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William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was a vocal abolitionist, a
frequent antagonist of Frederick Douglass, and the author of
Clotel, the first known novel by an African American. He was also
an extensive plagiarist, copying at least 87,000 words from close
to 300 texts. In this critical study of Brown's work and legacy,
Geoffrey Sanborn offers a novel reading of the writer's plagiarism,
arguing the act was a means of capitalizing on the energies of
mass-cultural entertainments popularized by showmen such as P. T.
Barnum. By creating the textual equivalent of a variety show, Brown
animated antislavery discourse and evoked the prospect of a
pleasurably integrated world. Brown's key dramatic protagonists
were the "spirit of capitalization"-the unscrupulous double of Max
Weber's spirit of capitalism-and the "beautiful slave girl," a
light-skinned African American woman on the verge of sale and rape.
Brown's unsettling portrayal of these figures unfolded within a
riotous patchwork of second-hand texts, upset convention, and
provoked the imagination. Could a slippery upstart lay the
groundwork for a genuinely interracial society? Could the
fetishized image of a not-yet-sold woman hold open the possibility
of other destinies? Sanborn's analysis of pastiche and plagiarism
adds new depth to the study of nineteenth-century culture and the
history of African American literature, suggesting modes of African
American writing that extend beyond narratives of necessity and
purpose, characterized by the works of Frederick Douglass and
others.
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Clotel (Paperback)
William Wells Brown; Edited by Geoffrey Sanborn
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R639
Discovery Miles 6 390
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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As nearly all of its reviewers pointed out, Clotel was an
audience-minded performance, an effort to capitalize on the
post-Uncle Tom's Cabin ""mania"" for abolitionist fiction in Great
Britain, where William Wells Brown lived between 1849 and 1854. The
novel tells the story of Clotel and Althesa, the fictional
daughters of Thomas Jefferson and his mixed-race slave. Like the
popular and entertaining public lectures that Brown gave in England
and America, Clotel is a series of startling, attention-grabbing
narrative ""attractions"". Brown creates in this novel a delivery
system for these attractions, in an effort to draw as many readers
as possible towards anti-slavery and anti-racist causes. Rough,
studded with caricatures, and intimate with the racism it ironizes,
Clotel is still capable of creating a potent mix of discomfort and
delight. This edition aims to makes it possible to read Clotel in
something like its original cultural context. Geoffrey Sanborn's
Introduction discusses Brown's extensive plagiarism of other
authors in composing Clotel, as well as his narrative strategies in
the novel.
William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was a vocal abolitionist, a
frequent antagonist of Frederick Douglass, and the author of
Clotel, the first known novel by an African American. He was also
an extensive plagiarist, copying at least 87,000 words from close
to 300 texts. In this critical study of Brown's work and legacy,
Geoffrey Sanborn offers a novel reading of the writer's plagiarism,
arguing the act was a means of capitalizing on the energies of
mass-cultural entertainments popularized by showmen such as P. T.
Barnum. By creating the textual equivalent of a variety show, Brown
animated antislavery discourse and evoked the prospect of a
pleasurably integrated world. Brown's key dramatic protagonists
were the "spirit of capitalization"-the unscrupulous double of Max
Weber's spirit of capitalism-and the "beautiful slave girl," a
light-skinned African American woman on the verge of sale and rape.
Brown's unsettling portrayal of these figures unfolded within a
riotous patchwork of second-hand texts, upset convention, and
provoked the imagination. Could a slippery upstart lay the
groundwork for a genuinely interracial society? Could the
fetishized image of a not-yet-sold woman hold open the possibility
of other destinies? Sanborn's analysis of pastiche and plagiarism
adds new depth to the study of nineteenth-century culture and the
history of African American literature, suggesting modes of African
American writing that extend beyond narratives of necessity and
purpose, characterized by the works of Frederick Douglass and
others.
In this original study, Geoffrey Sanborn presents a fresh
interpretation of the villanous Magua in James Fenimore Cooper's
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) and of the dignified harpooner
Queequeg in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Through careful
historical research, Sanborn has determined that both authors
relied heavily on contemporary accounts of the indigenous natives
of New Zealand, the Maori, to develop their iconic characters.
Cooper drew heavily on the account of Te Aara in John Liddiard
Nicholas's Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (1817) while
Melville studied the personal history of Te Pehi Kupe in George
Lillie Craik's The New Zealanders (1830) to flesh out his
characterization of Queequeg. A close reading of the historical
evidence and the source material supports this compelling line of
argumentation. At the same time, this isn't a simple source study
nor an act of explanatory historical recovery. The conception of
the Maori is sophisticated and paradoxical, a portrait of violent
but nonetheless idealized masculinity in which dignity depends on
the existence of fiercely defiant pride. This lens allows Sanborn
to present a radically different view of these fictional characters
as well as underscoring the imaginative projection that went into
reporting on the Maori themselves. Magua is no longer a
stereotypical "bad Indian" or "ignoble savage," but rather a
non-white "gentleman," an argument that supports Sanborn's
contention that throughout his career Cooper prioritizes status
equivalence over racial difference. Queequeg is similarly
re-imagined, a move that allows Sanborn to explicate scenes in
Moby-Dick that are often dodged by other critics because they do
not fit with the standard interpretations of the character. The
study as a whole provides a vivid example of the fascinating
interplay between fiction and non-fiction in the nineteenth
century.
In this original study, Geoffrey Sanborn presents a fresh
interpretation of the villanous Magua in James Fenimore Cooper's
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) and of the dignified harpooner
Queequeg in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Through careful
historical research, Sanborn has determined that both authors
relied heavily on contemporary accounts of the indigenous natives
of New Zealand, the Maori, to develop their iconic characters.
Cooper drew heavily on the account of Te Aara in John Liddiard
Nicholas's Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (1817) while
Melville studied the personal history of Te Pehi Kupe in George
Lillie Craik's The New Zealanders (1830) to flesh out his
characterization of Queequeg. A close reading of the historical
evidence and the source material supports this compelling line of
argumentation.
At the same time, this isn't a simple source study nor an act of
explanatory historical recovery. The conception of the Maori is
sophisticated and paradoxical, a portrait of violent but
nonetheless idealized masculinity in which dignity depends on the
existence of fiercely defiant pride. This lens allows Sanborn to
present a radically different view of these fictional characters as
well as underscoring the imaginative projection that went into
reporting on the Maori themselves. Magua is no longer a
stereotypical "bad Indian" or "ignoble savage," but rather a
non-white "gentleman," an argument that supports Sanborn's
contention that throughout his career Cooper prioritizes status
equivalence over racial difference. Queequeg is similarly
re-imagined, a move that allows Sanborn to explicate scenes in
Moby-Dick that are often dodged by other critics because they do
not fit with the standard interpretations of the character. The
study as a whole provides a vivid example of the fascinating
interplay between fiction and non-fiction in the nineteenth
century.
In The Sign of the Cannibal Geoffrey Sanborn offers a major
reassessment of the work of Herman Melville, a definitive history
of the post-Enlightenment discourse on cannibalism, and a
provocative contribution to postcolonial theory. These
investigations not only explore mid-nineteenth century resistance
to the colonial enterprise but argue that Melville, using the
discourse on cannibalism to critique colonialism, contributed to
the production of resistance. Sanborn focuses on the
representations of cannibalism in three of Melville's key
texts-Typee, Moby-Dick, and "Benito Cereno." Drawing on accounts of
Pacific voyages from two centuries and virtually the entire corpus
of the post-Enlightenment discourse on cannibalism, he shows how
Melville used his narratives to work through the ways in which
cannibalism had been understood. In so doing, argues Sanborn,
Melville sought to move his readers through stages of possible
responses to the phenomenon in order to lead them to consider
alternatives to established assumptions and conventions-to
understand that in the savage they see primarily their own fear and
fascination. Melville thus becomes a narrator of the postcolonial
encounter as he uncovers the dynamic of dread and menace that marks
the Western construction of the "non-savage" human. Extending the
work of Slavoj Zizek and Homi Bhabha while providing significant
new insights into the work of Melville, The Sign of the Cannibal
represents a breakthrough for students and scholars of postcolonial
theory, American literary history, critical anthropology, race, and
masculinity.
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