks a crucial turning point in Haroun's development, on four counts. First, he makes the connection between stories and reality. Second, he trusts his own judgment despite that of his father. Third, he effects a change, driven by inner conviction and inspired by Rashid's story. Fourth, all by himself, he tests and confirms the transformative power of imagination. "He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real" (50). Haroun's turning point is also meaningful in light of the mystic path he is traveling. His movement from ignorance to realization is almost complete since he has not only witnessed firsthand thepower of stories but also become capable of exercising that power. At this point, however, Haroun's knowledge about stories is, in Sufi terminology, an "intellectual" knowledge, based as it is on empirical evidence and deductive reasoningi.e., if the real world is magical, then stories can be real. He can achieve the full realization necessary for entering the next stage of the mystic path only when his intellectual knowledge gives way to faith. It is also important to note the change in the father-son relationship resulting from the changes in Haroun. Haroun's dismissal of Rashid's Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories 137 claim that stories are not real signals a critical shift of control and authority from the father to the son, who, of course, thanks to his father's teachings, is now able to heed the wisdom Of stories without outside guidance. The fairy tale accentuates this critical shift in a scene during the restless night the father and son spend aboard Mr. Buttoo's houseboat, "Arabian Nights Plus One:' Haroun and Rashid are given separate sleeping quarters in which neither is able to sleep. Haroun finds the oversized turtle-shell-shaped bed too strange and Rashid is equally disturbed by his enormous peacock-shaped bed. Father and son switch places. The belly of the fanciful peacock seems appropriate for Haroun, who will lead the pursuit, while the shell of the aged and experienced turtle befits Rashid, who no :onger leads but lets Haroun guide his own endeavors. The same night, Haroun encounters the flamboyant Iff, the Water Genie, who will guide him on the journey to Kahani. It is likely that Haroun conjures Iff in a dream, given that the boy "had just dozed off when he was woken by a creaking and a rumbling and a groaning and a mumbling" (54). This likelihood is further reinforced by the fact that Haroun's adventure in Kahani takes place "in a single night" (204) and he finds himself back in Mr. Buttoo's houseboat the morning after. In this light, Iff can be viewed as a materialization of Haroun's imagination, his inner yearning to travel to where magic worlds are real so that he can restore his father's talent. In fact, much of what Iff tells Haroun about Kahani and its Ocean of the Streams of Story consists of variations on details that the boy has previously learned from his father's stories, indicating that Haroun's imagination plays a vital role throughout his entire quest in Kahani. True action on the mystic path, says Rumi, "is an inward meaning" (86). By the same token, Iff the Water Genie, born as he is out of Haroun, is the affirmation of the boy's "inward meaning:' Iff is especially instrumental in enabling Haroun to proceed from his intellectual knowledge about stories to faith in them, thereby taking the crucial step that concludes his stage of realization. As though pointing out the limitations of intellectual knowledge, the Genie first asks Haroun to use his Discon- necting Tool and tap a seemingly empty space where Rashid's Story Tap is presumably fixed. "Ding went the Disconnecting Tool as it struck something extremely solid and extremely invisible" (59), leading Haroun to wonder if it is possible to believe in what is not visible. Iff then tells Haroun, "Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble," and says that he would do better to "choose what he cannot see," that is, to act on faith. In this instance, Iff's wisdom echoes that in Rumi's words: "You must labor to acquire [and trust] 138 "New" Texts an inward light, that you may escape and be secure from this mire of confusion" (102). Thus willing to act on faith, Haroun is ready to move to the next stage of the mystic path, to be absorbed wholly by the pursuit of stories and ultimately of their wellspring. In order to get to Kahani, Iff suggests that Haroun choose from among the miniature birds in the palm of his hand. Iff is especially pleased when Haroun picks the Hoopoe, the "crested bird that was giving him a sidelong look through one highly intelligent eye" (64). Iff explains that in the old stories, the Hoopoe guides other birds to their destination. The best-known of these old stories is, of course, the Sufi classic, The Conference of the Birds by Attar, which describes the birds' journey to mystical attainment. Haroun's choice, therefore, is very telling. Just as Attar's Hoopoe guides thirty birds to Simorgh, literally meaning thirty birds (Attar 16), so will Butt, Haroun's Hoopoe, guide the little boy on his journey to Kahani whose end will be none other than Haroun and the Sea of Stories. That Haroun and Butt the Hoopoe communicate telepathically also points to the mystical possibilities of their association. Though two separate beings, they are bound by the same purpose and can mirror each other's inner meanings. On the second stage of the mystic path, the Sufi seekers strive to surrender their being completely to the call of the quest. This surrender involves a sincere devotion to understandingno longer intellectually but spirituallythe nature of what Rumi calls the "unseen world" of God (102), and to serving Him. All the seekers' efforts at this stage are aimed at preparing them for the utmost stage of attainment, when their wills become one with the will of God. This preparation requires a slow and diligent process of self-emptying, in which the seekers struggle to divorce themselves from earthly preoccupations, their desire for self-control, and all of their selfish interests. The emptier of such attachments become the seekers, the more room they make in themselves for the all-subsuming union with the divine. Haroun's journey on Kahani's ocean clearly echoes many of the features of this second stage of the mystic path. After his affirmation of faith, Haroun's customary skepticism decreases significantly. He is willing to take Iff; and later, Butt, on their word, letting them lead the way to Kahani. The boy finds it easy to trust his companions, perhaps because the two belong to and seem intimately familiar with the magical worlds in which Haroun chooses to invest his faith. Once in Kahani, Haroun soon realizes that he is a part of the world of stories, having acquired a great deal of intellectual knowledge about them and their power through his previous experiences. However, especially in the earlier part of the journey. Haroun's faith is rivaled by the worldly Sa Iman Rushdie's Haroun and theSea of Stories 139 concerns that still lingerin his mind and inhibit hisconcentration on his quest. The boy is stillworried about his father's lost talentand his mother's desertion. He must alsodeal with his short, eleven-minute attention span, which he acquiredwhen his mother left them andhis father, angry and forlorn, crushedall the clocks in the house atexactly eleven o'clock. The little boy's mental unrestbecomes most evident when Iffgives him a vial of Wishwater toingest and tells him to make awish. He takes a gulp, and finds that a"golden glow was all around him,and inside him, too; and everything was veryvery still, as if theentire confused as cosmos were waiting uponhis command" (70). Yet he is for to what wish to make,whether to ask for his mother's return or the recovery of his father'stalent, and when eleven minutes passand early he loses his concentration, theWishwater's power wears out. This what Rumi on his journey, it seems,Haroun has not yet escaped from calls "the mire of confusion"that inhibits the seeker's resolve.Since the boy is still thinking in termsof outward distinctions, he isunable to realize that what he sees asconflicting wishes are actually oneand control; his the same. Moreover, Harounis still attached to ideas of wishes cannot come true unlesshe ceases to think that "theentire universe [was] waiting uponhis command." Just as the speakerin one of Rumi's verses asks, "Pour[the wine] in mY mouth / I'velost the way to my mouth"(Unseen Rain 69), Haroun too mustlet Kahani and its ocean work their magic onhim. Such surrender is very important because the less he thinks ofhis father's talent and his mother'sreturn, the more he can become onewith Kahani's magic (and,paradoxically, "Whe the closer he gets to fulfillinghis wishes concerning his parents). world of the a man has acquiredsuch an inward light [of the unseen divine]," says Rurni, "all mundanecircumstances appertaining to this heart world such as rank, command,vizierate, shining upon his inward pass like alightning-flash" (102). With as much concentration ashe can muster after theincident of the with the Wishwater, Harounbegins to take in all the wonders Ocean that are revealed to him.This is how he learns aboutthe nature the Old Zone of the story streams thatspring from the Wellspring in of Kahani, and that mix with oneanother to create new storiesfrom is so amazed by the Ocean thatwhen Iff the old. Already, Haroun that the offers him "water from asingle, pure Stream of Story .. . so magic of the story can restorehis spirit ," the boy drinks it"without saying a word" (72). Harounalso discovers conflict inKahani: the destroy the pollution spreading throughoutthe Ocean, threatening to stories. Butt the Hoopoe attributesthe occurrence to Khattam-Shud 140 "New" Texts

whom Haroun readily remembers, ofcourse, from his father's stories. As the travelers reach Gup City, thenature of the conflict becomes clearer to Haroun, who finds out aboutthe two lands of Kahani, Gup and Chup, and the Twilight Stripbetween the two that was formed when the Gup scientists, the Eggheads,halted the rotation of the moon to keep Gup in perpetual light and Chup indarkness. The peoples of Kahani are in bitter rivalry: the Guppees,who revel in disagreements and long arguments, are the defendersof stories and speech, while the Chupwalas, the subjects of the censoriousKhattam-Shud, are intent on plugging the Wellspring, eradicating stories, and drowningthe moon in complete silence. A lesser calamityperhaps is the kidnapping of the Gup Prince Bolo's beloved, PrincessBatcheat, by the Chupwalas. By the time Haroun finds himself amidstthe Guppees, who are getting ready for war and shouting their battlecries, "Save the Ocean" and "For Batcheat and the Ocean" (91), the littleboy is almost completely absorbed in the reality of Kahani,so much so that when his father suddenly appears in Gup City, he is utterlyastonished (98). The strife in Kahani shows Haroun that savingthe Ocean and its Wellspring ought to be the greater missionat hand than that of recuperating his father's talent and havinghis mother back. His discovery goes a long way toward alleviatingthe internal discord that had previously frustrated his wishesabout his parents. In fact, his father's unexpected appearance in Kahaniis the material evidence for the gradual coalescence of Haroun's goals,albeit unbeknownst to him at this point. Furthermore, what happened to Haroun in theValley of K happens to him again in Kahani. As with the true mystic,the more he learns about the story moon, themore capable he is of witnessing its subtler truths so he can save the Wellspring.Accompanying the Gup scouzing party and his father to the Twilight Strip, Harounmeets the Chupwala warrior Mudra engaged ina silent "martial dance" with his shadow, whose "movements don't match the man's"(124). Mudra's divided being is common to all the Chupwalas,and it is the doing of Khattam- Shud, who ensures the obedience of hissubjects by fomenting inner discord in each, thus preventing them fromuniting against him. While watching Mudra's dance, Harounmakes three critical and related observations about Kahani. First. henotes all the "opposites... at war in the battle between Gup and Chup:' WhileGup is "bright. .. warm" and "all chattering and noise," Chup is "dark...freezing cold" and "silent as a shadow." And while Guppees"love Stories and Speech," Chupwalas "hate these things justas strongly" At first, Haroun concludes that what he is witnessing isa war between "Love (of the Ocean,

151 Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories 141

or the Princess) and Death(which was what Cultmaster Khattam-Shud had in mind for the Ocean, and for thePrincess, too):' However, the Shadow Warrior's dance soon compels him tomodify his insight as he realizes that "silence had its own grace andbeauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly)" and that"Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be aslovely as the children of the light" (125). Thus realizing an essential samenessin opposites on the grounds of positive virtuesbeauty, grace,nobility, loveHaroun makes his most significant observation yet:that opposites attract, and therefore Kahani can be brought together in peaceand harmony (125). Haroun's chain of insights bearssignificance in light of the mystic quest. To begin with, he is able to penetratethe outward opposites and see their essence,which, according to Rumi, "is trulyseeing and knowing" (50). "Beauty," "grace," "nobility,"and "love" are also the binding verities that the Sufi sees in theharmony and design of the universe. Next, what Haroun notes as apotential in the story moon echoes attributes of Wahdad al-Wujudwhich, according to Rumi, simultaneously contains and transcendsopposites. Rumi states: "It is a true saying, that all[opposite] things in relation to God aregood unbelief and perfect. ...Fornication and purity, not praying and prayer, and Islam, polytheism andunitarianismwith God all these are opposites," the great good ..:' (42). "Things are made clear by their teacher says. "It is impossible to makeanything known without its opposite" (92), and this is why God containsopposites. Indeed, Kahani's opposites are useful in relathn to a greatergood: it is on account of them that the imperative to savethe Wellspring is made known to Haroun and the Guppees. When theEggheads halt the rotation of the moon, the Old Zone wherethe Wellspring is located remains onthe dark side and the oldest stories areleft to decay by the Guppees. Looking at the Ocean of ruined stories, Iffthe Water Genie admits his guilt: "We let them rot, we abandonedthem, long before this poisoning. We lost touch with our beginnings,with our roots, our Wellspring, our Source" (146). Therefore, had it notbeen for Khattam-Shud and the ensuing rivalry between the lands ofGup and Chup, the Wellspring might have continued to deteriorate,perhaps to its end. The seemingly destructive oppositions ultimately serve arecuperative purpose. Haroun's insights duly align him in thepath of attainment, singular in purpose, clear in motivation. That hecontemplates the reunification of Kahani's peoples signals his intenseabsorption in his mission to save the Wellspring. Atthis stage, what the boy is after, the sourceof all stories, is analogous to what themystic is after, the source of all creation. Rumi says, "The people of Godhave become wholly God's

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and their faces are turned on God; theyare preoccupied with and absorbed in God" (100). When Haroun volunteersto travel to Chup in order to spy on Khattam-Shud's dark machinations,his resolve is so apparent that even the Gup Prince Bolo, who is not known for intelligence and discernment, can acknowledge that "thisboy's destiny is to rescue what he loves: that is, the Ocean ofStories" (138). In the last stage of his quest, joining Harounare Iff and Butt, and later, Mali the Floating Gardener. Before thegroup can travel, far on the murky waters of Chup, it is captured by the Chupwalas,and Haroun finally gets to encounter Khattam-Shud, who functionsas the perfect foil for the little boy. Their opposing attitudes andgoals concerning stories and the Wellspring make all themore clear Haroun's fitness for his attainment. The tyrant displaysan insatiable hunger for power and control, telling Haroun, "Your world, my world, all worlds....They are all there to be ruled." He is determined to destroy the Wellspring of stories, for inside every story is, hesays, "a storyworld, that I cannot Rule at all" (161). Unlike Khattam-Shud, Haroun hasno interest in ruling stories. His whole adventurefrom the time hewas in the Valley of K to the moment of encountering the Prince ofDarknesshas been possible because of his willingness to surrenderto the power of stories. When they first meet, the Cultmaster scolds Haroun, "Whatbrought you up here, eh? ... Stories, 1 suppose" (155). Khattam-Shud does not know how close to the truth he is, for his zeal for controlprevents him from seeing any wisdom in such surrender. "Weare like a bowl on the surface of the water," Rumi says. "The movement of the bowl...is controlled not by the bowl but by the water" (160). True to the nature of the mystic quest, Haroun must leavebehind his companions and alone witness the Wellspring. His ensuingattain- ment marks a genuine state of Oneness (Wahdad al-Wujud)as the peoples of the story moon Kahani are unified and the Ocean ofthe Stream of Stories is restored. Haroun has succeeded in escapingfrom Khattam-Shud when Mali the Floating Gardenercauses a major power outage. When the little boy dives heedlessly into the poisonedwaters, "wonder of wonders, he catight sight of the Source itself": The Source of Stories was a hole or a chasm or crater in thesea- bed, and through that hole... the flow of pure, unpolluted stories came bubbling up from the very heart of Kahani. There were so many Streams of Story, of so many different colors, all pouring out of the Source at once, that it looked like a huge underwater fountain of shining white light. (167-68) Literally "enlightening" him, Haroun's act of witnessing the Wellspring also signals his state of utter selflessness and perfectconsort with the

153 Salman Rushdies Haroun and the Sea of Stories 143 destiny of Kahani's universe. When he remembersthe vial of Wishwater in his pocket and drinks from it, the goldenglow again enables Haroun to transcend his physical formand become one with the Ocean. The wish he makes this time is not about hisfather or his mother, rather, he wishes "this Moon, Kahani, to turn, sothat it's no longer half in light and half in darkness . .(170). And this time, his wish comes true. The resumption of the moon'srotation brings to end Khattatn- Shud's tyranny by causing the unrelentingdarkness in Chup, and the Cultmaster's shadow soldiers, to dissolve. Kahani'snatural harmony is restored. Now the Guppees and the Chupwalas,light and dark, warm and cold, love and hate, speech andsilence, the imagination of the storytellers and the dull factuality of theEggheads, and, yes, good and bad stories, can once again coexist in necessaryoppositions, ensuring "variety, possibility, ... the uncertainties andsurprises of a shared, public freedom, in its slow and irregular tendencytoward good" (Park 463). The harmony and unity resulting fromHaroun's transcendent attainment is not only outward but also inward,evident in his final request to the Gup ComptrollerGeneral: " ...I come from a sad city, a city so sad that it hasforgotten its name. I want you to provide a happy ending, not just for my adventure, butfor the whole sad city as well" (202). His requestimplies his sense of belonging to a whole larger than himself and of shared destinywith others. Haroun seems to understand that his journeyimparted to him a wisdom that he must share with others, just as a Sufi mystic does uponreturning to mundane existence after experiencing divine union. "Mywork is to carry this love," says Rutin, "as comfort for thosewho long for you, / to go everywhere you've walked .. ." (Unseen Rain83). Back in Mr. Buttoo's houseboat, Haroun finds a golden envelopecontaining a note from his friends in Kahani and the miniature Hoopoe"cocking its head up at him" (204). Yet Haroun has not merelybrought back with him the wisdom of Kahani. Because his entirejourney was conjured in one night's dream, he embodies at once the sourceand manifestation of this wisdom. His father, having regainedhis talent, the next day narrates Haroun and the Sea of Stories, thus linkingforever the fate of stories to his son's heroism. Rumi urgeshis disciples to be a mirror to one another (36), each finding in the othersthe inspiration to walk on the mystic path. Through Rashid's stors Harounbecomes this mirror for others who believe in imagination andstories. The mystic quest, whether for God orfor the Wellspring of Stories, must always end with the seekerreturning to worldly existence and resuming the quest because the state ofattainment cannot be sustained.

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Both the Sufi's God and Kahani's Wellspringmust, by their infinite nature, forever surpass the confines of any single attainment. "If He is present in form," Rumi says, "He will flee by way of the spirit" (Poems 100), but he also advises against losing hope: "... come, do not give up hope: seek and seek forever! Fixing the heart on the goal ensures its attainment" (Masnavi 240). The antidote for the Sufi's disillusion- ment is found in the myriad worldly manifestations of the divine that beckon the seeker to seek again. Similar antidotesare made available to Haroun also. On returning to his hometown, Haroun shows signs of frustration, of being disheartened by the ordinary surroundings after havingex- perienced the imaginary He asks his father, "Nothing's really changed, has it?" (207), for he doubts that the "happy ending" herequested before leaving Kahani will ever, come true in the real world. Yet it does. First, a wonderful rain starts pouring over the sad city, bringing happiness to all. Then, Haroun learns that the people have remembered their town's name which, much to his amazement, is Kahani. Haroun apparently needs one more sign, however, and his mood finally breaks only when his mother returns. That night, after the family reunion, Haroun goes to bed with his faith in Kahani restored. He tells his Hoopoe: "It's really good to know you'll be here when I need you" (210). What happened once can happen again to himand tousas it does every time we read Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

In Islam, Haroun is the name of the brother of Moses who is privyto the esoteric truths of God, while Moses is His lawgiver. For thisreason, Haroun is a favored prophet among the Sufis. Rushdie'syoung hero seems no less able to witness and realize the transcendental possibility of stories and imagination. In this light, Haroun Khalifaseems very much a fictional study in Rushdie's lifelong question: whetheror not literature can be, "for a secular, material culture,some sort of replace- ment for what the love of god offers in the world of faith," namely "a repository for our awestruck wonderment at life andan answer to the great questions of existence, and a rule book, too" ("Is Nothing Sacred?" 421). This may be, after all, the use of stories that aren'teven true.

Works Consulted

Appelbaum, David. "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." Parabola 16.2 (1991): 126-32.

155 Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Seaof Stories 145 Darbandi Attar, Farid ud-Din. TheConference of the Birds. Trans. Afkham and Dick Davis. New York: Penguin,1984. Coppola, Carlo. "Salman Rushdie'sHaroun and the Sea of Storier. Fighting the Good Fight or KnucklingUnder." Journal of South Asian Literature 26.1-2 (1991): 229-37. Durix, Jean-Pierre. "'The Gardenerof Stories': Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories:' The Journalof Commonwealth Literature (1993): 114-22. York Lurie, Alison. "Another DangerousStory by Salman Rushdie' The New Times Book Review 11 Nov.1990: 1. of Park, Clara Clairborne. "Horse andSea Horse: Areopagitica and the Sea Storiesr The Hudson Review 46 (1993):451-70. Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin Valalal-Dinj. Discourses. Trans. and ed. A. J. Arberry. Surrey, UK: Curzon Press,1993. Arberry. Chicago: U of Chicago .Mystical Poems of Rumi. Trans. A. J. P, 1968. Tales from the Masnavi. Trans. and ed.by A. J. Arberry. Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1993. and Coleman Barks. Putney, VT: .Unseen Rain. Trans. John Moyne Threshold Books, 1986. Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and theSea of Stories. London: Granta,1990. Imaginary Homelands: Essays andCriticism, 1981-1991. London: Granta, 1991.

1 56 ,

12 Anthologies,Canonicity, and the ObjectivistImagination: The Case of GeorgeOppen

Dennis Young George Mason University

"We begin to suspect that literaryjudgments are projections of social ones" (qtd. in Scholes 138). Thus,in 1957, Northrop Fryemay have sounded the first of many contemporary critiques of the literarycanon. Since Frye, several literary criticshave continued to criticize largely in social/political canons, terms of exclusion, inclusion, andpriorities based on class, gender, or race. On the other side of the debate,most conservative criticisms ofcanon revision decry the subversivenature of leftist, feminist, deconstructionist,minority, and other apparently discontented literary criticisms. Forexample, in The Chronicle of Higher Education Peter Shaw offersa rebuttal to the 1991 MLA Survey regarding the canon and whatEnglish teachers are really teaching;he says that the "chief concern" of supporters of the traditionalcanon "has been not the number oftitles replaced but the principleof assigning literary value accordingto gender or race" (B3). Instead of reiterating the canon debateon these grounds, however, I wishto suggest that the bias implicit incanon formationespecially thecanon of American poetryis closerto home than the "social group"theory of the canon: it is as close as the syllabus we follow daily.Certain poets are excluded from the classroom and thereforefrom the canon because of the way we define and teach poetry, which I believe isstill largely New Critical in aim and emphasis.To put it anotherway, authors are included or excluded from thecanon largely because they do not conform to a tenadous New Criticalmindset that dictatesa limited, limiting way of seeing, defining,and teaching poetry The institutional-historicalcontext of the teaching of literatureand the reproduction of works (exemplifiedprimarily in anthologies), has complex implications. Howwe teach poetry and what we teachare closely related and equallysignificant in the gradual formationof canons. The regulation of whatwe teach is sustained by the texts produced and reproduced inpoetry anthologies, which nearlyalways 146 Ir7 147 The Case of George Oppen with a few bold exceptionsprivilegepoetry in the nineteenth-century romantic-symbolist tradition as opposed topoetry in what Charles Altieri calls "the Objectivisttradition."' After having worked for several yearsclosely and appreciatively with the objectivist poets, I amleft to wonder why such poets asLouis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, and,in particular, George Oppen never make it to the major poetryanthologies. I was also led to moregeneral questions: Why do certainsignificant poets almost never appearin anthologies? What is the basisfor selecting (and 'omitting)anthology the poems? Can the omission of theobjectivists tell us anything about assumptions behind the way weperceive, define, and teach poetry? By looking closely at thekinds of poetry typicallyincluded and basis for the those excluded fromanthologies, we may identify the canon of American poetryCurrent editions of Poulin'sContemporary American Poetry, Ellmann andO'Clair's Norton Anthology ofModern Poetry, Carruth's Voice That IsGreat within Us, and Vendler'sHarvard from Book of Contemporary AmericanPoetry include nothing at all Zukofsky, Reznikoff, or Oppen.These anthologies, because oftheir popularity and widespread classroom use,may be taken ascanonical assessments of recent poetryIt seems as though thesethree poets one of the mostsignificant groupings in the fieldof twentieth-century poetrynever existed. And notto be represented bysuch standard anthologies means virtual nonexistencefor a poet. Oppen's absence in in the past the standard anthologies isespecially curious given that, decade, his poetry has receivedincreasing critical attention' and many How do we of his poems are quitesuited to the anthology format. account for this omission? Perhaps the objectivist poets areoverlooked because of the very Objectivist poetics is a counter-poeticsthat nature of their poetics. To resists certain romantic-idealisticnotions of poetry and language. is no take on the hegemonic romanticaesthetic and philosophical bias easy task; to do sorequires a new poetic form and a newconsciousness the difficulty of creating a newpoetics, about poetry's function. Given That the poets have grappled withobjectivism since the early 1930s. to define term itself is elusive ismade evident by the various attempts it. Zukofsky, the first to usethe term "objectivistrdescribes the objectivist mode of seeing: "It isthe detail, not mirage, ofseeing, of thinking with the things as theyexist. . .. Shapes suggestthemselves, and the mind senses andreceives awareness" (273). Theuncertainty complexity of the insight. Reznikoff more of his language betrays the does not simply says that the termobjectivist refers to "a writer who and hears; who write directly about hisfeelings but about what he sees

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is restricted almost to the testimonyof a witness in a court of law;and who expresses his feelings indirectlyby the selection of his subjectmatter and, if he writes in verse, by itsmusic" (194). William Carlos Williams, looking backon his associations with the objectivists,says: "The poem, like every other formof art, is an object,an object that in itself formally presents itscase and its meaning by the very form it assumes. . [T]o invent an objectconsonant with his day. Thiswas what we wished to imply by Objectivist"(265). Oppen, a cabinetmaker by trade, points to another possibilityof the term by emphasizing the poet's reiation to thepoem: "If it's perfect you're not in itat all" ("George and Mary Oppen" 12).Charles Olson emphasizes the *philosophical dimension of theterm: the objectivist attempts to get rid of the lyrical interference of the individualas ego, of the "subject" and his soul, that peculiar presumptionby which western man has interposed himself between what he isas a creature of nature .. . and those other creations ofnature which we may, with no derogation, call objects.... Forman is himself an object.... (24) Hugh Kenner suggests thatan appropriate motto for the objectivists might be "no myths." Hegoes on to say that "myths stand between facts and words. Theyare like 'plots' and 'statements' and even . .. messages: units of perception detachablefrom the language" (187). One detects in each of thesedefinitions an attempt to revise traditional, romantic notions of the poet'sstance and relation to things.

Oppen's "Psalm," one of hismost celebrated lyric responses to the world, offers an exemplary model ofthe objectivist emphasison poetry not as symbolic, romantic, or expressive,but as building. In thepoem Oppen reveals what might be calleda "moment of awe," a moment when he moves, through meticulousobservation, from sight to insight. Psalm Veritas sequitur... In the small beauty of the forest The wild deer bedding down-- That they are there! Their eyes Effortless, the soft lips Nuzzle and the alien small teeth Tear at the grass The roots of it Dangle from their mouths

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Scattering earth in the strange woods. They who are there. Their paths Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shadethem Hang in the distances Of sun The small nouns Crying faith In this in which the wild deer Startle, and stare out. (1-19) The poem's form is quite suited tothe anthology format; its title, an attenuated echo of the Old Testament, suggeststhe possibility of an ongoing tradition, a feature that ananthologist might find useful and instructive. The poem sets forth the "lyricvaluables," the sense of awe, in its acknowledgment of the othernessof the deer in a forest. The cry of the occasion calls not forself-questioning or self-confession, but praise of the actuality of the visual presenceof the deer in the "small forest," and of the "small nouns" bywhich one names the actuality. The speaker returns to thefundamental, the elemental relation of words to their referent. His praiseinvolves an awareness of the way words refer to objects, and the wayin which truth may follow from the careful use of language. Language,the small nouns, shape perception and wield power in the interpretationof phenomena. Consisting of a series of discrete perceptionsof the deer in the forest, the poem moves from a long-distanceview of "the small beauty of the forest" to "their eyes," "soft lips," and"small teeth," and then to the "roots" dangling from their mouthsand back again to "their paths" and the leaves hanging in the "distances/ Of sun:' The "small beauty," and the deer's "small teeth," areassociated with the "small nouns" in the last stanza, which is avictorious moment of faith in the abilityof language to imaginatively grasp thealien and distant materiality of the deer in their natural habitat. The poem describes a "small" cosmosand contains a cosmos. Such a forest is distant and remote,therefore enchanted, foreign to human eyes. The woods are"strange" to the poet, but not to thedeer. The deer are far from human reality, but atthe same time the poet realizes "that they are there!" In theselines he is "pointing" at the deer, straining in the imagination afterthem. The space and indentation between stanzas reinforces thatdistance, but at the same time the very image of the poem on the pagerecalls the carpentry technique of joinery" The identical sounds of"there" and "their" bind stanzas one

1.6u 150 "New" Texts and two, and stanzas three and four. "There" is theplace in which the deer enact "their" being. The indented stanzas fittogether like pieces of wood or a sculpture, a forgedmonument to the deer and their surroundings. The poem is an act of meditationand perception, a "gathering" of contiguous perceptions. The speaker's emphasis on the "small" pointsto the austere compression in Oppen's work (especially in the earlierpoems). The tensions created by the relations of these smallnouns to one another (and to the blank page) are explicit in the smallpoem as Oppen attempts to get at the fundamental relationship of the word to its referent,focusing most sharply on the word itself, as if the word itselfwere a poem. In an interview Oppen says that he is "really concerned with the substan- tive, with the subject of the sentence, with whatwe are talking about, and not rushing over the subject-matter in orderto make a comment about it." Each "and," "the," "but," each bit of punctuationin the often sparse poems, is made evenmore significant by the conscious refusal to elucidate, develop, or explainallmeans of asserting the poetic ego. The "small nouns" are the potent building blocksof language, the essential "naming" instrument. Inan interview Oppen reveals the objectivist's deceptively simple, yet fundamental view oflanguage: The important thing is that if we are talking about thenature of reality, then we are not really talking aboutour comment about it; we are talking about the apprehension ofsome thing, whether it is or not, whether one can make a thing of itor not.... I'm trying to describe how the test of imagescan be a test of whether one's thought is valid.... ("The 'Objectivist' Poet" 162) And later, in the same interview, Oppen speaks of thenature of words and their relation to consciousness:

All the little nouns are the ones that I like the most: the deer,the sun, and so on. You say these perfectly little words and you're asserting that the sun is ninety-three million milesaway, and that there is shade because of shadows, and more.. .. It's a tremendous structure to have built out of a few small nouns. I do think they exist and... it's certainly an act of faith. (162-63) Oppen's poems are written out of the faith that thingscan be seen with clarity, and that words can refer to andname an extant reality without trying to mediate it with transcendentalor symbolic overlays. The objectivist seeks to see the thing itself notas a comment on an imagined spiritual life nor as an occasion tocompose an anecdotal,

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first-person lyric, but as it is on its own terms.Seeing, however, is not the same as understanding. Impossible to doubt the world: it can be seen And because it is irrevocable It cannot be understood, and Ibelieve that fact is lethal ("Parousia" 1-3) In order to de-symbolize an"irrevocable" world, the poet presents rather than represents his perceptionof it; but to speak of it is not necessarily to understand the world. Ourmisunderstanding is "lethal." Oppen seeks "clarity / in the senseof transparency," yet he realizes the " 'heartlessness' " of words becausethey "cannot be wholly transparent" ("Route" 4:1-2); in other words, they cannotdisclose "the thing itself:' Yet the objectivist stance,involving a radical shift in perspective, means that the poet'sexperience of things is transformedfrom the ground up. Experience becomesthe appearance of how things are ontologically constituted, how theystand relationally. "Things" are viewed relationally and the poet'sexperience is constituted as a thing itself. The poet opens himself, makeshimself available to the world so that things stand as one with hisconsciousness in a verbal place that encompasses both the poetand the object. The landscape,animals, cities, and things in the poems are notdivided from the poet's consciousness, but are that consciousness asgathered by means of a sequence of perceptive events.Seeing, itself, is the processionaldisplay of things. And so Oppen (as well asReznikoff and Zukofsky) often employs the poetic sequence in hiswork as a primary mode of poetic development and process. Whereas theepic poem asks, "How do we know the world and history?" theserial poem asks, "How is being and experience constituted, how does ithappen?" The goal of this poetic method is to elide the gap betweenwhat seems to be and what is known. Oppen announces thiscrucial premise in the opening sequence of "Of Being Numerous," his longestserial poem. There are things We live among 'and to see them Is to know ourselves'. Occurrence, a part Of an infinite series,

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At the risk of parodying Heidegger,what is seen can be anything; nothing the poet encounters is "unpoetic." The poetry moves us to reexamine,to rethink the relation of language to things, of things to things, of poetto language and to things. From the concrete "nouns," the "substantiallanguage," we are thus compelled to move toward a philosophical questioningof o; r relationship to language, to things, and to reality itself.Such a technique illustrates what Zukofsky means when he speaks of"thinldng with things as they exist," a mode of being that allows perceptionto validate experience. The aim of Oppen's poetic technique,then, is to establish the material otherness of the visual situation.It involves a close relationship, through the words themselves,to the sheer physicality of the world. In language the reality of the event intensifiesfor the poet, "for," as Heidegger says in An Introductionto Metaphysics, "words and language are not wrappings in which things are packed forcommerce of those who write and speak. It is in words andlanguage that things firstcome into being and are" (11). In orderto gain an authentic relation to things, the poet must begin by seekinga precise language, by going beyond (or against) the use of historical,conventional, or metaphorical associations in language. Thinking withthings as they exist requiresa new sense of relatedness, anotherway to construct meaning, and a repudiation of "principles of dramaticorder" and "theatricalizing the poet's self-conscious stances inquest of sublimity" (Altieri13). Yet the visual is for Oppen onlyone element in a dialectical process in which poetic truth resides neitherin the thing itself nor in the poet but in the interaction between thetwo, in the language itself. In "The Little Hole" (one of "Five Poems aboutPoetry"), Oppen examines the nature of poetic seeing/encountering. The little hole in the eye Williams called it, the little hole Has exposed us naked To the world And will not close. Blankly the world Looks in And we compose Colors And the sense Of home

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World and self meet in theperceptive eye, and a "home" iscreated by in quite what we compose (as bothHeidegger and Bachelard suggest different ways). Poetry attempts to comeinto living contact with the "Oppen world, to enact "worlding."Richard Pevear points out that understands the nature ofalienation as 'worldlessness"(318). And "to be a workr Heidegger suggests,"means to set up a world" (Poetry 178). Creating a work/world meansfinding a place for the word, restoring language by bringingit close to things. If, asOppen would insist, the poet's ultimate aimis truth (veritas sequitur),through an the world of appearance, thatwhich is seen has the open response to of the possibility of being a measureof reality. The creative process disclosure to poet "brings forth" thereality, the truth (Greek alethia, dis-cover) of the object. Bysaying "that it is" the poet"grasps" and points to the extraordinary awesomenessof truth. Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the mostbeautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have anymotive of poetry But to achieve clarity

("Route" 1:19-23) Clarity can be achieved by firstavoiding what Nietzsche called the not outmoded "mobile army ofmetaphors?' The deer of "Psalm" are metaphorical semblances that standfor something else, but "theywho are there"Adopting an unmediated relationto things is possible, Heidegger suggests, by avoiding awillful "assault" on the thing, by granting the thing, as it were, afree field to display its thingly characterdirectly. Everything that might inter- pose itself between thething and us in apprehendingand talking about it must first be set aside.Only then do we yield ourselves to the undisguised presenceof the thing. (Poetry 25) poet seeks in It is the clarity of thefirst, primitive, eyes that the true order to return to the thingitself, for "the more clearly athing is defined the more clearly it becomespart of all other things"("Oppen "the meaning and the on Literature"134), things that have become color of our lives" ("TheMind's Own Place" 2). How might Oppen fit into apopular anthology? Wherewould we poetry is find his poetry exhibited?This examination of Oppen's radical intended to reveal how thecomplexity of his technique and the nature of his poeticsdistinguish his work from thetypical anthology His philo- piece and from the usualintroductory poetry classroom. 164 154 "New" Texts sophical sophistication (particularly ina philosophical tradition with which many undergraduatesare unfamiliar) might make him seem forbidding for most college literatureclassrooms. Further, instead of proposing an ego-perceiving world heputs humans in their placenot at the center but in between the phenomenalworld and consciousness, in language itself. The anthologies,on the other hand, exhibit a bias toward the vivid presentation ofa personality leading them to writers whose public personae are already wellestablished. We are all familiar with the usual lineupof contemporary anthology poetsespecially the so-called "confessionalpoets" (i.e., Berryman, Roethke, Bishop, Lowell, etc.), all ofwhom wrote some excellentpoems and all of whom were academicpoets. They inevitably focus their creative talents on discovering and confessingself, in weaving in their poetry the drama of loneliness, breakdown, lackof fulfillment, and the usual hope of a transcendental salvation.The poets look at themselves in mirrors, in family photographs, intheir own manuscripts, and transcribe With a kind of penitent intensitythe distortions perceived. The confessionalist-symbolistpoets (who descend from the romantics), in sharp contrast with the objectivists,reveal not the presence of the world but the presence of thepoet. Evidence of the author's suffering becomes a verification of sincerity. Subjectmatter narrows ever more tightly around the subjective "I." AsAltieri says, "Where a symbolist poet would concentrate on relations that dramatizemeanings beyond the event... the primary relations [for an objectivist] are denotative (in an imaginary world) rather thanconnotative or metaphoric" (36). The objectivist refusal toengage in literary role playing is evident in their lack of concern with fictionmaking or persona creation and in their denial of a supreme poeticego. A poetry not wedded to a diama of self, a poetry in which thepoet may disappear to give freer play to pattern or melodyor the selfless steady state of meditation, offers little to the poetry anthologists.The personality, the intrusive "I," is seen as a constraint by theobjectivists, who sought to revive the fundamental Imagistic aesthetic revolt againstwhat Pound saw as the vagueness and softness of Symbolist poetry A particularkind of literary role playing, not the more eccentricor self-effacing talents or subversives of the prevailing canon,seems to attract the editors of anthologies. It is curiousand instructivetonote that in Helen Vendler's comprehensive study of twentieth-century Americanpoetry, The Music of What Happens, notone word is mentioned about Zukofsky, Rez- nikoff, or Oppen. She suggests that"the canon...is composed of the writers that other writers admire.... The evolving canon is not the creation of critics, but of poets" (37-38).I am reminded of the old 155 The Case of George Oppen other (aspiring) cliché that the only peoplenowadays who read poetry are poets. And to be a poettoday almost always means tobe an academic objectivists were by and poet. This raisesanother crucial issue: The large not academic poets. for example, to some of theplainspoken, Compare Oppen's poetrs two largely academic workshop poetrythat has appeared over the past self-confessional, extremely or three decades.These poems tend to be self-conscious; intent on displayingthe stamp of the poet'spersonality, Review are they privilege thc suffering ego.Issues of American Poetry in this mode filled with such poems. Sincewriting (or reading) poetry demands little in the way ofprevious literary, philosophical, orcultural students in knowledge or poetic context, itoffers a "basic style" for Even today, the smallliterary magarines are creative writing programs. beer on the packed with poems aboutwashing the car, drinking a audience for this work street, taking the dogfor a walk. Arguably, the in other creative writing programs. is largely confined to poets of In contrast, one must readOppen's poetry with full awareness mention the the context of other poemsand other collections, not to thought larger cultural, political, andphilosophical contexts. The active anthology verse, in process, as opposed tothe rhetorical finish of most in the anthologies. His may also accountfor Oppen's nonexistence for a desire to break outof the reified objectivist poetics speaks embark on a boundaries of the poem as artobject, and in so doing to but also more exciting engagementwith the poem as more uncertain by austere medium of contact with theworld. His technique, marked compression and restraint, runs counterto much of theconversational workshops. (and often rambling) poetry sopopular in university writing For Oppen (as for theobjectivists in general) booksof poetry are individual poems thandevelopments of a thought less collections of in the course of the or position. One poemis amplified and lit up off" other poems in arelational stance. poetic sequence, "playing in order to Poems are thoughts andexperiences tracking themselves and insight. They are notoverly revised or get to clarity of sight thought of a polished but stand as nakedthought, to be revised in the subsequent poem. The dialogismof the poetic series aims atdiscovering radical change in connections and a coherenceof its own, initiating a perspective. Oppen's poetic sequencesparticipate in the fragmentation ontological of experience, signaling notmerely a literary crisis but an of a formalist rigidity ofmind that seeks finality and one, a breakdown incomplete, closure in experience. The poems areoften fragmentary and perception itself is suggesting, like the cubist ormontagist painter, that fragmentary and multiple.Paradoxically, Oppen'sphenomenological

.1W6 156 "New" Texts

aim is "to see more clearly,to see past the subject matter and theart attitudes of the academy" ("The Mind'sOwn Place" 2). There isa radical desire to see for the firsttime "what the first eye saw,"to see the "primitive" (that is, first,fundamental, ground). Suchpoems do not often fit the generic classificationsconveniently displayed inan- thologies. What Oppen callsa ballad or historical poem intentionally upsets our notions of these poetic formsto make us see them more critically, to engage us in theprocess of recognizing the values and aesthetic biases whichgovern our view- and teaching of poetry. The anthology poem, bycontrast, has to stand alone, self-reflexive, self-enclosed, usually requiringno reading context beyond whata footnote or two can provide.Collections of what are knownas "anthology pieces" give littlesense of origins or context or ultimate direction, often offeringno clue as to what soil the poems spring from. In a discussion of Oppen andobjectivist poetry, John Taggart points out that "the poem which atevery point radiates process, often ina jagged hesitating manner, frustratesexpectations fed on 'finished'verse. Such a poem remindsus that the anthology piece, by itself,may not be enough, that muchmore reading may be required, that thereare compositions which will not fit neatlyon a page or two and that, even if their lines will fit, their thoughtwon't" (256). Poetry emphasizing the very process of thought andperception resists easy classification and reading and is not usually primeanthology material because it challenges our typical smorgasbordmode of teaching poetry piecemeal and out of proper context. If, as many critics say,a canon is governed by a given set of aesthetic criteria, a new aesthetic is perhapsneeded to accommodate diverse, often dissonant voices. Objectivistpoetry throws into question aesthetic assumptions and biases about the finishedverse so highly prized by the closed field of New Criticism.And despite competing deconstructionist, Marxist, and feministchallenges, the New Critical aesthetic remains the dominant mode of teachingpoetry in the English departments and creative-writingprograms that support the anthology industry. Frank Lentricchia pointsout that

the American New Criticism, thecritical movement which made formalism famous in this country, whosedeath has been period- ically announced since the late 1950s,remains in force as the basis (what goes without saying) ofundergraduate literary pedagogy.... The ideological effect of the New Criticism inthe United States is to sustain, under conditions ofmass higher education, the romantic cult of genius. (323)

167 157 The Case of George Oppen

For poetry that seeks to startfrom scratch and rethinkits function sympathy. The anthologies represent altogether, the anthologies have no just the new of a profoundlyconservative retreat from the newnot today, but the new of the pasthalf-century. reinforces The canonical imperativeexercised by many anthologists the notion in ourstudents that there is such athing as timeless, universal literature and thatthere is a need to read"classic" texts to is self- the exclusion of others.The notion of literary permanence deceptive, however, there is nofixed paradigm for literary greatness, question of permanent and canonical contextschange dramatically. The is still open. It is instructive toremember, value and eternal modernity achieve literary for example, that WilliamCarlos Williams didn't notoriety until he died, with aposthumous Pulitzer Prizefor Pictures from Brueghel in 1963. At manyuniversities Williams was not even Williams (who, by the taught as a major figureuntil the early 1970s. of Louis Zukofsky's 1930'Objectivists' Anthology, way, was a part other poets which included Pound,Eliot, Oppen, Reznikoff, and many of revolutionary in the objectivisttradition) was a formal innovator impact whose technicaloriginality is still beingdigested. Canonized poen then, cannot be seen asexisting outside political,social, aca- anthologies demic, and pedagogical contexts.We see, however, that the of political and artisticrevolution in their tend to muffle the roar of teaching selections and in their omissions.And they reinforce modes defining the central poetry in a basicallyNew Critical, formalistic way, work that we perform. The omission of Oppenand other poets in theobjectivist tradition exclusion, aimed is, I think, not an accidentof taste but a systematic but at an alternatetradition of writing which not at scattered poets opening up of fought off the petrificationof poetic forms through an objectivists aimed formal boundaries. Like theImagists before them, the alive. What Pound to disrupt poetictraditions in order to keep poetry of the word" never quitemade its way into called poetry's "revolution (whom Pound early the academies. Byexcluding such poets as Oppen distinctive voice and a highlyoriginal poet) and other on considered a ultimately falsify the objectivist poets, thoseacademies do, however, nature, evolution andintellectual urgency of poeticcreation.

Notes the group of poets 1. I prefer to use thelower-case "objectivist" because associated with the designation neverreally took part in a poetic program

168 158 "New" Texts and their poetic styles are so varied that they could hardlybe said to have formed a literary movement.The term describes a philosophical as much as it does a "school" of disposition poetry. Zukofsky, Reznikok and Oppenare further linked, significantly, bythe fact that theyare New Yorkers, Jewish, and politically leftist, all crucial dimensions of their poetry (andpart of the reason for their exclusion from theanthologies?). 2. Four collections of essays and many articles by a widerange of critics have emerged over the past decadeor so, and since Oppen's death in 1984 several articles have surfaced.Critics such as Kenner (The Pound Homemade World, 1975), Haden Era and A (George Oppen: Man and Poet),and Heller (Conviction's Net of Branches: Essayson Objectivist Poetry and Poetics), along with many British and Americanpoets, realized the significance of Oppen's poetry, especially after he won the Numerous. Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for OfBeing 3. All poems citedare from Oppen's Collected Poems. 4. It is interesting that the word"text" in one of its many meanings "worker in wood, carpenter, joiner, means generally: any craftsmanor workman; metaphorically: maker, author" (Scholes142). S. Oppen takes issue with H.D.'s poem "Oread" when hesays, "I never really forgave her for givingadvice... or orders to the sea. The poem is a distortion of the senses which seems to me intolerable' Suchuse of metaphor and "strained images" is "veryseldom valid" ("Oppen 33). on Literature" 132--

Works Cited

Altieri, Charles. "The Objectivist 1971): 5-22. Tradition:' Chicago Review 30.3(Winter Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics ofSpace. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Press, 1958, 1969. Beacon Carruth, Hayden. The Voice That Is Great within Us: AmericanPoetry of the Twentieth Century. New York:Bantam Books, 1983. Ellmann, Richard and RobertO'Clair. The Norton Anthologyof Modern Poetry. New York: W.W. Nortonand Co., 1990. Hatlen, Burton, ed. George Oppen:Man and Poet. Orono: U of Maine National Poetry Foundation, 1981. P, Heidegger, Martin. An Introductionto Metaphysics. Trans. Ralph Mannheim. New York: Anchor Books, 1961. .Poetry. Language, Thought.Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New Colophon Books, 1971. York: Heller, Michael. Conviction's Netof Branches: Essayson Objectivist Poetry and Poetics. Carbondale:Southern Illinois UP, 198s. Kenner, Hugh. A Homemade World:The American Modernist York: Knopf, 1975. Writers. New . The Pound Era. Berkeley: U of California P, 1971.

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Lentricchia, Frank. "In Place of anAfterwordSomeone Reading?' In Critical Terms for Literary Study. Ed. FrankLentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990. New Olson, Charles. Selected Writings.Ed. Robert Creeley. New York: Directions, 1966. Oppen, George. Collected Poems.New York: New Directions, 1975. Interview by Michel Englebert and ."George and Mary Oppen: An Michael Westr American Poetry Review14.4 (July/August 1985): 11-14. "The Little Hole." Collected Poems81. "The Mind's Own Placer Kulcher3.10 (Summer 1963): 1-7. Interviews?' With L. S. Dembo.Con- ."The 'Objectivist' Poet, Four temporary Literature (Spring1969): 159-77. "Of Being Numerous?' CollectedPoems 147. New Directions, 1968. .Of Being Numerous. New York: Figures and Issues?' With David ."Oppen on Literature and Literary McAleavey. Sagetrieb 6.1 (Spring 1987):129-44. "Parousiar Collected Poems 83.

."Psalm?' Collected Poems 78. ."Route?' Collected Poems 184-86. Pevear, Richard. "Poetry andWorldlessnessr The Hudson 'Review29.2 (Summer 1976): 317-20. Poulin, A. Contemporary AmericanPoetry. 5th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. S. Reznikoff, Charles. "The 'Objectivist'Poet, Four Interviews?' With L. Dembo. Contemporary Literature(Spring 1969): 193-202. Textuality" Introduction to Scholarshipin Scholes, Robert. "Canonicity and 138- Modern Languages and Literatures.2nd ed. New York: MLA, 1992. 58. Shaw, Peter. "The Modern LanguageAssociation Is Misleading the Public?' The Chronicle of Higher Education27 Nov. 1991: B3. 13.2 (Fall Taggart, John. "George Oppen andthe Anthologies?' Ironwood 26 1985): 252-62. Cam- Vendler, Helen. The Harvard Bookof Contemporary American Poetry. bridge: Harvard UP, 1985. Poems, Poets, Critics. Cambridge: . The Music of What Happens: Harvard UP, 1988. Williams, William Carlos. TheAutobiography of William CarlosWilliams. New York: New Directions,1967. Zukofsky, Louis. " 'A' (SeventhMovement)?' Poetry 37.5 (1931):242-46.

1 7 o ST

13 The Recuperationof Canon Fodder: Walter Scott's The Talisman

Caroline McCracken-Flesher University of Wyoming

Canonization, we have learned, "authorizes"a text. To be canonized, a text must to some degree express the dominant ideology;canonization thus constitutes an ideological recognitionof conformity, and a concurrent assumption of "quality" Andonce canonized, a text will operate as "quality control," denying authorityto less culturally conformist works: The canonized text obscuresand forces out the texts of other- nessindeed, as our recent professional/politicalbattles have demonstrated, it can be launched likea literary cruise missile to obliterate them. As generations of schoolchildren have discoveredin Britain and the Empire (more recently the Commonwealth),Walter Scott is one of the English canon's biggest guns, and hisworks make up a large and heavy pile of ammunition. Salvoes of Ivanhoehave been loosed at hoards of trembling teenagers with deadeningonemight even say deadly effect. Legions of Ivanhoe's shell-shockedvictims have gazed down the twin barrels of Waverley and The Heart ofMidlothian and acknowledged the novels' firepower by surrenderingto their greatness without reading them. But I would suggest that Scott himselfis the primary casualty of the canonical bombardment in which hefigures so prominently. Howcan this be? The answer lies in the criteriathat loaded Scott into thecanon. When the canon's architects includedScott in their pantheon of novelists, they did so grudgingly and forall the wrong reasons. Their choice had nothing to do with avowedcriteria such as aesthetic quality or realismit didn't even have anythingto do with Scott himself. Time and again, we hnd theseself-conscious builders of novelistic tradition invoking Scott asa naive, flawed, yet authorizing precursor for some "better" novelist. For instance,ever digging for the roots of his own genius, Henry James declaresafter a visit to Scott's home at Ashestiel: "I took up one of Scott'snovelsRedgauntlet; it was years

171 Walter Scott's The Talisman 161 since I had read one. They havealways a charm for mebut I was amazed at the badness of [it]:l'enfance de Part" (James 37).Similarly, although less sympathetically, ashe gathers the Pole, the American,the Englishman, and the (manly)Englishwoman from whom he will oddly constitute the "Great Tradition" ofEnglish novelists, F. R. Leavis takes a moment toinstall Scott in the canonandsummarily eject him from it. He writes, significantlyin a footnote, "Out of Scott abad tradition came. It spoiled FenimoreCooper.. .. And with Stevenson it and fine writing." Leavis andJames took on 'literary' sophistication of imply that Scott's successors,while owing him some vague degree provenance, succeed inspite of him, or fail because ofhim. The hapless Walter Scott is tamped down the canon asa kind of primitivewadding for the really important(Anglocentric) weaponry Perversely, then, we might considerScott not just as canonical ammunition, but as a kind of canonfodder. Although fed into the canon to enhance theballistic power of superior Englishauthors, the Scottish novelist is there digestedinto England's cultural stew.However centered in the canon he may appear,Scott resides there for his service to other authors and texts,and to interests not his own.Even though this grudging canonization empowershim, it constitutes him as unrem- ittingly English. He thus languishesdisempowered as what he really was, a Scottish Other.To be fair to James andLeavis, however, this gained mo- process of canonizationand consequent homogenization mentum along with Scott'spopularity as a writer, and itaffected even his compatriots' view of hiswork. In 1838, with Scott onlysix years Nature dead, his countryman ThomasCarlyle wrote: "So bounteous was Literature lay all to us; in the sickliest ofrecorded ages, when British puking and sprawling in Werterism,Byronism, and other Sentimen- talism tearful or spasmodic(fruit of internal wind), Nature waskind enough to send us two healthyMen [Cobbett and Scott], ofwhom she might still say, not withoutpride, 'These also were made inEngland [my emphasis]: such limbsdo I still make there!" (gtd.in Hayden 350). Carlyle goes on todiscuss Scott's national origins inhis next paragraph, but the Freudian sliphas been made; however Scottishtheir shared background, Carlyle seesand celebrates Scott in anEnglish context. From its inception,then, Scott's canonizationtransformed him into an indistinguishable servantof the Empire, even for fellow Scots. This is the more ironic because, asI will argue here, not onlyis Scott's work in many respectsspecifically Scottish, it is activelyand aggressively so. Moreover, it isconstructed in opposition toprecisely the kind of cultural cannibalisminevitably exercised by England's

172

4% 162 "New" Texts dominant culture over Scotland's national literature,and under which Scott's own novels have suffered. Indeed, Scott'snovels, once disgorged from the canon and recoded accordingto their S ;attish cultural matrix, might join with those "other" texts marshaledunder the banner of world literature that seek to deconstruct thecanon as oppressive instrument, and to open in its placea discursive space. To the canon's harshest critics, and to thestaunchest advocates of world literature as a literature of difference, thismay appear an unlikely case. It is to combat such criticism that I have chosen hereto argue from an unlikely text, The Talisman. Thisnovel, first published in 1825, of all Scott's works seems thoroughlyand uncritically to participate in the discourse of Empire; to allappearances, it little deserves to be snatched from the canon's mouth. Despite the fact thatit comprises the elements of an oppositional text, itseems to offer no critique of English mores or even of colonial subjection. Forinstance, although in The Talisman as in nearlyevery Scott novel the supposedly central character is Scottish, in Sir Kennethwe find no resistant figure; a Scottish prince in disguise, Sir Kennethserves anonymously but sup- portively in Richard the Lionheart's crusadingarmy. Further, although while guarding the English standard Sir Kennethcommits a sin of omission that results in the standard's theft, hiscrime cannot be seen as even a momentary gesture of resistancec for he immediatelysubjects himself to English justice, effectively putting hisneck under the exe- cutioner's axe. Then, although Sir Kennethescapes subjection/death, he is saved not by his own actions but ratherover his objections and by "the enemy" Saladin. Finally, when rescued,Kenneth returns to the camp to find the thief, redeem the honor ofEngland, and marry a Plantagenet. Not surprisingly, even the canon's advocates haveviewed this apparently simplistic romance suspiciously, butperhaps because of their formal reservations The Talisman has achievedwhat is sometimes a dangerous kind of canonization: it has become exclusivelya high school text. Not sophisticated enough towarrant more advanced study, it has nonetheless indoctrinated generations ofyounger students, in Britain and throughout the colonies, with theromance of Empire. Understandably, then, Edward Said considers Scotta logical target for his critique of Orientalism. Said focuseson the first encounter between Sir Kenneth and Saladin, the conjunctionbetween Occident and Orient. Here, Sir Kenneth commentsto Saladin: I well thought that your blinded race had theirdescent from the foul fiend, without whose aid you wouldnever have been able to maintain this blessed land of Palestine againstso many valiant

173 163 Walter Scott's The Talisman

soldiers of God. I speak not thusof thee in particular, Saracen, but generally of thy peopleand religion. (39)' Taking predictable offense atSir Kenneth's sweepinggeneralization truly and his blindness to specificdifference, Said writes: "What is 'generally' curious is the airy condescensionof damning a whole people while mitigating the offensewith a cool 'I don't mean youin particular' England's (101). For Said, The Talismanclearly functions as part of arsenal of oppressive, imperialisttexts. dismissing cultural differencefor which Yet the sin of thoughtlessly Just Said chastises Scott can equallybe identified in Said's own text. him into the category as Sir Kennethdiminishes Saladin by sweeping when Said seeks to validateMiddle Eastern of undifferentiated Arabs, sweeping culture against the imperialistdynamic he diminishes Scott by English." He him into a similarly generalbut dominant category, "the writes: George Scott, Kinglake, Disraeli,Warburton, Burton, and even Eliot are writers for whomthe Orient was defined bymaterial possession, by a materialimagination, as it were. Englandhad defeated Napoleon, evicted France:what the English mind sur- veyed was an imperial domainwhich by the 1880s had become an unbroken patchof British-held territory. (169; myemphases) And again: English writers ... had a morepronounced and harder sense of thanthe whatOriental pilgrimagesmightentail French.... Romantic writers likeByron and Scott consequently Near Orient and a very combative had a political vision of the would awareness of how relationsbetween the Orient and Europe have to be conducted. (192; myemphasis) that necessarily Said sees Scott as English evenin a comparative context proble- foregrounds terms like "British"and "French" in a way that otherness is fooled matizes his assumption.Ironically, this advocate for sin within his by Scott's canonizationinto committing that cardinal recognize difference. own systemfailing to criteria, not by And in fact, if we readThe Talisman by Said's own his interests, it appears aquite other tale. Despite thetext's apparent subjected Englishness and endorsementof English imperialism, when quisling to the light of Orientalism,The Talisman stands forth not as a imperialist romance, but as aresistant Scottish taleasexactly the kind of ethnic and oppositionaltext Said might celebrate. Scott wrote The Talisman at amoment when he wasbecoming In 1707, deeply concerned with theeffects of anglicization in Scotland.

ei 174 164 "New" Texts

Scotland had joined in parliamentaryUnion with Englandto avoid economic penaltiesbut alsofor financial gain. Aftera slow start, in the early years of the nineteenthcentury, she finally began to achieve her Monetary desires. Scott, however, realized that whateverthe financial benefits of Union, Scotland's assumption of her neighbor'sbourgeois economic goals inevitably subjected her to England's imperialistnar- rative; Scots stood to losetheir remaining nationalinstitutions, and even their national identity. In his earlynovels, therefore, Scott painstakingly constructedtwo types of narrative for Scotland,one within which she could enjoy thegains of Union, while refusingto bring herself unduly under Englishscrutiny and losing nothing ofher own identity, and another wherein she might retain a separatesubjectivity protected from England's colonizingimpetus. (As I have argued elsewhere, these narrativesare marked by Jacobitism and gender,on the one hand, and socialized Calvinismon the other.)5 By this strategy, Scott 'aimself managed to remain outside the colonizingeconomic narrative while yet participatingin it. Although he narrateda space for Scottish difference, in so doing he made English money. Indeed,he wrote himself into a knighthood(gazetted 1820). Around 1825, however, Scott beganto realize that even this cautiously played game was not worththe candle. First, the financialgains of Union suddenly appeared ephemeral,as bubble corporations began to burst. The predicament of thesmall joint-stock companiesthat Scott parodied in his introductionto The Betrothed and The Talisman (published together as Tales of theCrusaders)4 was about to overtake him in his own ill-advised association with publishers andprinters.5 Equally important, perhaps;through his son's service inan English regiment in Ireland Scott was becoming aware that Scotland hadother comparator nations than England, and thatforworse and for better she might stand categorized withthe lowly Ireland.' Boththese perceptions bear most obvious fruit inScott's 1826 Malachi Malagrowther letters. Here, Scott respondsto a projected English encroachmenton the Scottish banking system thathe considered wouldprove financially and nationally damaging byat last arguing openly and vigorouslyfor Scotland's own financial rights, andby appealing to Ireland forsupport in his opposition. He writes:

What is our case to-day will be[Ireland's] the instant you have got a little tranquillity... I seeyou grasp your shilela at the very thought! Enough; we understandeach other. Let us be friends. Patrick aids Saunders to-day;Saunders pays back Patrickto- morrow .... But what do I talk of to-dayor to-morrow? The cause of Ireland is tried ALONG WITH that ofScotland.'

l 'I 5 165 Walter Scott's The Talisman

The Talisman, then, was written at amoment when financialcircum- stances were beginning tobring home to Scott thathowever successful perspective she was stillinevitably Other his nation, from England's understand that and inevitably less. Scott, moreover,was beginning to effective Scotland had chosen her friendsill-advisedly, and that her most alliance might be with equallyothered nations, like Ireland. Other It is perhaps his growing awarenessof Scotland's status as diminish or dismiss that causes Scott to strugglein The Talisman not to difference, but to recuperate and empowerit. Indeed, I suggest that Other stands empoweredboth in through Scott's novel, Scotland as and itself and through its conjunctionwith similarly obscured nations refracts The Talisman to persons. Thedistorting light of canonization be seen only momentarily as an Said as a text wherein Saladin can Other. individual, but persistently as arelatively insignificant Saracen thai Sir Kenneth andScott, themselves Said consequently argues Saladin as representative of the Occidentalcultural bloc, together see Oriental" "first an Oriental, second ahuman being, and last again an culturally (102). But viewed from aless canonically driven and more novel works to demonstrate,through the conscious perspective, Scott's and for a racially, religiously, andgeographically distinct Saladin, specifically Scottish Sir Kenneth,the positive value ofotherness. However Saladin enters the text,he exits it as no mere"Oriental," but significantly rather as a celebrated, highlyvisible leader, and one who fact, that otherness owes his effectiveness tohis difference. He shows, in force, that difference maycomprise not diminution, may have operative Thus but agency, and that Others maywork successfully as brothers. Talisman not as an imperialistic oppressor,but Scott looms from The nations, as one who as a visionaryopening a space for colonized transforms otherness from aposition of weakness into anoppositional position of strength. unprob- In The Talisman, far fromestablishing Sir Kenneth as an England, or even of Scotland,Scott uses him lematic representative of subjection; he to explore theconditions of Scotland's contemporary Scotland as she stands otheredby the English takes a long, cool look at vig- perspective. Committed to theCrusade, Sir Kenneth nonetheless Richard or England. oronsly denies Saladin'ssuggestion that he serves noisily declares, He insists on his separate,Scottish identity when he ..and honoured "One of [Richard's] followers I am,for this expedition . native of the island in the service; but not bornhis subject, although a Saladin's suggestion that in which he reigns" (35).And in response to by subduing Richard might better have servedthe cause of Christendom Palestine, Kenneth his Scottish neighborsbefore turning his ambitions to

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exclaims: "No, by the bright light ofHeaven! If the King of England had not set forth to the Crusade tillhe was sovereign of Scotland, the Crescent might, for me, and all true-heartedScots, glimmer for ever on the walls of Zion" (36). But whatever the vehemenceof Sir Kenneth's protest, and perhaps because he constantlyemphasizes his Scottish otherness, he stands effectively elidedby the English court. Kenneth's assertion of national difference hasled his English allies toassume in him that primary marker of otherness,bodily difference. Thus, Richard's right-hand man, Sir Thomas de Vaux,when first he notices Sir Kenneth on his return from a desert encounter with Saladin,cannot immediately identify him, but can categorize himas "a Spaniard or a Scot" (82). Like the Christian Spaniard, SirKenneth can serve in the English cause, but like the racially distinct Spaniard, hecannot be considered English. For Sir Thomas, Kennethverges away from Occidental and toward Oriental. Once locatedas Other, moreover, the Scot stands voiceless, deprived of his functionas speaking subject. Kenneth, in fact, is returning froma mission where he has unwittingly servedas an empty vessel bearing the words of conspiratorialforces, and now, de Vaux's first instinctas an Englishman and consequentlyone of the Crusade's elite is to pass Kenneth bywithout speaking to him. Scott writes: "Loath to ask evena passing question, he was about topass Sir Kenneth, with that sullen andlowering port whichseems to say, 'I know thee, but I will holdno communication with thee" (82). Given that Sir Kenneth turns out to bea Prince of ScotlandDavid, Earl of Huntingdon, serving anonymously in thecrusading forcesScott offers no optimistic picture of the contemporary Scot'srehabilitation within the Union; even the primary representativeof Scottish difference cannot maintain his identity, his roleas speaking subject, inside the orbit of English power. But Scott interestingly takescare to emphasize that Scottish subjection does not arise simplyas an inevitable effect of England's hegemony. Instead, he suggests through Prince David/SirKenneth that the Scot shares responsibility for hisown subjection. Kenneth, after all, has joined the Crusade, and taken therole of follower (wherein, as Saladin points out, he may be confused with"subject" [35]), by choice. Further, as the story proceeds, he takes on the values of thecolonizer to the extent that he willingly gives over not just his voicebut also his body to English purposes. As a reward for bringingto Richard a Saracen doctor (Saladin) who cures him of fever,Kenneth receives the task of guarding the English standard. When heproves derelict in his duty and the standard is stolen, his punishmentis death. Yet far from recognizing his failure as anecessary expression of Scottish resistance,

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Sir Kenneth covers himself with remorse,and subjects himself to English punishment. As Alexander Welsh notes,when Kenneth declares, "I have deserted my chargethe bannerintrusted to me is lostwhen the headsman and block are prepared, thehead and trunk are ready to part company" (170), "not onlyis Richard prepared to execute the hero, but the hero is prepared to die" (Welsh217). Kenneth cannot, and despite Saladin's promptings will not, stepoutside the English system even to save his own Scottishlife; he subjects himself unques- tioningly to the terms and processes ofEnglish power. By accepting England's honor code, Sir Kenneth accomplisheshis own erasure as a Scottish subjectwith relatively little helpfrom England. And in so doing, he casts a critical light on contemporaryScots who sought the gains of Union and thereby subjected themselves toEnglish power. Moreover, Scott stresses that such unthinkingsubjection to a foreign code achieves little honor for the Scottishsubject. When Sir Kenneth worships before a fragment of the true cross atEngaddi, he conjures up two oddly substantialvisions. First, a parade of veiled women circles the shrine. As they pass Sir Kenneth, onedrops rosebuds at the knight's feet. This, Sir Kenneth acknowledges, isEdith Plantagenet, his one true love, and he forgets the one true crossin order to worship speechlesslyas befits a Scottish Otherat herEnglish feet. After this vision retires, another takes its place. Fromthe floor erupts a misshapen creature, which eagerly displaysitself to Sir Kenneth. Scott writes: a long skinny arm, partlynaked, partly clothed in a sleeve of red samite, arose out of the aperture, holding alamp.... The form and face of the being who thus presentedhimself, were those of a frightful dwarf, with alarge head, a cap fantastically adorned with three peacock feathers, a dress of redsmite, the richness of which rendered his ugliness more conspicuous,distinguished by gold bracelets and armlets, and a whitesilk sash, in which he wore a gold-hilted dagger.This singular figure had in his left hand a kind of broom. So soon ashe had stepped from the aperture through which he arose, he stood still, and, as if toshow himself more distinctly, moved thelamp which he held slowly over his face and person, successively illuminating hiswild and fantastic features, and his misshapen but nervous limbs.(65) With Ills tawdry accoutrements and hisdeformed body, the dwarf parodies knightly nobility, but when he verydeliberately reveals to Sir Kenneth his red samite rags, his peacockfeather fleur de lys, and his trusty broom, he stresses hissimilitude to the Scottish knight particularly. Scott here suggests that the Scottish knight,functioning in an English army, can be only a thingdeformed, a thing showing grotesquely through the knightly signs to which he hassubjected himself. But Scott

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goes further. When Nectabanus, the dwarf, is followed from the depths by "his lady and his love;' an equally deformedapparition named "Guenevra," Scott mocks both courtlyromance and Kenneth's aspi- rations, as Scottish Other, to the unattainable EdithPlantagenet; an alliance between Englishwoman and Scotcan occur only in Sir Ken- neth's dark dreams or in thepersons of these deformed representatives (67). Most incisively of all, when Nectabanus lures SirKenneth from his post guarding the English standard to fulfilla supposed assignation with Edith, Scott b.:* igs into question Sir Kenneth'svery commitment to the crusade he espouses. The dwarf demonstrates that SirKenneth makes only a deformed, an ineffective, and perhapseven an insincere knight, a knight with a secret, self-serving agenda. ForScott, then, the Scotsman in part subjects himself to outside standards,but without much visible gain and at considerable risk. He willnot accomplish the alliances he desires, he will prove derelict in his dutiesto .his adopted system, and he will lose, or severely deform, that which he is. So in The Talisman Scott carefullymaps the conditions of Scottish subjection to England's colonizingpower, not omitting to detail the naivete and complicity of the colonized Scot. Then, withequal delib- eration, he offers a way for the Scottish Other tostep outside England's malforming concerns, to escape England's dominance,a way, indeed, to convert Scottish otherness into agency. How does Scott accomplish this? When we meet Sir Kenneth, he rides by the Dead Sea,an almost anonymous knight. Years of blows suffered in the course of the Crusadein his subjection to the English-dominatedcausehave practically wiped out his identifying heraldic device.Moreover, the design that looms uncertainly from Isis shield is that ofa couchant leopard, underwritten by the words, "I sleepwakeme not" (14). (Scott thenceforward refers to himas "The Knight of the Sleeping Leopard.") As a Scot, Sir Kenneth is asleep, with the resultthat his identity as a separate Scottish subject has been practicallyobliterated. But Scott now begins to wake the Sleeping Leopard. Hestarts the long process of Sir Kenneth's reeducation as a speaking subject by confront- ing him with Saladin. This most alien of Otherscan teach the Scottish knight that he must neither hide his otherness,nor subject it to English power, but embrace it and use it, voice himself across it. In the heart of the land, at a fountain of clarity and truthcalled "The Diamond of the Desert," Sir Kenneth meets Saladin(here Sheerkohf, the warrior; later El Hakim, the doctor). Asa Scot in the matrix of England, and a soldier in the Crusades, SirKenneth has studied to suppress difference in himself and in Palestine,so now, not surprisingly, he fails at first to recognize his kinship with thisepitome

179 Walter Scott's The Talisman 169 of otherness, and the two men do battlebefore becoming friends. But once Scott has establishedthe friendship between Kennethand Sheer.. kohf, he carefully aligns his characters.The narrator compares the way the two men fight, judge horses, and eat,and, in a series of conversations, they themselves compare the waythey believe and love. In every case Kenneth and Sheerkohf stand parallel:each fights well in battle, rides a horse perfect forhim, eats appropriately to his needs,is sincere in his religion, respects women. The Scotand the Saracen can be equated, But, interestingly, in every case, they arealso distinguished from each other. Kenneth, for instance, appearsthe perfect type of a soldier-- from the North. He is "a powerful man.built after the ancient Gothic cast of form, with light brownhair, which was seen to curl thickand profusely over his head. .. . His nose wasGrecian. ... His form was well tall, powerful and athletic. .His hands . .. were long, fair, and proportioned." Similarly, Sheerkohfperfectly represents the warrior for the Middle East. "His slenderlimbs, and long spare hands and arms, thoughwell-proportioned to his person, and suited tothe style of his countenance, did not at first aspectpromise the display of vigour and elasticity which the Emir hadlately exhibited. But, on looking more closely, his limbsseemed divested of all that wasfleshy or cumbersome; so that nothing being left butbone, brawn, and sinew, it was a frame fitted forexertion and fatigue" (24). The men,Scott stresses, while similar, are notthe same; their every similitudecomprises a difference. That is,Kenneth and Saladin are the sameonly insofar as they are systematicallydifferent; they are brothers in theirotherness.' As the warrior more racially andgeographically distinct from the English, and consequently as the moreexperienced and self-accepting Other, Saladin has a series of lessons toteach Sir Kenneth. First, he demonstrates that if one is delineated bydominant powers as inevitably and inalienably different, the best strategy maybe not to resist or repine at one's designation, but to useit. Because he is racially other, Saladin is almost invisible to the crusaders.Just as Sir Thomas de Vaux couldn't distinguish a Scot from aSpaniard, neither can the invaders individualize Middle Eastern Muslims.Indeed, Sir Kenneth himself initially takes Sheerkohf/Saladin for anArab, although he is in fact a Kurd. Sheerkohf/Saladin has toinform Sir Kenneth: "For me, I am no Arab, yet derive mydescent from a line neither lesswild nor less Mountain.. .. Kurdistan, warlike. ...I am Sheerkohf, the Lion of the from which I derive my descent, holds nofamily more noble than that of Seljoor (33). But far from beingsubjected by his erasure, Saladin turns it to his advantage. If hisbody renders him indistinguishable from the Arabs, and effectivelyinvisible to the crusaders, then he can

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play different roles without drawing attentionto himself. Thus, in the course of the novel, Saladin appears first as the warrior Sheerkohf, then as the physician El Hakim, and finally as himself. In these roles, he manages to negotiate a treaty, cure King Richard, and set the crusading camp to rights. That is, Saladin transforms his bodily difference and its accompanying erasure into mutability and mobility;he uses his body like a cloak of invisibility undercover of which he can direct the course of events. Second, Saladin shows that there are advantages in acceptingone's otherness, as well as in making strategicuse of it. Sir Kenneth asserts his national difference, but does not liveup to it, instead subjecting himself to English codes; Saladin, bycontrast, fully embraces his otherness. Most obviously, he acts in the apparentlymutually exclusive capacities of warrior and doctor. As he explainsto Sir Kenneth, the roles are necessary if opposite elements in the multiplicitythat constitutes the complete man. He comments: Doth it so surprise thee... and thou an approved warrior, to see that a soldier knows somewhat of the art of healing?Isay to thee, Nazarene, that an accomplished cavalier should know how to dress his steed as well as how to ride him; how to forge his sword upon the stithy, as well as how to use it in battle; howto burnish his arms, as well as how to wear them; and, aboveall, how to cure wounds as well as how to inflict them. (242) And as the complete man, Saladinmanages both to kill crusaders, and to cure their leader, in each case directing events towarda treaty in the Saracens' favor. Third, Saladin reveals that one can use not just one'sown otherness, but the very principle of otherness. The dominant King Richardcannot moderate his Englishness toward othernesseven so far as to negotiate with his own allies. When Scott first introduces the Englishmonarch, he notes that the Crusade is already in decline because of"the jealousies of the Christian princes and the offence taken by themat the uncurbed haughtiness of the English monarch, and Richard's unveiledcontempt for his brother sovereigns" (69). By contrast, Saladin embraceseven the otherness of death. As a doctor, he acknowledgesdeath and consequently gains the power of life; as a ruler, heaccepts his own death, and thus uses his power more advisedly and effectively.In his tent, Saladin reclines under a spear, a shroud, anda banner that simultvneously proclaims his power and its transience. It reads:"SA- LADIN, KING OF KINGSSALADIN, VICTOR OF VICTORSSALADINMUST DIE" (308). Saladin brings this awareness to play in his crucialclosing scene with Richard. He hosts for Richard the tournament in which Sir 171 Walter Scott's The Talisman and afterwards Kenneth disciplines the realthief of the English standard, the Crusade's conspirators.In the celebrations he himself disciplines for himself, Richard that follow, not recognizingthe possibility of death challenges Saladin to a duelfor Jerusalem or, failingthat, to a friendly refuses for a number of reasons,but one is bout in the lists. Saladin places the shepherd of particular interest here.He argues: "The master sake, but for the sake ofthe over the flock, notfor the shepherd's own the sceptre when I fell, Imight have had sheep. Had I a son to hold but your the liberty, as I have thewill, to brave this bold encounter, sayeth, that when theherdsman is smitten, thesheep own Scripture knowledge of death, must are scattered"(313). The monarch, in the So Saladin lives in death'sshadow, and preserve himself as governor. but on his works with it; he realizes thatdeath comes even to kings, careful action. Thus hederives his power from awareness he builds the sense to accepting what others fearorin Richard's caselack fear. into agency, he And finally, if Saladinshows how to turn otherness also demonstrates how to convertits forced silence intospeech. Scott repeatedly emphasizes that oneof the colonized subject'sinevitable is that of the right tospeak. In the context and most damaging losses in a way that may of imperial power, theOther cannot voice himself English monarch, on the otherhand, fully enjoys be heard. Richard, as constantly echoes the right and the powerof speech; his loud voice Richard's speech is so effective aninstrument around the camp. In fact fragment the that it works not just toestablish his dominance, but to unavoidably "others" evenEngland's friends. crusading allianceit call them Richard's words indeed, are toopowerful; he must constantly English, monarchical, back. In one crucial scene,he apologizes for his untutored, military and overbearing voice, onthe grounds that it is an one. He cajoleshis offended royal brothers: Richard is a Noble princes, and fathersof this holy expedition, soldierhis hand is ever readierthan his tongue, and his tongue the rough language of histrade. But do is but too much used to actions, not, for Plantagenet'shasty speeches and ill-considered forsake the noble cause ofthe redemption ofPalestinedo not and eternal salvation....because the throw away earthly renown speech as hard as act of a soldier mayhave been hasty, and his the iron which he has wornfrom childhood. (202) for his dominance byself-deprecatingly With these words, apologizing the terms of his allying his word with hissword, Richard hints at English governance, power, and once moreestablishes it. The word of English control. Saladin ac- even whenretracted, inevitably asserts

182 172 "New" Texts knowledges this when Richard declares, in response to pleas fromhis women and from Kenneth's confessorthat the delinquent knight's life be spared: "LadieS and priest,withdraw, if ye would not hearorders which would displease you; for, by Saint George, I swear""Swear NOT!" Saladin intervenes (183).A word of kinglypower must not be lightly uttered, for sucha word has performative force. As for his word has no Kenneth, power; he serves as a vehicle for the crusadingvoice and cannot speak even hisown name, David, Earl of Huntingdon. By contrast, though even more othered than Kenneth, Saladinenjoys the power of speech. If Saladinis overborne by crrsadingvoices, he has not, nonetheless, givenup his own culture's modes of speech;at different points in thestory he speaks as warrior,as doctor, and even as muezzin.' Furthermore, he has foundways to speak as ruler within his own system; he has but to send a sign to accomplish realeffects. He tells Sir Kenneth, who isbemoaning the desertion of hisown troops: "When I sendone [eagle-feathered arrow] tomy tents, a thousand warriors mounton horsebackwhen I send another,an equal force will arisefor the five, Ican command five thousandmen; and if I send my bow, ten thousand mounted riders will shake thedesert" (33-34). Saladin's speech isso powerful that he doesn't have toopen his mouth. More important, ifSaladin has found altanate formsof speech, he also, unlike the garrulousRichard, understands thepower even of no speech. When Richard challengeshim to fight for Jerusalem or even for funSaladin withholds consent. Two of his reasonsare of interest here. First, he refusesthe challenge because he alreadyholds Jerusalem, and would stand onlyto lose in the encounter. Second,he refuses the contest because, Otherthough he may be, hecan yet resist the lure of inclusion in the dominantculture that lies behind Richard's invitation to participate in thediscourse of English chivalry It isnot, then, that Saladin cannotsay yes, but that he will notsay so. So Saladin demonstrates howto assess a situation dispassionately,and how to take control of it; he showshow to exercise andassume power by remaining silent, remainingOther. Sir Kenneth, however, constitutesfor Saladin no promising pupil. He steadfastly refuses to recognizehis own otherness, holdinginstead to an English culture which has alreadyrejected him as alien. On the one hand, he insists on his similarityto his fellow knightsagainst even their indications to the contrary. Despitethe fact that he isso constantly othered by crusaders likeThomas de Vaux, Kennethcon- stitutes his body as Englishwhen he subordinates it toRichard's punishment. A further index to hisfailure to recognize andact upon his own difference occurs even after he has been saved fromdeath by

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Saladin. In the desert, they meet atroop of Templars. Kennethrefuses whose society to flee men he calls "mycomrades in armsthe men in I have vowed to fight orfall" (236). Despite Saladin'sobservation that and that these same Templars are theleast honorable of the crusaders, him along with the Saracens,Kenneth they will certainly slaughter from men again has to be forced to flee, toseparate his Scottish body fact adhere to who espouse the crusadingcode of honor but do not in it. Kenneth would prove a martyrto an adoptive codewhoSe own proponents ignore it. Atthe same time, as Kennethinsists on his be similarity with the crusaders, heis equally insistent that he cannot When he meets Saladin at theDiamond compared with the Saracens. is to of the Desert, his firstinstinct, based on Saladin's appearance, fight him. Then, when Saladin urgeshim to flee death, and torecognize the Saracens as his friends,Kenneth makes no bones aboutdeclaring for the crusaders, that such an alliance wouldbe a dishonor. For him, as and negatively Other. Saladinhas hu- the Saracen seems immutably spot manely and practically argued:"Man is not a tree, bound to one of earth, nor is he framed tocling to one bare rock, likethe scarce when animated shell-fish. Thine ownChristian writings command thee, persecuted in one city, to flee toanother, and we Moslems alsoknow holy city that Mohammed, the Prophetof Allah, driven forth from the But Kenneth of Mecca, found his refugeand his helpmates at Medina." replies, churlishly: "I mightindeed hide my dishonour. ...in a camp But had I not of infidel heathens, wherethe very phrase is unknown. advice stretch better partake more fullyin their reproach? Does not thy to take the turban?"(158). Kenneth is so so far as to recommend me outside thoroughly colonized bycrusading ideas that he cannot step them, and cannot even begin toaccept a brotherhoodbased on the then, that Scot's and the Saracen'sdistinctive otherness. Small wonder, Saladin has to drag himfirst from the camp, andthen from .the and Saracen Templars, to initiate hisrecuperation as Scottish Other brother. finally teach In the course of TheTalisman, however, Saladin does Other who is yet Sir Kenneth to embracehis otherness. The Saracen the Scottish knight notsimply to succumb to or a brother teaches act adopt the crusading culture'sview of the world, but rather to expediently, across his otheredbody; he teaches him tospeak across his despair, Kenneth assertsthat rather than silence. In the depths of should become a Muslim, he wouldwish "that my writhen features blacken, as they are like todo, in this evening's settingsun" (158). both to separate Saladin recognizes in thisdeath wish an oppoitunity with his own Sir Kenneth from his falsebrothers, and to connect him 174 "New" Texts

body, his otherness; thus he transformsthe Scottish knight intoa Nubian slave. Judith Wilt considersKenneth's transformation "one final humiliation" (182), but Scottmakes very clear that it is not loss, but gain of identity that is at stake.Saladin stresses that in this black body, "not thy brother inarms, not thy brother in blood, shall discover thee" (247). Kenneth will beseparated, by the barrier of his racially distinct body, from his false brothers;what is more, in this othered body, he will finally attainagency: he will be able to explain the events surrounding the theft of the standard. Allhe has to do is accept himself as Other, and model his behavioron that of his brother. As Saladin tells him: "Thou hastseen me do matters more difficult; he thatcan call the dying from the darkness ofthe shadow of death,can easily cast a mist before the eyes of the living"(247). But in this blackened body, Kenneh will be voiceless. His blackness itself will render him thoroughlyother, and as such he will become functionally invisible, for all intentsand purposes, mute. Further, Saladin insists that as Nubian slave,Kenneth lacks not just the ability to make himself heard, but also thebasic power to articulate. Sir Kenneth, of course, has been subsidinginto voicelessness in thecourse of the text, but now Saladin offershim an opportunity to influence events and achieve identity oncemore. All he must do is voice himself out of the silence of subjection, bymeans of that which renders him most visibly subject, his othered body. Andthis he accomplishes. With a certain ingenuity, Kenneth communicates inwriting, and with the help of man's best friend, his dogRoswal. However, it is his body that initiates the train of events leadingto the discovery of the thief and to his own recuperationas a distinct, Scottish entity. A Marabout makes an attempt on Richard's life; Kenneth, in hisrole as slave, sees the fanatic approach mirrored in theshield he is cleaning, and aborts the attack, but in the scuffle he sustainsa possibly poisoned flesh wound. Predictably, Richard's courtiers refuseto suck the poison from sucha visible Otherhowever his actionshave served their purpose, and whatever they might cost him. LongAllen protests, "Methinks I would not die like a poisoned rat for the sake ofa black chattel there, that is bought and sold in a market likea Martelmas ox" (223). But when Richard himself sucks the poison, hesucks away some of Kenneth's black dye, and realizes that this isno Nubian, but some other Other, perhaps even to him a sort of brother.Although of course Richard,as prime mover in the dominant culture,cannot yet quite grasp Sir Kenneth's situation, after thetournament wherein Sir Kenneth begins the rout of evil, and reestablisheshimself as Scot, Richard opines: "Thou hast shown that the Ethiopianmay change his skin, and the

18 6 175 Walter Scott's The Talisman changed his skin leopard his spots" (303).Kenneth has not so much acknowledged them and learned to usethem. and his spots, however, as knightly Sleeping no longer, and speakingloudly through his (Scottish) "Knight of the Leopard" (303). body, he is now, truly, the has two According to The Talisman,then, the subjected Other obvious options: like the early SirKenneth, he can accept hissubjection, and effectively die as adistinct self; or, like theMarabout who is resist, mirrored in Richard's shield asKenneth's inverse, he can openly complex and and be killed. But Scottrecommends Saladin's more his own otherness, creative strategy Saladinteaches Kenneth to accept and thus neither to rejectthe boundary betweenhimself and the crusaders, nor to transgressit. Indeed, Saladin insists ondelineating boundaries clearly: he livesunder the sign of death; hewelcomes Richard to his camp with ashower of arrows that clearlydemarcates acceptable space, since if thecrusaders exceed the English monarch's to Kenneth, the room Saladin allowsthem they risk death; and even to whom he claims heis a brother (230), Saladinpresents himself not ancient foe ... a as slavemaster, orphysician, or friend, but "as your fair and generous one" (241).Why all this emphasis onrecognizing Sir Kenneth, one's difference? First, asSaladin stresses to the resistant "Knowledge is the parent ofpower" (158). To him, differencerealized bodies and constitutes the subjectedOther's only locus for agency; boundaries are to be recognizedfor what they areand used.Second, they can truly if Others can honor oneanother for their difference, 9 become br/others; they canmultiply their agency againstcolonial subjection across their variedbodies. And, as Scottdemonstrates in Kenneth, Saladin his novel, the strategyworks. Through his br/other manages to negotiate atreaty with Richard; throughhis br/other Saladin, Kenneth manages to operatewithin the crusading systemwithout effaced sacrificing his identity. Theknight who first appeared with arms his shield a leopard withcollar and broken chain; now blazons forth on and can now Kenneth has learned to controland exploit his difference, leading string that bound him toSaladin. acknowledge and cut the that this is his And within TheTalisman, Scott makes it clear preferred strategy for the contemporarysubjected Scot. At the end of talisman, the occulted symbolof Saladin's his novel, he projects the Saladin has mobility, into Scotland. Usingthis little stone in a net bag, from death. penetrated the crusading camp,and persistently seized life administered according But the talisman's "plopplop, fizz fizz" must be of the .heavens; if the stoneis not used enough, or to the movements both will die. Now, not used aright, thelast patient and the physician talisman to Kenneth Scott casually mentionsthat Saladin has given the

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as a wedding present. How dowe read this remarkable gift? The talisman requires its operatorto recognize death, but to liveto heal. The Scot is to flee the death of accepted subjection, but torecognize himself as Other, to deal withdeath, and accomplish life.Moreover, Sir Kenneth, as Prince David,is to perform a kinglycure on his people. But as I suggested earlier, in1825Scott was just beginningto gasp the limitations and the potentialin the contemporary Scottish In the yews immediately situation. following The Talisman'spublication, he learned that his country's problems were more acute, theirsolutions more urgent, than he had recognized. It isperhaps for this reason that after his own financial collapse and the Scottish banking crisis,and after he appealed openly to the Irish for support, he hedgedhis text about with rather strangesupplements. For the1832edition of his works, he loaded the novel withprefatory and closing material,some of which is worth particular note. First, in his "Introduction," helinks the talisman to a curativestone brought back from the Crusades,and held by the Lockharts of Lee(3-4). Then, in a footnote, herecounts that the Lee-penny, as it is now known, serves tocure cattle, and that the ungracious PresbyterianScots have rejectedeven these cures as potentially diabolic (316). Thatis, Scott indicates paradigmaticallyfor those who have missed the message that his countrypeople needto regain their talismanic power, to accept and to use otherness,to fight for life in the context of death, and to be agents of theirown destiny. Second, in an appendix to the1832"Introduction," he quotes George Ellis's retelling of a tale in Richard Coeur deLion (Ellis 233-46).Here, suffering from fever like the Kingin Scott's own novel, Richardcraves pork. With none available, hiscooks slay and servea Saracen, instead (a bitterly ironic choice giventhe Islamic proscription of porkin any form). When Richard discoversthe substitution, far from resentingit, he uses it to intimidate the Sultan's ambassadors: rather thannegotiate with them, he invites them to a banquet at which heserves and eats their relatives. Needlessto say, they are only too happyto forget their ambassadorial duties, and toescape with their lives. In this appendix, Scott adds a new urgencyto his text; he stresses as faras he can the risks to the unresistant Other. to a voracious, dominant culture,the Other looks a lot like dinner.Just a little cultural cookerywill make it digestible. If Scott's supplements makehim seem paranoid, if histext's rein- scriptions indicate desperation,the history of hisown text revt Is that he didn't worry withoutreason. As we have seen, even The Talisman, Scott's carefully modulated consideration of the dynamics ofethnicity subjected to colonial power, has slipped easily down the Englishcanon's

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open maw. But perhaps thisessay's Saidian Heimlich maneuver can dislodge it, can make the canon cough it up,and into the discursive space of world literatureor atleast, perhaps it can give the canon a case of cultural indigestion.

Acknowledgments

My thanks go to Ric Reverand,University of Wyoming, for the careful reading and thorough comments that havehelped me to limit this paper's controversy to its content, rather thanits form.

Notes

I. Leavis began more complimentarily,describing Scott as "primarily a kind of inspired folk-lorist.... a greatand very intelligent man; but not having the creative writer's interest inliterature, he made no serious attempt to work out his own form andbreak away from the bad tradition of the eighteenth-century romance" (14). As we await the Edinburgh Edition ofScott's works, I have chosen to , the most easilyaccessible current edition (Everyman 1991). 3. See McCracken-Flesher, "ThinkingNationally, Writing Colonially? Scott, Stevenson and England"; and "A Wo/manfor A' That? Subverted Sex and Perverted Politics in The Heart of Midlothian." 4. This introduction seldom prefacesThe Talisman when the novel is published separately, but it appears in anycomplete edition of Scott's works. 5. Scott's son-in-law J. G. Lockhart soundedthe alarm in November 1825, although the crash did not occur until 1826.(See Scott's November 18 letter to Lockhart in Grierson,291-95). 6. See, for example, Scott's letter of 4April to his son, Walter. He writes, shifting blame for Ireland's problems fromher poor, Catholic population to her rack-renting and absentee landlords,"The Catholic question seems like to be accomodated [sic] at present.I hope though I doubt it a little, that Ireland will be the quieter & the people morehappy. I suspect however it is laying a plaister to the foot while the headaches & that the fault is in the landholders extreme exactions not in thedisabilities of the Catholics or any remote cause:' Parts of TheTalisman were in press by May 15 of the same year. (See Grierson 63,113). 7. Scott wrote three letters, each headed"To the Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, from Malachi Malagrowther,Esq. on the Proposed Change of Currency, and Other Late Alterations, asthey affect, or are intended to affect, the Kingdom of Scotland:' He addresses"Patrick" in the second (23- 29). 8. In his recent book, Bruce Beiderwelladds his voice to those stressing that here Saladin and Sir Kenneth representthe East and the West. He calls

188

41 -

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Sir Kenneth and Saladin "the two best representatives of theirrespective cultures' virtues" (85). He misses, I think, the fact that each is also encoded as Other. 9. When Kenneth is saved by Saladin/EI Hakim from death, their ride through the desert is interrupted for prayer. Scott writes: "Thesonorous voice of El Hakim himself overpowered and cut short the narrative of thetale- teller, while he caused to resound along the sands the solemnsummons, which the muezzins thunder at morning from the minaret ofevery mosque" (233).

Works Cited

Beiderwell, Bruce. Power and Punishment in Scott's Novels. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1997_ Ellis, George, ed. Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances. Vol2. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1811. Grierson, H. J. C., ed. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott: 1825-1826. 1935.New York: AMS Press, 1971. Hayden, John 0. The Critical Heritage. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970. James, Henry. The Notebooks of Henry James. Ed. E 0. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock. 1947. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981. Leavis, E R. The Great Tradition. 1948. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1980. McCracken-Flesher, Caroline. "Thinking Nationally, Writing Colonially? Scott, Stevenson and England," Novel 24 (1991): 296-318. . "A Wo/man for A' That? Subverted Sex and Perverted Politics in The Heart of Midlothian." In Scott in Carnival. Ed. J. H. Alexander and David Hewitt. Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1993. 232-44. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979. Scott, Walter. To the Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, from Malachi Malagrowther, Esq. on the Proposed Change of Currency, and Other Late Alterations, as They Affect, or Are Intended to Affect, the Kingdom of Scotland. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1826. . The Talisman. 1825. London: Everyman. 1906, 1991. Welsh, Alexander. The Hero of the Waverley Novels. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963. Wilt, Judith. Secret Leaves: The Novels of Walter Scott. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985. 14 A DifferentKind of Hero: The Tale of Genjiand the American Reader

Charles B. Dodson University of North Carolina atWilmington

surveying world literature throughthe In my sophomore-level course heroic codes. seventeenth century, I emphasizethe theme of heroes and But in addition to suchWestern classics as TheIliad, The Odyssey, Don Quixote, and The Songof Roland, I also includeThe Ramayana, epics of India, and TheTale of Genji, a fictional one of the great gentleman, written in account of an idealizedJapanese courtier and eleventh century A.D. by the courtlady Murasaki the late tenth or early Although Shikibu, and often considered tobe the world's first novel. depart in certain the attitudes and behaviorof Rama in The Ramayana warrior codes that my students respects from theHomeric and chivalric parallels with Achilles or are familiar with,they see in him many they of course find Ramaand his milieu Odysseus or Roland, although who is not much more exotic. However,in Genji they find a "hero" respects only different from the classicOccidental figure, but in many almost diametrically opposed toit. embodies and that The values and standardsof behavior that Genji him by the author and theother characters (especially are perceived in of my students, the female ones) oftenastonish, even offend, many having evolved from steeped as they are in theethos of a culture that, prize violent or at its roots in the Homericwarrior code, continues to materialism, athletic least aggressive behavior,Marlboro-man virility, vigor, and an aesthetic sensethat doesn't go muchbeyond sports-car Homeric poems not styling. Nonetheless, I beginthe course with the reading list but because only because they are theearliest works on our easily recognize many facetsof the warrior code that my students will comparing the underlies them. We readThe Song of Roland next, other matters Homeric and early chivalriccodes and discussing among how Roland and othercharacters do or do notmanifest traditional heroic traits. 179 1'39 180 "New" Texts

The Ramayana not onlyintroduces the studentsto a new and different set of cultural and religious constructs, with itsexotic locale, bizarre supernatural events, and polytheistic Hinducontext; but also Rama himself serves as a transitional heroic figure betweenthe violent, relatively crude Homeric warriors and the refined,gentle, aesthetic Genji. Rama possessesmany of the usual traits ofa Western heroic .protagonist: aristocratic birth,piety, courage, great skillat arms, en- durance, singleness ofpurpose. But to these are added traitsnot often associated with the Western heroic figure: courtesy, humility,modesty, self-denial, learning,a highly developed ethicalsense, and especially compassion. The latter takesmany forms, including a desire to help others (e.g., Sugreeva, who hasbeen unjustly persecuted by hisbrother Vali, and Ahalya, who hasbeen changed to stone afterbeing seduced by Indra). In fact, as the incarnation of the great godVishnu, Rama exists to "abolish fear fromthe hearts of men and gods,and establish peace, gentleness, and justice in theworld" (Narayan 67). Hiscom- passionate nature is particularly revealed by his treatment of hisarch- foe, Ravana, for hewants to save rather than destroyhim (Narayan 154), and he finally does destroy him only when Ravanahas refused Rama's final plea to free Sitaand end his evildoing. Ramadoes not respond to Ravana's death withjubilation, nor does he gloatover a fallen opponent as woulda warrior in The Iliad; his reaction is regret that Ravana's instead great powers had been so grosslymisused, and he urges that R avana's soul,now purged of its destructive hostility, concupiscence, and egotism, "maygo to heaven, where he has his place" (Narayan 160). Rama both differs from theHomeric warrior hero and anticipates the soft-spoken, introspectiveGenji in other waysas well. He strives to embody his father's teaching that "humility and soft speech"are limitless virtues and that "angeror meanness" can have "no place in a king's heart" (Narayan 38). Homericheroes have little timeor inclination for speculation; Ramahas fourteen years for it duringhis exile (Genji will likewise spend several yems in lonely exile). Inseeing life "as a bondage from whichone should escaper Rama is much closer to Genji's outlook thanto the Greek warrior's belief that"human existence is a gift [from thegods] which must be enjoyed" 112). (De Bary Having briefly reviewed thetraditional Western heroic figureand code of behavior along withan Asian workThe Ramayanawhich shares some of its characteristics but also, as studentssoon realize, has some affinities with Genji and his world,students will be better prepared to take up their study of the latter. They are somewhatsurprised, I

191 The Tale of Genji and the AmericanReader 181 think, when they learn in the openingchapter not only that Genji is fact (by our monogamous standards,anyway) illegitimate but that this is of no real importance in othercharacters' attitudes toward him. Other surprises soon follow. Althoughthere are vague references to military matters in the novel, arms andwarfare play no significant part in the story nor in Genji'scharacterization (The Tale of Genji takes place during a peaceful andisolationist era in Japanese history).Genji is indeed good-looking, but theauthor speaks not of a squarejaw or rugged physique but rather of hisbeauty He is indeed so beautiful even as a child that manyat court fear he will notlive long, great beauty (like other personalaccomplishments) being, for them, an omen of potential disaster. As he maturesinto a young man, the other characters often perceive a sort ofradiance in his beautyhe comes to be referred to as "theshining one"and during one momentof great sorrow we are eventold that "he was so handsomein his grief that Koremitsu [his servant]wanted to weep" (Murasaki53). When he visits his father-in-law's socialgathering during the festival of cherry blossoms, his combination ofpersonal beauty and exquisite tastein selecting and blending the colorsof his robes "quite overwhelmed" even the cherryblossoms themselves (143). Indeed, his refined aestheticsensibility is one of his mostnotable traits. Genji is keenly attuned tothe delicate beauty of the natural world; he not only responds toit emotionally but is mostadept at capturing and expressing it throughhis great skill as a painter and poet. Like the other courtladies and gentlemen he composes poems spontaneously and publicly and isadmired for the flowing delicacyof his calligraphy and his ability tochoose just the right shade and texture but of paper for the poems throughwhich he not only seduces women literally converses with them andothers. As do all court gentlemen, Genji perfumes his clothing with adelicate scent of his own devising. His singing and his grace as aceremonial dancer are such thatthey can bring tears tothe eyes of an entire assembly, eventhe emperor himself: Genji and To no Chujo danced "Wavesof the Blue Ocean:' To no Chujo was a handsomeyouth who carried himself well,but beside Genji he was like a nondescriptmountain shrub beside a blossoming cherry.... Geliji scarcelyseemed of this world. As he intoned the lyrics his auditors couldhave believed they were listening to the Kalavinka bird ofparadise. (107) Genji is moreover an accomplishedplayer on both the Japanese and Chinese kotos, and is moved by theplaying of others.

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A scene early in the novel epitomizes the almost obsessive pervasiveness of Genji's aesthetic sensibility. As he departs one morning from a secret romantic liaison, he pauses "to admire the profusion of flowers below the veranda:' His mistress's lady-in-waiting follows him out, and he is so struck by her aster robe ("which matched the season pleasantly") and by the elegance and grace with which she wears it and her "gossamer train" that he asks her to sit with him for a while. "The ceremonious precision of the seated figure and the hair flowing over her robes" strikes him as being "very fine:' When a "pretty little page boy" then appears among the flowas and breaks off a morning glory blossom to present to Genji, the set piece is complete and so perfect that Genji feels the urge to capture it on canvas (37). Another of Genji's differences is his mind. The classic Western hero is not known for his intellect. Even the wily and resourceful Odysseus is essentially a man of action rather thian contemplation, and his mental faculties are largely devoted to outwitting enemies and responding to life-threatening situations. But Genji is not only an accomplished poet: he is likewise a scholar of Chinese literature and history who, on the occasion of a Chinese rhyme-guessing contest, dazzles even the university professors who are present (223). Even more important is his sensitivity to mono no aware, the pervasive sense of the transience and essential sadness of life, which can be found in even the most ordinary of events. Frequently translated as "the evanescence of things," aware is perhaps the major thematic motif in the novel. All of the characters possess aware, but Genji does so to the utmost extent. Thus sadness is an inseparable facet of Genji's response to beauty, whether the beauty emanates from a melody on the koto, a woman, or a natural scene. Once, as Genji travels to a shrine to plead with one of his mistresses not to go Into religious seclusion, he traverses "a reed plain of melancholy beauty," where "insects hummed sadly" among plants bereft of their flowers by winter. Moreover, "more perceptive men saw how beautifully the melancholy scene set him off" (187). There is sadness in the beauty, but there is also beauty in the sadness. At the end of the tale Genji, after a period of disgrace, has not only been restored to his former rank and offices but is even more influential than before and has emerged triumphant over his rivals in a painting contest that has considerable political implications. Yet instead of exhilaration or even satisfaction, he is only more convinced than ever that "men who rise to rank and power beyond their years cannot expect long lives" and that further "glory could only bring uncertainty. He wanted to withdraw quietly and make

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preparations for the next life," and so hebegins making arrangements to move to a remote mountainvillage (359-60). Other traits that set Genji above his peersinclude his pfAite respect- fulness to all, even to his political andsocial opponents, and an often self-effacing modesty, especially whencontemplating or admitting his weakness for women. He frequently displaysgenerosity and spontaneous concern for others, especiallythose who have suffered as a resultof his actionsa far cry from Achilles' petulantdemand to Thetis that many Achaians must fall to Trojan bladeswhile he remains sulking in his tent. For example, in spite ofGenji's shock and fear at the suddenand unexplained death of his mistressYugao, "his confused thoughts centered upon the girl. There was no roomfor thoughts of himself" (50), and he even gives the now rootlessUkon, Yugao's lady-in-waiting, a home and employmentin his own household. When he isscandalously discovered in Oborozukiyo's bed, "theimmediate business was to comfort the lady" (228), and he isempathetically aware of the suffering of the Rokujo lady and others whohave come to grief, frustration, or embarrassment as a result of thevagaries that inevitably come with the passing of time. Perhaps MargaretBerry best sums up the positive qualities of Genji when she says that Genji's life is devoted to an exploringof his world for beauty; his search is solely to give, to receive, tobring into being as much creative affection, ... as much psychologicaldelight in perfection of form as possible. In his long seriesof amoursdespite impet- uo.rity and irresponsibilitythe Heianprince basically pursues only beautiful and enduring, though notexclusive, relationships in which he can promote the well-being,the capacities for beauty of the beloved while himself savoringunion with that which is beautiful. (5-6) The matter of his amours is probably,for my students, Genji's most distinctive departure from the traditionalheroic role, whether Western or Eastern. They acceptAchilles' relationship with Briseis and. presumably, others; the Mycenaean age,after all, was a primitive one, and students can understand the conceptof women as war booty without endorsing it. They are even willing to acceptOdysseus' long liaison with Calypso and, somewhat lessreadily, his year with Circe. After all, he does have as his ultimategoal reunion with his wife and son,his relationships with Calypso and Circe areessentially at the behest of the gods, and he turns downNausicaa. Rama is unhesitatinglyand completely faithful to his wife Sita, andRoland is an essentially sexless figure.

194 184 "New" Texts But my students have a great deal of difficulty withGenji, right from the openingchapter, when he conceives his stepmother Fujitsubo a childhood yearning for which, as hegrows up, becomes a consuming and compulsive passionthat is only partly satisfied him a son. He has affair when she bears upon affair, often simultaneously,sometimes with older women likethe Rokujo lady (who marriage) and the nearly is also his aunt by sixty-year-old Naishi; sometimeswith women of his own age; andeven with Murasaki, whom he in his household when abducts and installs she is ten, then raises forseveral years likea younger sister or daughter, and then,in effect, rapes to her that their relationship as a way of signaling is now to change fromfilial to sexual. My students are unconvincedby the author's rather of Genji at such times, pro-forma criticism and they resist herconstant insistence on how devastatingly attractive everyone finds him. Norare they impressed by his servant Koremitsu'srationalization that because so attractive, "to refrain from women find him these little affairs wouldbe less than human. It was not realisticto hold that certain people temptation" (35). I remind were beyond the students that inHeian tenth-century court society, promiscuitywas common, even encouraged, and women alike; that among men it was a polygamoussociety to begin with; that marriages, like thoseamong European monarchies, political and economic were arranged for purposes, not for love (hence Genji'sindifference to his wife Aoi duringmost of their marriage); that were more often made social judgments on aesthetic rather than moralprinciples; and that the authorwas too elegant and reticent herself specific, let alone lurid, to provide any erotic detail. Nonetheless,my students' reactions to Genji's usually refined butinexhaustible sexual adventuring vary from astonishment tend to to disapproval to indignationto outright disgust, and I sometimesfind myself in the rather of defending him by awkward position reiterating all his other,clearly admirable (if, by Western standards, ratherunorthodox) traitsas a "hero." I should point out that whatever resistancemy students show to Genji does notseem to come from any prejudicial being either nonwhite hostility to him for or specifically Japanese. None ofthe contemporary resentment that perceivesJapan as a trade of the loss of American opponent, a cause jobs, or our bitterenemy in World War II seem to enter into this resistance.If anything, the students whom are from rural (many of or smali-town North Carolina)are curious about the culture and customsof Japan during the tenth were receptive to and curious century, just as they about the "foreignness" ofRama and his world earlier in thecourse. Perhaps it is not just Genji's but his promiscuity and sexuality, its tacit endorsementby the author that they

195 185 The Tale of Genii and theAmerican Reader They are of course awareof the sexual find unacceptably "foreign?' for the past revolution that has been takingplace in American culture several decades; and I have no reasonto doubt that theyendorse R at least in theoryasmuch as would any other groupof students their But what they have troubleaccepting seems age on other campuses. extreme that, in to be that, first,Genji's promiscuity is carried to an Fujitsubo's cases, verges on incest,and, second, Rokujo's and especially important and his obsessive sexualadventuring is presented as an essentially acceptable personalitytraitalmost a sine qua nonin a clearly considers to beparadigmatic. Their character that the author taboo on it; aversion to incest is of courseattributable to our cultural sophisticated audience no doubtconsid- and even Murasaki Shikibu's limits in his ered Genji to be perilouslyclose to violating cultural relationships with Fujitsubo andRokujo (McCullough 135). "But how can such a sexualathlete be a hero?" mystudents ask. After all, the heroes of theirliterary tradition are essentially monoga- presents Penelope mous and sexuallyconventional. Thus The Odyssey mother, not as Odysseus' as Odysseus'bravely persevering wife and a in ,Book 23 probably hasits (unstated) sexual partner. Their reunion the res- physical manifestation, but thereunion primarily represents just as the killing toration of domestic orderin Odysseus' household reestablishment of civil orderin Ithaca. In of the suitors leads to the the scene in The Iliad Hector is movinglypresented as a family man: and especially thepoignantly humorous Book 6 with Andromache, horsehair incident when their son Astyanaxis frightened by the bristling helmet, underscore theportrayal of the Trojans as crest on his father's the community defending homeand family, in contrast to a coherent Achilles does avail bickering, belligerent invadersfrom across the sea. prizes, but my studentsrealize that fighting himself of his female batOe him. Roland's world is and glory, not sex, arewhat really matter to Rama behaves like aproperly lovestruck almost exclusively male. early in the American teenager when hefirst sees Sita, and they marry but in a sense his final story. Not only doeshe remain faithful to her firm yet polite refusal conflict with Ravana isprecipitated by his quite Don Quixote is of course to be seduced byRavana's sister, Soorpanaka. of the beauty of'women, but he is pl- 3edbeyond very much aware is mostly an sexuality by both his age andhis derangement: Dulcinea he meets idealized figment of hisimagination, and the other women safely abstracted into courtladies or damsels in distress are vaguely and protective and for whom his feelings,those of a chaste knight, are paternal, not sexual.

1 14 6 186 "New" Texts

One might expect that the sexualrevolution would make students more receptive to a hero so sexuallyprecocious as Genji andeven make them at least willingto tolerate his attraction to his stepmother (and her evidently mutual attractionto him, though she resists it much more than he does). But suchseems not to be the case. In class discussion, students do not mentioneither Don Juan or contemporary popular figures famous for theirsupposed sexual conquests (e.g., Warren Beatty, Magic Johnson, WiltChamberlain, the Kennedys, Prince,and so on) as counterpartsadmirableor notto Genji. They seem to want their heroes' sexuality to beconventional, in both quality and quantity. All of the foregoing is notto say that Genji has nothing incommon with the traditional heroic figureof Homer or the chivalric epic. There are parallels. He is of course an aristocrat.He has the charisma ofa Hector or a Roland. Like the classicWestern hero he is larger than life in personality and in attainments,different in kind from those ofan Achilles or an Odysseusas these might be. In fact, in the diversity of his accomplishmentswe can even see the Homeric ideal ofarete, which Mao translates as all-around"excellence" (171-.72). And particularly, like the Homericheroes, like Roland, like the protagonists of Greek tragedy, he is flawed.Achilles' initial withdrawal from the Trojan war was acceptableto his peers; but he puts himself in the wrong when in Book 9of The Iliad he refuses Agamemnon's exceedingly generous compensatory offerand this decision leads to the death of his dearest friend Patroclus.Odysseus has to learn the hard way that .when he gives in to the warrior'simpulse to boast over a victory, he gets himself andeveryone else in serious, even fatal, trouble. Roland is blinded by his arrogantconviction that as a Frenchman and a Christian he is immeasurably superiorto the heathen Saracens. Genji too is guilty ofexcess, of his own kind of hamartia. This excess grows out of his sexual drive, but it ismore a matter of whom he chooses to pursue than howmany. As he himself admits, "it was his nature to be quickened bydanger" in matters of love (225). This can explain his attraction to the volatile Rokujolady, who directly if unintentionally causes the death of hiswife Aoi and his mistress Yugao, and immeasurable grief to Genji.He is fascinated not only by theten- year-old Murasaki herself but by thechallenge of spiriting heraway before her father comes to take her, hidingher away in his Nijo palace and molding her over theyears into his ideal woman. Oborozukiyo's undeniable charms merelyaugment the danger of carryingon a forbidden liaison with awoman who is at once the intended wife of his brother (the emperor) and thesister of his bitterestenemy, Lady

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Kokiden; he even beds her inKokiden's own house! Theirdiscovery and several there by her father leadsdirectly to his eclipse at court Akashi, and like the errors years of lonely,painful exile at Suma and Odysseus, and Roland, it isentirely his own doing. of Hector, Achilles, the most severely But Genji's mostexcessive act, because it is with Fujitsubo. That sheis his own forbidden of all, is his relationship incestuous in a stepmother makes their affair,though technically not is more: Heian reader's view, nonethelesshighly improper. But there who is also the emperor she is the favoritemistress of Genji's father, clear to Genji andFujitsubo that her son is himself. When it becomes intense and Genji's and not the emperor's,her resulting anxiety is so unrelieved that it ultimately, evenafter the emperor has died unaware becoming a of the truth, leads her to severher ties with the world by he must suffer not onlythe fear of discovery,but nun. As for Genji, his father (whom he also the guilt of knowinghe has terribly deceived genuinely loves) and thefrustration of having a sonhe can never acknowledge, even after the sonhimself becomes emperor. the tradi- My students are quick toperceive Genji's similarities to insist, and I agree, thatGenji differs from the tional hero, but they extensively and Western heroic figures wehave studied far more dramatically than he resemblesthem. As Earl Miner hassaid, beautification The dance, music, poeticcomposition, painting, the sensibility that is both touchedby nature of one's environment, a doubt seem and able to convey itsbeauties to othersthew no beside the wrathful greatnessof Achilles tame accomplishments set with or the thirty-man-powergrip of Beowulf. And the concern lovewhich enables the novel todevelop Genji's fullness of personalityis apt to make him seemeither 'effeminate' or altogether profligate. (7) The sharp contrast thatGenji thus provides withthe classic figure European cultural of the warrior hero theyhave inherited from the forces students to reconsiderand perhaps even and literary tradition Some of them even modify their response tothat traditional figure. end up admiring Genji.

Works Consulted Greek." Unpub- Berry, Margaret. "The Meetingof the Twain: Japanese and lished essay, 1986. Putnam. Mack et al. Cervantes, Miguel de. DonQuixote. Trans. Samuel 1176-1329. 188 "New" Texts

De Bary, William T., ed. Approachesto the Oriental Classics. New York: Columbia UP, 1959. Goldin, Frederick, trans. The Songof Roland. Mack et al. 679-736. Homer. The Odyssey. Trans.Robert Fitzgerald Mack et al. 172-227. The Iliad. Trans. Richmond 1971. Lattimore. Chicago: U of Chicago P, Kitto, H. D. F. The Greeks.Baltimore: Penguin, 1951. Mack, Maynar 1, et al. The Norton Anthology of WorldMasterpieces. 5th Continental ed. Vol. 1. New York:Norton, 1987. Maki, J. M. "Lady Murasakiand the Genii Monogatarir ponica 3 (1:40): 480-503. Monumenta Nip- McCullough, William H. "Japanese Marriage Institutions in the HeianPeriod?' Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies27 (1967): 103-67. Miner, Earl. "Some Thematic andStructural Features of the Genji Monoga- tarir Monumenta Nipponica 24(1969): 1-19. Morris, Ivan. The World of the ShiningPrince. New York: Knopf, 1964. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji, ttanslated and abridged byEdward G. Seidensticker. New York: Random,1990. Narayan, R. K., trans. The Ramayana. 1977. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, Rimer, J. Thomas. ModernJapanese Fiction and Its Traditions. Princeton UP, 1978. Princeton:

199 15 "Singingin the Seams":Bharati Mukherjee'sImmigrants

Ranee Kaur Banerjee

article on a Trinidad-Indianhooker, I see I see myself in an film music myself in the successfulexecutive who slides Hindi drives into Manhattan; I seemyself in the in his tape deck as he loose-living daugh- shady accountant who'strying to marry otT his domestics, high school students,illegal busboys ter; in professors, the right in ethnic restaurants. It'spossible, with sharp ears and equipmentto hear Americasinging even in the seamsof the dominant culture. In fact, it maybe the best listening postfor Whitmans. For me, it is a movementaway the next generation of of immi- from the aloofness ofexpatriation, to the exuberance gration. Bharati Mukherjee,Introduction to Darkness

that of the postcolonial, The twentieth centuryis best characterized as the exile, and theimmigrant, of all those who the migrant, the refugee, a-cultural, as nOmads. As our worldbecomes increasingly are cultural Bombay and the number of tribestraveling across traditions grows, as boroughs of the samemoving city, itinerants like New York become literature. Here is, Bharati Mukherjee arecreating their own nomad national boundary canhold in and claim; finally, a literature that no globe that that reflects fragmentsfrom distant parts of the a literature body; a literature have come together andcollected within the nomad's than mirrored images. of kaleidoscopic rather knows that "the Bharati Mukherjee, likeher "lady from Lucknow," everywhere because sheis never at home traveler feels at home Mukherjee anywhere" (31). AWestern-educated postcolonial woman, of the fragmentationof her identity, of the has always been aware education in Calcutta unbridged gaps betweenher missionary school heritage, between heraffluent, cosmopolitan up- and her indigenous three decades bringing and her conservativeBengali beginnings. After her Canadian husband, of living in different partsof North America with 189 209 190 "New" Texts Mukherjee would liketo be considered tradition of other American an American writer "in the authors whose ancestorsarrived at Ellis Islandr But she hasto admit that when you are from the Third World, whenyou have dark skin and religious beliefs thatdo not conform to those Christianity mainstream of Judaism or America responds toyou in ways you can't foresee. (Interview650) Mukherjee's Third Worldimmigrants "have different to America for "different gods" and come reasonsr Her fiction,therefore, "has to consider race, politics, religion,as well as certain nastinesses generations of white that other immigrant American writersmay not have had to take into account" (651).As one of Mukherjee's the process of her characters describes immigration to the UnitedStates, At first you don't exist.Then you're invisible. Then Then you're disgusting. you're funny. Insult, my American friendswill tell me, is a form ofacceptance. No instant dignity here. 27) ("A Wife's Story"

Mukherjee describes herfiction as an hivestigationinto the myriad "remarkable, often heroic"tales of the survival of immigrant in the the Third World new world s/he has adoptedout of choice or necessity. Of course, the figureof the Third World of a single, homogenous, immigrant does not consist coherent composition. The more like a three-dimensional picture is actually jigsaw puzzle madeup of a conglom- eration of many nationalities,races, classes, religions, and systems, many histories and political traditions, many "brokenidentities and discarded languages"(Interview 654). As in her introduction Mukherjee further explains to Darkness, each piece thatmakes the picture has its own unique story ofsurvival to tell, and together only by the pieces are joined a common "will to bond"themselves "to anew community against theever-present fear of failure and Thus, what at first glance betrayal" (3). may seem like a very limitedfictional world is actually one withan endless treasury of untold any other in the world. stories, each unlike Yet there are similaritiestha become evidentto an immigrant intellectual like Mukherjee. The Third World isnot geographically contiguousthe nomenclatureitself is a First Worldconstructnone- theless, certain sectionsof the world merit of certain shared a common name because experiences and conditions,which, though few and superficial, are enough forthe formulation and that underlies all the expression of a bond differences. It is inevitablethat Western-educated postcolonials, whatever theirorigins, will identifywith other peoples

2 191 Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants

with them an experienceof economic depri- of the world who share and culture, vation, of belonging to atraditional, agricultural society exploitation and a common a similar historyof colonial subjugation and postcolonial crisis of identity. husband The narrator of "A Wife'sStory' has left her home and her special ed:' Her mother,she says, was beaten by "to get a Ph.D. in "when she'd regis- her mother-in-law, theprotagonist's grandmother, the Alliance Française."Her grandmother, tered for French lessons at protagonist, Panna the daughter of a richzamindar, was illiterate. The girls' schools Bhatt, has been "trained ... tobehave well" by "expensive exquisite, [her] feelings in Lausanne and Bombay."Her "manners are moods undetectable" (28-29). are delicate, [her]gestures refined, [her] She tries to explainthe postcolonial crisis ofidentity: the situation. Old colonies weardown. It's not my fault; it's be suspicious. Idi Amin's Patelsthe new pioneershave to feel, that's the lesson is permanent ... Iknow how both sides scams, the sadsalesmen on the trouble. The Patels sniffing out It's hate I long stage: postcolonialismhas made me their referee. for; simple, brutish, partisanhate. (27) like Dr. Supariwala and Hate is an emotionThird World immigrants Incidents"), Gupta the cook,and the illegal J. M. Persawd ("Isolated have to face often in the busboyc of Mumtaz BarB-Q ("Tamurlane") First World. But it is not anemotion Third Worldimmigrants like: from Lucknow"), fix. whomlines from Nifeesa Hafeez ("The Lady Clayton ("The Donne and Urdu verses carryequal significance; Ratna lies submerged just World according to Hsu"),whose "Europeanness" below her sla waiting tobe discovered; VineetaKumar ("Visitors"), literature at Loreto College,Calcuttaor even who majored in French Christian "Angela:' who grew uplearning poise and piano at a reciprocate easily. ForWestem-educated orphanage in Bangladesh, can them even before postcolonials, thc First Worldis too much a part of their Old World; they have entered it; theNew World has penetrated imposed upon them throughcolonization. In time, its ways have been colonial masters, they have internalized thelessons taught to them by languages, become partof their traditions and learned their "masters' " learned to partially cultures, histories andliteratures and philosophies, through the perceptions ofthe Other. comprehend their own worlds coming to the Thus, to Western-educatedThird World immigrants, They are not total strangers New World is at least inpart a homecoming. such. And their survival to it. But they are,unfortunately, perceived as hybrid-species that incorporatestwo as a looselyintegrated identity, a

u 2 192 "New" Texts

or more cultural strains, is threatened.An imbalance is automatically created when they, who carry this world everywhere within them,are taken to be strangers themoment they set foot within it. An identity crisis becomes inevitablewith the awareness that theOther who is so familiar, so much their own self, perceives them to be alien,incom- prehensible, inscrutable, undesirable. For Western-educatedpostcolonials, the traditionaland colonial coexist without any overt needfor analysis, explanations,or apologies. It is not anybody's fault, "it'sthe situation." Onecan be a hybrid, be aware of the fact without taking sides,without needing to explainto society why one is that way, what one is, how one is combined.But as a Third World immigrant in theNew World one is immediately made aware that one isan anomaly, an absurdity or, at thevery least, an aberration. And one is forcedto take sides, one wayor the other, forced .to explain, analyze,apologize; forced to privilegeone part of this hybrid identity over the other, forced into a crisis of identity.Thus Mrs. Bhowmik ("A Father")goes out of her way to seem "American- ized" to the point of readingpop psychology books in order to improve her relationship with her husband; she tries out new, Americancuisine from her cookbook of "EggcellentRecipes"; she wants her husband give up his Old World beliefs to in his pagan goddess, Kali,and become a fashionable atheist like herself. Thus,Mr. Bhowmik feels obligedto keep a firm hold on his religion and his superstitions. As hisphysical association with India fades withthe years, his morningprayers to Kali become longer and more devout,his adherence to old superstitions becomes more desperate, and hisfantasies about his life inIndia become more vivid. Thus RatnaClayton ("The World accordingto Hsu"), presumed to be Indianbecause of her looks, is compelledto assert her Canadian nationality withmore force than necessary. At first you don't exist. The Third World victims of FirstWorld wars, like Eng ("Fathering"), Tran("Saints"), and Kim ("Angela"; Jasmine), as well as the children of the Vietnam War and ThirdWorld refugees of First World politics, like Angela, Ro ("Orbiting"),and "Jasmine." do not exist, as it were, in the eyes of the Americandream. Neither does the Western-educated postcolonial. While Angelawas learning the religion, language, and culture of the First World,while Eng was .growing up in a refugee camp, while people like MayaSanyal ("The Tenant"), Lee la Lahiri("Hindus"), and Blanquita ("Fightingfor the Rebound") were attending classes taught in English, the FirstWorld was effectively oblivious to theirpresence. It is not until they physically inflict their scarred bodies andminds on the American landscapeand start affecting American liveswhen"Jasmine" becomes Jane Ripple-

203 193 Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants "Loose Ends") own and meyer, when thePate ls ("A Wife's Story"; Patel ("Nostalgia") becomes a run popularmotels, when Dr. Manny millionairethat the First Worldstarts reacting to themin any real reactions range from unprovokedhate and violence (J. M. way. And the Gujrati Persawd, "Isolated Incidents";Gupta, "Tamurlane"; the young (Hernandez, "Isolated Inci- woman in "LooseEnds"), to suspicion Supariwala, "Iso- dents"; Eng, "Fathering"), tojob discrimination (Dr. Management of Grief"), lated Incidents"), togovernmental neglect ("The incomprehension (Ro, "Orbiting '), topolite to awkward, parochial to making a dismissal (Nafeesa Hafeez,"The Lady from Lucknow"), particular community the buttof stand-up comedy ("AWife's Story"). European im- Then you're invisible. Themajor difference between from the Third World isthat the latter, migrants and immigrants And it because of their physical appearance,cannot hide in a crowd. become invisible is because they are sophysically "visible" that they Judged by their physical presencealone, they become as individuals. the lack stereotypes. Leela Lahiri("Hindus") is thus commended on from Lucknow") is of a sing-song accent.Nafeesa Hafeez ("The Lady Palestinian. In most traditional,Third World thus mistaken for a surface of his societies, a person's nameinstantly transmits the entire the origin and meaningof the name, the regionof its or her identity: perhaps even origin, the person'smother-tongue, sex, religion, caste, her family. All the necessarypreliminary the social status of his or sounding of his information about a personis taken care of with the becomes a-signifying, or her name.So when Nafeesa Hafeez's name "musicar and when PannaBhatt's name ("A when it becomes merely spelt it and corrected Wife's Story") is mispronouncedeven after she has times over, Nafeesa andPanna themselves the pronunciation many groping for other become invisible,a-signifying, and have to begin why the words "Hindu"and ways to definethemselves. Perhaps that is "Brahmin." appear infinitely moreoften in Mukhedee's smaller corpus in India. Perhaps than they do in the worlof Indians writing in English terms, the "givens" that is Mukhetjee's wayof defining, in no uncertain endowing the words with moresignificance, of her protagonists and they would merit in character, and "meaning"in the First World than In Mukherjee's fiction,the physical "visibility" their home environment. second generation of and the loss of anysignifying power affects the it does their parents.When Detroit, the immigrants even more than Father") has ever only home a young girlnamed Babli Bhowmik ("A she has to explain known, is both "native toher" and yet "alien"; when friends as "neat" and"like a series of super Hinduism to her school snake" has to graphics"; when the "cosmosbalanced on the head of a

2 1) 4 194 "New" Texts

be equated to "a beachball balanced on thesnout of a circus seal" (65), she is herself juggling the different pieces ofher identity in a desperate effort to surviveintact, to fit in with her and at the same time, American friends to be different, mysterious,"visible." For Bab li it is a losing battle andat age twenty-six, she lives like an Indian daughter, with her parents seems to have no real friendsoutside the Indian community, and is almost killed by her fatherfor getting herself artificially inseminated. Shawn ("Saints"), whosecross-cultural parents are divorced, lives with his Americanmother and doesn't remember his Indian lather ' inany intimate way" (155). But is Patel, and he does Shawn's last name not, cannot, consider himselfa "real" American. Some nights, Shawn looks for an Indian name in thephone book, and "at midnight," disguised as a woman, he "float[s] likea ghost through other people's gardens," looks into "other boys' bedrooms"and becomes "somebody else's son" (156). Then you're funny. As Panna Bhatt ("A Wife'sStory") rants against "communal, racist, antisocial" (26) humor directed againstthe Latinos and the Chinese and Indianimmigrant communities, she made it. Patels must've knows "we've made it. Mamet, Spielberg:they're not condescending to us. Maybe they'rea little bit afraid" (29). Humor is First World way to subvert one the threat of Third Worldimmigrants and undermine their survivalas legitimate citizens. Franny smirks as she watches Ro, ("Orbiting") and his girlfriend Renatacannot help but see her Afghan boyfriend throughFranny's eyes: I see what she is seeing. Asian men carry their bodiesdifferently, even these famed warriors from theKhyber Pass. Ro doesn't stand like Brent or Dad. His hands hang kind of stiffly fromthe shoulder joints, and when hemoves, his palms are tucked tight against his thighs, his stomach sticks out like a slightlypregnant woman's... Ro, hidingamong my plants, holds himself in that seems both too effeminate a way and too macho. I hate Frannyfor what she's doing tome. I am twenty-seven years old, I more mature. (70) should be

And "foreignness" becomesembarrassing, awkward, "freaky," ible" and "abnormal," as "vis- as "crippling" as a man withno arms: Shc has never slept witha man without arms. Two wounded people, he will joke during their nightly contortions. It willshock her, this assumed equivalencewith a man so strikingly deficient. She knows she is strange,and lonely, but being Indianis not the same, she would have thought,as being a freak. ("The Tenant" 112)

2tro 195 Bharati Mukherfee's Immigrants difficult to deal For the children ofimmigrants, it is once again, more of their parents over andabove their own with the overt "foreignness" Patel's ("Saints") physical handicap of skincolor or facial features. Shawn of his father is that ofembarrassment at Manny only intimate memory and kissing in Patel's "overstated blackMercedes" and the "hugging such a foreign way" (156). After a certain degreeof familiarity, old- Then you're disgusting. of fashioned contempt proves mosteffective. The trusted weapon colonial masters, it is anatural tool to kill any senseof security and withering glance self-worth the immigrantmight have garnered. With a words Kate Beamish ("TheLady from Lucknow") and a few well-chosen sophisticated Nafeesa and turnher can annihilatethe well-traveled, intruder who is toodisgusting, too incon- into a"shadow-person," an ("Nostalgia") in sequential to worry about.One mentally ill Horowitz "mainstream" life calling him" 'Paid scum' Manny Patel's successful, patriotic American in exquisite English" (98)is enough to ruin Manny's whether aggressively overtlike Jeb identity. Disgust and contempt, Patels, or couched Marshall's ("Loose Ends")for the motel-owning ("Isolated Incidents") under governmentalese likeAnn with Hernandez of Grief"), kill theimmigrant or the socialworker ("The Management in body or mind, andeither way the immigrantis prevented from appropriating and securing anyFirst World space forhimself. "And in spite of everythingthe Supariwalas No instant dignity here. ("Isolated Incidents" wanted to stay on. That waswhat amazed Ann" and postcolonial misfits 79). Ironically enough,for the victims, refugees, World, the home of theex-colonizer is the only created by the First immigrants. The first asylum. Mukherjee's storiestell of two classes of of racist and terroristattacks group consistsof the survivors of wars or been driven to Americaby poverty or physical and those who have Britain's creation necessity. Angela, the productof a war resulting from of miles away, is givenrefuge by American of two Pakistans hundreds is rescued, 'given a new "parents:' Left for deadby her own race, she given a home and another name and a newidentity by a nun and lease on life, by theBrandons in Iowa. Tran name, a brand new journey to survival ("Saints"), one of the "boatpeople," made that long and "having to chew on rawfish just to stay alive" hiding from pirates "a freak," but he is (150). In America, Tranmight be lonely, unhappy, Kim ("Angela"; Jasmine),Ro ("Orbiting"), alive. Eng ("Fathering"), narrator ("Danny's Jasmine, and thefifteen-year-old Ugandan-Indian who might not havelived through prison Girls") are all survivors made the attacks or Idi Amin'spolitics if they hadn't camps, terrorist have dignity or under- illegal journey toAmerica. Here they do not

20e, 196 "New" Texts standing. Self-inflicted scars on Eng's child-body makeher seem mon- strous and horrify her would-bemother. Tran's story teacher. Ro's embarrasses his war-scars, mapped on his body,make Renata's parochial parents uneasy. But in Americathey have found illegal, that their a refuge, legal or own countries could notensure for them. The legal refugees like Angela, Eng,and Kim have it slightly of illegal immigrantslike easier. The underclass the busboys of MumtazBar B-Q, Dinesh (who uses the alias"Danny") or Ro's cousins holes and are hunted hide in dingy, unsanitary down. Looked at "throughthe wrong end of the telescope," America becomes "a police state, withsudden raids, papers, detention centers, deportations, and torture and deathwaiting in the wings" ("Orbiting" 66).And still they wantto stay on, those "illegalsr hunted, humiliated, stripped of all identity.Poverty provides the im- petus. They cannotgo back because they have sold owned and have given all everything they their money to theagents who provided them with forged identitiesand false papers Lives"). They cannot ("Tamurlane"; "Buried go back because theycan earn more here even if they are illegal. LikeAlfie Yudah ("The always be able to find Middleman"), a hustler will "something worth tradingin the troubles [he has] seen" (21) to somebodyin America. Like will always "Danny," an entrepreneur procure sellable merchandise,even if it happens to be women. Perhaps that is thetyranny of the American them of their identities dream. It strips and robs them of theirdignity, but it promises them a money-order theycan send home to starying families. For the secondgroup of Mukherjee's characters, vivid, more accessible the dream ismore and thereforemore treacherous. These "well-bred" Third Worlders: are the professionals, executives,aristocrats who are intellectually more at homein America than in their For these postcolonials, own countries. economic well-being isnot the main concern. They are driven to theFirst World by ambition, their chosen fields, a desire to excel in a will to join the internationalcommunity of professionals. Once here,they adapt faster, learn than the refugees. The faster, succeed faster edge is erased from theiraccents in no time (Lee la Lahiri, "Hindus";Panna Bhatt; "A Wife's to downplay their looks Story"), they learn (Maya Sanyal, "TheTenant"), many of them marry Americans and join,at least in a superficialway, the American mainstream (Manny Patel,"Nostalgia"; Ratna Clayton, according to Hsu"; Maya "The World Sanyal, Lee la Lahiri,"Jasmine" a.k.a. Jane Ripplemeyer). Their strugglefor survival in the New physical nor economic: World is neither it is one of maintainingtheir identity and dignity while at thesame time achieving status and of the majority culturea legitimacy as part task that fewcan accomplish. Manny Patel 197 Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants is betrayed by his own "nostalgia."Iqbaal ("The Lady from Lucknow") is haunted and driven by theknowledge that he will always be a"notquite." Blanquita ("Fighting for 'theRebound"), being an aristocrat in her native land, cannot take theignominy of being ordinary Ratna, Maya and Leela, for all theirwell-bred Westernization, are trapped within their brown skins. These women,who would in their own worlds be considered elite And commandautomatic respect because of their status and education, becomeordinary second-class citizens in and the New World. The AmericanDream has given them success recognition, but it cannot give themthe means to be themselves and their identities to be American. And stillthey stay on, juggling pieces of in a constant personality crisis. and And among the "well-bredpostcolonial" immigrants to Britain America are the ever-increasingnumbers of writers and intellectuals like Mukherjee herself. The FirstWorld is increasingly becoming the only home of the Western-educated,Third World intellectual. At home in the languages of the FirstWorld, these intellectuals are bestheard in the West. This is where they arepublished, where their work is appreciated, where they can getinternational exposure and recognition, this is where theywantto be heard. It is the bestplace, says Salmi' Rushdie, from which the Third Worldintellectual can enter the over- determined, "orientalist" discourseand "wail and whine" in public and thus oppose "notions abouthistory which must be quarrelledwith, Needham 611). It is as loudly andembarrassingly as possible" (qtd. in the best position from which apostcolonial writer can challengepopular myths and misrepresentationsabout his or her culture and oppose "neo-colonial modes of thought andaction which continue to pervade Radhakrishnan 581). Here most ...post-colonial societies" (Katrak and Maya Sanyal can try to change theperceptions of mainstream America Here by introducing sophomores tothe fiction of Narayan and Achebe. Mukherjee can try to introduceAmericans to her immigrant story which is "replicated in a dozenAmerican cities" (Introduction,Darkness 3). All Mukhetjee's characterseventhe white, fourth-generation Amer- icansmirror the fragments of her ownidentity. Mukherjee's characters "fractured" self. Thus, even are created outof the pieces of her own though the facts of her characters'lives might be far removedfrom her own, each one of Mukherjee'scharacters is, in fact, autobiographical in so far as (s)he reflectsMukherjee's own experiences inthe New and her World, her desires, the "shapeof [her] feelings," her politics philosophies. The kaleidoscope ofshifting "voices" that makes up Mukherjee's fiction is actually theever-shifting composite Mukherjee

208 198 "New" Texts

creates of the varied, many-colored, multitexturedshards of her own personality.' A chronological review of Mukherjee'scharacters, from Tara Banerjee Cartwright (The Tiger's Daughter)to Jasmine reveals what we may postulate as the progressive fragmentation ofher own personality, her own journey from the certainty of an inviolate "expatriate"identity to a surrender to the notion of "a set of" constantlyshifting, kaleidoscopic, "immigrant" selves that makeup her personality. From a desire to have an impact on the Americanlandscape and a frustration in not being able to enter "mainstream"America, her characters have begun to forge for themselves otherAmericaswhere differences teem, skin colors vary, and languages babble.From complaints about the difficulties (perhaps the impossibility) of beinga Third World American, Mukherjee's fiction, since The Middleman andOther Stories, has begun to assert the Americanness of those other,underground Americas of people like herself who retain their"unpronounceable" names, speak with "outsize Yankee accent[s]'wear their sarees awkwardly and seem, to the Indians back home, "very much theoccidental at odds with the native dress" (Varughese 60). "Continents slide, no surface is permanent,"Mukherjee says in "The World according to Hsu" (38). Thestatement is especially true of her own self as well as her characters since The Middleman.Once she, and therefore they, have stopped struggling againstthe "triple disruption of reality" that all migrants suffer (the lossof "place," language, and society), and once they have surrenderedto the total disintegration of an identity that is no longer possible to define, Mukherjeeand her characters begin to find new ways of describingthemselves, "new ways of being human:' They begin to realize

that reality is an artifact, that it doesn't existuntil it is made, and that, like any other artifact, itcan be made well or badly, and that it can also, of course, be unmade. (Rushdiexiii) Instead of seeing their identitiesas "permanent designs" that they were born with and bred into, Mukherjee and hercharacters begin to perceive themselves as kaleidoscopes madeup of multiple identities, a shifting composite of little, fragmented, bnlliantlycolored pieces of all their experiences, all the "cities" they have foundand lost, all the diverse lives they have lived. Withevery movement of Mukheijee's kaleidoscope, a new pattern is formed out of those individual multiplefragments of her own life and the possibilities of"becoming" are so infinitely rich and endless.

2 199 Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants Lady from Lucknow"),born into a Thus Nafeesa Hafeez ("The raised in conservative Muslim family "ofsoft, voluptuous children," purdah by a father who"wanted to protect us fromthe Hindus' Brazil, Zambia shameful lust," can, afterpassing through "Lebanon, Atlanta, Georgia, aninconsistent conglomer- and France," become in husband, Iqbaal, an ation of personalities:traditional wife to her American mother to herchildren, a gracious host tointernational pathetic students, a practiced adulteress, anirresistible temptress and a time (23-24). Third World shadow-personin America, all at the same Republican Amer- Thus Manny Patel("Nostalgia") can be a patriotic, wife and a son at Andoverand still count his ican with an American in love with all millions in rupees. He canbe a respected psychiatrist married an Indian that America has offeredhim and still wish "he had wish for "any life but the woman, [one] thathis father had selected," instantly fall in love with a one that he hadchosen" (111). He can like an Indian goddess, beconned by her and turn woman who looks creature: from a perfect, sophisticatedgentleman into a crude, vengeful squatting the way he had inhis Then, squatting like a villager, handfuls of father's home, he defecatedinto the sink, and with his own shitit felt hot, light, porous,an artist'smediumhe wrote WHORE on themirror and floor. (113) Manny Patel is at once,schizophrenically, upstanding patriot, nos- lord," suave man talgic expatriate, lovinghusband, adulterous "slum and anyone else he needs tobe at any of the world, crude avenger, and given moment. Inconsistenciesabound in Mukherjee's characters Brash, crude, sophisticated,cynical, naive, legal, in the stories they tell. all Mukhetjee's illegal, erudite, and illiterate,the one trait common to their ability to restruc- characters is the elasticityof their personalities, and environment in ture their identitiesaccording to the situations A coy, shy, typicallyIndian beauty, as in which they find themselves. herself into a "Nostalgia," can, in the spaceof a moment, transform dirty-talking whore and be partof a gang that scams wealthy, unsus- professor ("The pecting Indian immigrantslike Patel; a mild-mannered Tenant") can turn into aBengali patriarch and then asexual pervert while a blasé, cynical womanwho has seen in the space of an evening, maiden according to the it all can become afreak or an outraged circumstances. Inconsistencies, the blatant disregardfor facts, the callousremaking only of Mu- of histories, these arequalities and characteristics not kherjee's characters but of theauthor herself in heroccasional disregard In Mukhedee's for accurate detail in herrendering of a fictional world.

21 O 200 "New" Texts fiction a Sikh grandfather ("The Imaginary Assassin")can blithely offer tobacco to his grandson, theauthor apparently oblivious that tobacco is taboo to the fact to the followers of Sikhism.Whereas a writer like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala takes into careful considerationthe different accents and idioms, the various registers of Indian-English, inMu- kherjee's fiction "Indianness:' whatever region or class itbelongs to, is characterized simply withan exaggerated overuse of the tinuous made "Indian" present con- to Ainerica by Peter Sellers ("Iam knowing so little about shaking cocktails and pouring jiggers, I'mafraid" ["Visitors" 175]). In Mukherjee's fiction a Punjabi villager(Jasmine) addresses her grandmotherby the Bengaliname "Dida"; a Sikh adolescent ("The ImaginaryAssassin") remembers beingborn in the month of "Sravan" again, a Bengali word, while Gandhi isreportedly assassinated on the second ofOctober (his birthday) insteadof the correct date, the thirtieth of January.The list is long. It is not a simple matter of ignorance. Facts, histories,localized truths are easily researchedand verified. But theyare just not important considerations for Mukhedee andher characters. Facts don'tmatter. Continents slide. Realities andidentities are artifactsto be made and unmade, over and over again. What is all-important isthe essential transfigurative yet tenacious nature of the migrant and thefascinating, compelling stories (s)he hascollected on the way; what is is that America listens all-important to the sound of the "energetic voicesof the new settlers in this country"(Interview 654) and to the in its seams. songs being sung

Note

1. It is relevant here to note Knippling's critique of Mukherjee'smethod of characterization: Accordingto Knippling, Mukherjee "ignores representation (of the Other) plays the role that t " in the textual production ofher writing and, second,... she homogenizes her ethnic minority immigrant instead of calling attention subjects, to the [their] actual heterogeneity...."(144). [Ed.]

Works Cited

Katrak, Ketu H., and R. Radhakrishnan. "Introduction." Specialissue on Asian literature. The MassachusettsReview 29.4 (1988-89): 580-82. Knippling, Alpana. Sharma. "Toward an Investigation of theSubaltern in Bharati Mukherjee's The Middlemanand Other Stories and Jasmine'In 2ii Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants 201

Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives. Ed.Emmanuel S. Nelson. New York: Garland, 1993. 143-59. Mukherjee, Bharati. Darkness. New Delhi: PenguinBooks (India), 1990. Includes the following stories referred to in the text:"Angela," "A Father," "Hindus," "The Imaginary Assassinr "IsolatedIncidentsr "The Lady from Lucknow," "Nostalgiar "Saints," "Visitors,""The World according to Hsu." Interview with Alison Carb. The MassachusettsReview 29.4 (1988- 89): 645-54. .Jasmine. New York: Grove Press, 1989. Grove Press, 1988. .The Middleman and Other Stories. New York: Includes the following stories referred toin the text: "Buried Livesr "Danny's Girls," "Fathering," "Fighting for theRebound," "Loose Endsr "The Management of Grief:" "The Middleman,""Orbiting," "Tamurlane," "The Tenant," "A Wife's Story" The Tiger's Daughter. New Delhi: Penguin (India),1990. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. "The Politicsof Post-Colonial Identity in Salman Rushdie' Special issue on Asianliterature. The Massachusetts Review 29.4 (1988-89): 609-24. Rushdie, Salman. Introduction. On Writingand Politics: 1967-1983. By Günter Grass. New York: Harcourt, 1985.i-xv. Varughese, Suma. "Bharati Mukherjee: Writesof Passage?' Gentleman, 31 Aug. 1989: 58-62.

12 Index

sacred, 74, 75 Aeneid, The, 109 81-82, 84, 86, and Scott, 160-61 African literature, 65-68, in Vend lees view, 154 87, 115-28 Carballido, Emilio, 91 African Religions and Philosophy Carlyle, Thomas, 161 (Mbiti), 118-20 Carpathian Castle, The (Verne), 22 Akhmatova, Anna, 58 Caribbean literature, 29, 87 Albuquerque, Severino Joao, 98 Carruth, Hayden, 147 Altieri, Charles, 147, 154 101-2, 146- "Censo, El" (Carballido), 91 American literature, 62-65, Chinweizu, 116 59, 189-200 The, 146 African American, 29, 58, 101 Chronicle of Higher Education, Classroom performance andtheatricality, American Poetry Review. 155 91-99 Anthologies and small groups, 92 of American literature, 101 Cleage, Albert, 116 of poetry, 156 Cliff's Notes, 109 of world literature, 34-39 Closing of the AmericanMind, The Appelbaum, David, 131 Aproximaciones al estudio dela litera- (Bloom), 106 Virgil lo, Valdi- Coates, Carrol E, 29 tura hispanica (ed. Cobbs, Price, 116 vieso, and Friedman), 98 Colonial and postcolonialdiscourse, 36, Arnold, A. James, 29 16, 106 43, 47-54, 86, 88 . Arnold, Matthew, 6, 11-12, and immigrants to the UnitedStates, Arrufat, Ant 6n, 93-95 138 189-200 Attar, Farid ud-Din, 132, in The Talisman (Scott),162-77 59, Conference of the Birds, The (Attar), Barrios de Chungara, Domitila, 131-32, 138 68-71 Contemporary American Poetry(Poulin), Bassnett, Susan, 28 147 Bell, Aubrey, 45-48 Coppola, Carlo, 131 Berry, Margaret, 183 Cultural studies, and Moulton,5, 6, 9 Beiderwell, Bruce, 178n8 Curriculum, vii-viii, 5, 17, 31,32, 54- 116 Black Rage (Grier and Cobbs), 55, 83-88 Bloom, Allan, 106 131-44 British literature, 160-77, Darkness (Mukhetee), 189-90 Brown, Lennox, 116 "Delantal blanco, El" (Vodanovi6), Buck, Philo, 4 94-96 Bukowski, Charles, 102 de Man, Paul, 104 Burke, Peter, 107 Deming, Barbara, 59, 62-65 Derrida, Jacques, 104 Campbell, Joseph, 102 Difference. See "Otherr andWestern "Campo, El" (Gambaro), 96-97 self. Camus, Albert, 59 Dracula (Stoker), 109 Canadian translations, 30-31 Drama, 86, 91-99 Canons, literary, vii, 7, 11,14, 17, 160 Dramatists in Revolt (Lyday), 98 101-2, 106, 146-47, 156, 157, Durix, Jcan-Pierre, 131 and anthologies, 35, 37, 38,146-47, 157 Eagleton, Terry, 106 and prison narratives, 58 203

213 204 Index Electronic media, 107 Eliot, T. S., 7 Indiana University Press, 30 Ellis, George, 176 Introduction to Metaphysics,An (Heideg- Ellmann, Richard, 147 ger), 152 Epic, 52, 121-28, 179-80,185-86 James, Henry, 160-61 in poen versus serialpoetry, 151 Japanese literature, 179-87 Essential Talmud, The (Steinsaltz),73 Johnson, Samuel, 103 Jones, Evan, 87 Fallacies, 8 Fanon, Frantz, 122 Kafka, Franz, 111-12 Flaubert, Gustave, 111 Kellogg, Robert, 105 Foucault, Michel, 38, 64 Kenner, Hugh, 148 Franklin, H. Bnice, 58 Kundera, Milan, 27 French language translations,20-26 Frye, Northrop, 146 Language, 20-32, 81-88, 91, 92,96-97, 98, 104-5, 119, 128n1,147-48, Gimbaro, Griselda, 96-97 149-53, 191, 192, 197, 198 Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 107 sacred, 73, 75 Gelfand, Elissa, 58 policy, in Canada, 30 Gender, 22, 54, 68-70, 179 Latin American literature,68-70, 91-99 Genre, 58, 60, 70, 74-75, 86-87,92 Lauter, Paul, 101 "Getting Off the Page andMaking a Leavis, F. R., 161, 177n1 Scene" (Mather), 98 Leighton, Lauren, 27 Gibson, Dr. (Bishop of London),quoted, Lentricchia, Frank, 156 119-20 Let Me Speak! (Barrios deChungara), Gies, David, 98 59, 68-71 Ginzburg, Eugenia Semyonovna,59-61 L'Homme revoltt (Camus), 59 Goethe, Johann Wolfgangvon, 5, 11, 84 Lilova, Anna, 26, 29 Graff, Gerald, 108 Literary canons. See Canons,literary. Great Books courses, 5, 14 Literary Study of the Bible(Moulton), 6 Great Prisoners, The, 58 Literary theory, and Moulton,4-17 Grier, William, 116 Literature. See African literature;Amen- Grimus (Rushdie), 131 can literature; Anthologies; British Grossberg, Lawrence, 112 literature; Canons, literary;Japanese literature; Indian literature; Nonna- Habermas, Jurgen, 105 tive English literature; Portuguese Haroun and the Sea of Stories(Rush- literature; Prison literature;Singapo- die), 131-44 rean literature; Soviet literature; Hartman, Geoffrey, 104 World literature Harvard Book of ContemporaryAmeri- "Little Hole, The" (OPPen),152 can Poetry (Vendler), 147 Locke, John, 104 Heart of Midlothian, The(Scott), 160 Lourenco, Eduardo, 48-49 Heath Anthology of AmericanLiterature Lurie, Alison, 131 (Lauter), 101-2 Lyday, Leon E, 98 Heidegger, Martin, 152, 153 Lyric poetry, 86-87 Heroes, 109-11, 124-26, 132-44,165- 77, 179-87 MacDermott, Kathy, 106 Hobsbawm, E. J., 50 Madame B o v a r y (Flaubert), II 1 Homer, 185 Malachi Malagrowther letters(Scott), 164 "Hunger Artist, The" (Kafka),111-12 Hybridity, 191-92 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 102, 108 Martin, Wallace, 105 Iliad, The (Homer), 185, 186 Masterpieces of the Orient, 36 Mather, M. Clare, 98 Imagination in Confinement(Gelfand). 58 Mbiti, John S., 118-20, 127 Menchfi, Rigoberta, 26 Immigrants and immigration,189-200 Indian literature, 87 Mercier, Lewis Page, translationsof Verne's works, 22-26, 31 205 Index voice of, in translations, 20-32 Mickel, Emanuel J., translationsof Verne's works, 20, 23-26, 29-32 27-28 Middleman and Other Stories, The Patronage system in translations, .Peclagogy, 17, 83-88, 101-12,115-28 (Mukhetjee), 198 Performance Guides to SpanishTexts Miner, Earl, 187 Modern Study of Literature,The (Moul- (Gies), 98 Pevear, Richard, 153 ton), 4, 6, 8 Pictures from Brueghel (Williams),157 Moglen, Helene, 104 Moulton, Richard Greene Poetry and cultural studies, 5, 6, 9 anthologies, 147 and educational policy, 5 lyric, 86-87 English point of view, 10-13 objectivist, 147 Polysystem group in translations,27-28 idea of world literature, 3-18 Popular Culture in EarlyModern Europe and mass education, 14-15 (Burke), 107 Mukheijee, Bharati, 189-200 105-9, 110 Multiculturalism, 26, 32, 37 Popular culture, 88, 101-2, Murasaki Shikibu, 179 12 Tale of Genii. The, 180-87 Portuguese literature, 43-55 Poems, as postmodern literature,54 Music of What Happens, The: Portuguese Literature (Bell), 45,48 Poets, Critics (Vendler), 154 Postcolonial discourse. SeeColonial and Mwindo Epic, The, 121-27 postcolonial discourse. Postmodernism, 54, 55 Narrative, 54, 55, 58-71, 72, 103,105, Poststructuralism, 104 109-10, 131-44, 164 Poulin, A., 147 Nationalism, 3, 11-13, 53-55,164-65 Practical Criticism (Richards), 9 linguistic, 30 Prison Notes (Deming), 59,62-65 Nature of Narrative (Scholes),105 Prison literature, 58-71 New Criticism, 3, 105, 146 "Psalm" (Oppen), 148-50 New Wave Spanish Drama,The (Wellwarth), 98 Ratnayana, The 179-80 Niane, D. T, 121 110 81-88 Rambo: First Blood, Part Two, Nonnative English literature, Recent Theories of Narrative(Martin), and genre, 86 105 lyric poen 86-87 Redgauntlet (Scott), 160 and popular culture, 88 by Reis, Carlos, 48 Norton Anthology of Literature "Repetici6n, La" (Arrufat), 93-95 Women, The (ed. Gilbert and Reznikoff, Charles. 147 Gubar), 37 Poetry The "Richard Coeur de Lion:' 176 Norton Anthology of Modern Richards, I. A., 9 (ed. Ellmann and O'Clair).147 Masterpieces, Richardson, Samuel, 103 Norton Anthology of Hirld Robinson, Douglas, 20 The (ed. Mack), 34-36 Rosenberg, Donna, 102 companion volume, 36 Rumi, Jalal al-Din, 132 expanded edition, 38 Rushdie, Salman, 83, 131-44 Objectivist poets, 147-48 Occidentalism, 34-37 Sacrcd texts, 75-76, 132 O'Clair, Robert, 147 Sacriture, 72-76 Odyssey, The (Homer), 185 151 Said, Edward, 34, 36 "Of Being Numerous" (Oppen), ty Walter Scott,162-63, 165 Okara, Gabriel, 82, 84 Salisoury, Harrison, 60 Oliver, William I., 98 Sanchez, Sonia, 101 Olsen, Charles, 148 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 104 Oppen, George, 102, 146-57 Schaller, Judith, 58, 64 Orality, 68, 74, 122 Scholes, Robert, 105 Orientalism, 34-37 34-39, 161, Scott, Walter, 160-77 "Other," and Western self, Heart of Midlothian, The,160 165-77, 191-92, 200n1

215 206 Index

Malachi Malagrowther letters. 164 Vendler, Helen, 147, 154 Redgauntlet, 160 Venutt, Lawrence, 28 Talisman, The, 162-76 Verne, Jules, translations of works, Waver ley, 160 20-26 Shakespeare as a Dramatic ._Nist Vicente, Gil, 46 (Moulton), 4, 6, 7-8 Shaw, Peter, 146 Victim as Criminal and Artist, The (Franklin), 58 Sikakane, Joyce, 59, 65-68. Virgil, 109-10 Singaporean literature, 81-82, 84-85 Song of Roland, The, 179 Vodanovi6, Sergio, 94-96 Voice, The (Okara), 82, 84 "Song of the Banana Man, The"(Jones), 87 Voice That Is Great within Us, The: American Poetry of the Twentieth Sousa Santos, Boaventura de, 49-50 Soviet literature, 58-62 Century (Carruth), 147 Spectator. 105 Voices of Change in the SpanishAnwri- Steinsaltz, Adin, 73 can Theater (Oliver), 98 Sterne, Laurence, 104 Summer Institute of Linguistics, 28 Wall Tappings (Schefiler), 58 Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (ed. Warner, William, 110 Niane), 121-22 Waverley (Scott), 160 Well*arth, George E., 98 Taggart, John, 156 Weltliteratur (Goethe), 5 Tale of Genji, The (Murasaki), 179,181- Wesley, Charles, 115 87 West and the Rest of Us, The (Chin- Talisman, The (Scott), 162-76 weizu), 116 Taylor, Diana, 98 Western Literature in a World Context Textual Liberation: European Feminist (ed. Davis et al.), 35 Writing in the Twentieth Centwy Williams, William Carlos, 148, 157 (ed. Forgbs-Scot), 44 Witt, Judith, 174 Theatricality, 91-99 Window on Soweto (Sikakane), 59, and classroom performance, 91-99 65-68 Three Marias, The: New PortugueseLet- Women's prison narratives, 58-71 ters (Barrenos, Horta, and da of Barrios de Chungara, 59, 68-71 Costa), 44 criticism of, 59 Translation, 5, I8n2, 20-32, 44, 48, 87, of Deming, 59, 62-65 109 of Ginzburg, 59-61 decisions, 29-31 of Sikakane, 59, 65-68 distortions, 26 Woodson, Carter G., 115 evangelical, 27 Woodyard, George W, 98 and gender and race, 54 World English, 82-83 patronage system in, 27-28 World history courses, 5 and political dominance, 51, 54 World literature, vii-viii of sacred texts, 74 in Moulton's view, 3-18 and traditional world literature as academic course, 4-5 courses, 83, 85 as autobiography of civilization, 5 of Verne's works, 22-26, 29-32 syllabus, vii-viii, 5, 17, 31, 32, 54-55, Tristram Shandy (Sterne), 104 81-88, 101-12 Twenty Thousand Leagues under theSea World Literature and Its Placein Gen- (Verne), translations of, 20-26, 31 eral Culture (Moulton), 3, 4, 10, "2 mothers in a hdb playground"(Yap), 14-15 82, 84-85 World Mythology (Rosenberg), 102 Wretched of the Earth, The (Fanon),122 Universities, as institutions, 108-12 University extension movement, 15-16 Y ip, Arthur, 82, 84-85

210 Editor

Michael Thomas Carroll (Ph.D.,Temple Univer- sity) is associate professorof English at New Mexico Highlands University.His publications include "The Bloody Spectacle:Mishima, the Sacred Heart, Hogarth,Cronenberg, and the En- trails of Culture," "AgentCooper's Errand in the Wilderness: Twin Peaks andAmerican Mythol- ogy," and "The Cyclic Formof [Milan Kundera's] Laughable Loves:' He was aparticipant in a 1992 National Endowment for theHumanities Seminar on Realist Fiction,and currently serves as a faculty consultant for theEducational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey.

Photo. Steve Davis

2 7 207 Contributors

is associate Aron AP (Ph.D., SouthernIllinois University at Carbondale) professor of comparative literature atButler University. in Indianapolis. He is the editor of Milan Kunderaand the Art of Fiction: Critical Essays, and has published and presentedwork on Achebe, Rushdie, Kundera, Seifert, Soyinka, Cesaire, and Alkali. Uni- Ranee Kaur Br.nerjee received anM.A. in Englis;1 literature from the versity of Calcutta and a Ph.D.in comparative literature from theUni- versity of Georgia in 1992. She hasread papers at several international conferences and her published workincludes poeiry and book reviews. Survey She has also contributed critical essaysto the five-volume Critical of Mystery and Detective Fictionand to Katharina Wilson'sMedieval Women Writers.

Mackie J. V. Blanton is associateprofessor of linguistics at the University of New Orleans and a pro bonoadvisor to the New Orleans/NewYork Having written essays in linguistics, po- Gestalt Psychotherapy Institute. and e:ies, scientific and technicaldiscourse, Louisiana dialects, and Sufi Hasidic sacred language, he is currentlydoing research in subtle body mysticism and in sacriture, i.e., sacreddiscourse.

professor of English and comparativeliterature Paulo de Medeiros is assistant the at Bryant College. Hispublications include "Simian Narratives at Intersection of Science and Literature,""0 Som dos Buzios: Feminismo, Posmodernistno, Simulacao," and"Eating (with) Nietzsche: Reading as Devouring in Die FroehlicheWissenschaft," as well as essays on Miguel Torga, Sa-Carneiro, and Clara PintoCorreia.

University of New York at Binghamton)has José J. de Vinck (Ph.D., State Theory. two books forthcoming:Allegories of Exchange and Exchange studies at Charles B..Dodson is professorof English and director of graduate the University of North Carolina atWilmington. His publications include an edition os: threenovels by Thomas Love Peacockand contributions to Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals andthe Directory of Victorian .lownalists. lie is currently compiling anannotated bibliography on al- coholism in trmntieth-century fiction. 209 2 6 210 Contributors

Howard M. Fraser (M.A., University of NewMexico; M.A., Harvard Uni- versity; Ph.D., University of New Mexico) isN.E.H, Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the College of Williamand Mary in Williams- burg, Virginia, where he has been teachingboth Spanish and Portuguese for the past twenty years. He is theauthor of two books, over two dozen articles, and twenty reviews coveringa variety of subjects in the field of Spanish and Portuguese and Latin Americanliterature.

Sharon Hileman is chair of the Departmentof languages and Literature at SW Ross State University. She has writtenarticles on cross-cultural autobiographical fiction and serial life-writing.Currently she is working on an N.E.H.-sponsored project investigating postcolonialnarratives from Africa and the Caribbean.

Sarah Lawall is profesior of comparativeliterature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research interestsare literary phenomen- ology, the history of reading practices, modernpoetry and poetics, and the concept of world literature. Her publications includeCritics of Conscious- ness: The Existential Structures of Literature,a co-authored translation of and commentary on Euripides' Hippolytus,"René Wellek: Phenomeno- logical Literary Historian," "Bonnefors PierreEcrite. Progressive Ambi- guity as the Many in the One:' and ReadingWorld Literature: Theory, History, Practice. She is on the editorial board ofComparative Literature and is assistant general editor and editor ofthe modern sections of Norton World Masterpieces.

Caroline MeCracken-Flesher (M.A., University ofEdinburgh; Ph.D., Brown University) is assistant professor of Englishat the University of Wyoming. Her research interests include the literary formulationsof cultural marginalization, particularly in nineteenth-centuryScotland, and cinematic ren- arrations of novels. She edited Why the NovelMatters: A Postmodern Perplex with Mark Spilka (1990), and shehas published articles on Scott, Stevenson, and Dickens.

Erskine Peters (Ph.D., Princeton University)is professor of English and African American studies at the Universityof Notre Dame. His books include William Faulkner: The YoknapatawphaWorld and Black Being, African Openings to the Tree of Life, andLyrics of the Afro-American Spiritual. He was the recipient ofa Lilly Endowment Faculty Open Fellowship, 1994-95.

Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Distinguished ServiceProfessor of Comparative Lit- erature, is the founding director of the Translation Researchand Instruction Program (TRIP) of the State University ofNew York at Binghamton, which shared the Alexander Gode medal ofthe American Translators Association in 1981. Founding editor of the annualSeries of the American Translators Association, she herself receivedthis medal in 1988. Her translations include Axel and Eve of the Future Edenby Villiers de l'Isle- Adam and Lui: A View of Him by Louise Colet.She is also the editor of

213 211 Contributors

Translation Perspectives and the WomenWriters in Translation series for the SUNY Press.

Katrina Runge is currently an Englishmajor at Butler University,Indianapolis, Indiana. the Ismail S. Ta lib is a senior lecturerin English language and literature at National University of Singapore. Hehas published studies in a number ofjournals, including The Journal of NarrativeTechnique, The ELT Journal, The Journal of Multilingual andMulticultural Development, and, in the Malay language, in Dewan Sasteraand Dewan Bahasa.

Dennis Young teaches writing andliterature at George Mason University. His scholarly writing focuses onthe politics and philosophy ofteaching. He has published articles in TheIowa Review and has recentlycompleted a book on teachingwriting.

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