The Age of Revolution

1. The Age of Revolution • The period between 1776-1800 was one of tremendous upheaval • The old order, the time-honored arrangements of European hierarchies were crumbling under the burdens of maintaining colonial empires, waging wars • Deists and other rationalists were challenging traditional notions of religion and society

2. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • “PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor;” • Gloss: observe that Paine’s concern that his ideas are not widely accepted: opposition was new • Remember the old rule of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3? • That was the ratio of who supported the American Revolution, who opposed, and who remained neutral

3. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • “a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” • Gloss: This is another important concern: reason vs. custom Paine wishes to found a society in which reasoning becomes the custom

4. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR

5. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • Gloss: The conflict is universal. • Natural rights have been violated • through logic of sentient beings sharing mutually recognized feelings

6. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.

7. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • Gloss: Note how Paine’s conviction that the fate of the world may hinge upon the question of America • observe his use of a natural analogy or metaphor of the inscription on oak tree • In the French Revolution, revolutionary time would be marked by a new calendar with new years and new months (e.g. July=Thermidore)

8. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some, Massanello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.

9. Paine, from “Common Sense” (AL 309) • Gloss: Reasoned deliberate language in the form of a written constitution is the only chance for a stable and lasting power that would be able to preserve these natural rights • The would-be United States first literature was written political documents like the Declaration and Constitution , a language that would guarantee the perpetuation of a reasoned revolution

10. What other linguistic or social forms could this revolution take? • By 1800, The USA had its constitution and government but still saw itself as empty culturally speaking • a mercantile society, culturally dependent on Europe and Britain for its literature and art

11. Philip Freneau • 1752–1832, American poet and journalist, b. New York City, grad. Princeton, 1771. • During the American Revolution he served as soldier and privateer. His experiences as a prisoner of war were recorded in his poem The British Prison Ship (1781). • The first professional American journalist, he was a powerful propagandist and satirist for the American Revolution and for Jeffersonian democracy. • Freneau edited various papers, including the partisan National Gazette (Philadelphia, 1791–93) for Jefferson.

12. Philip Freneau • He was usually involved in editorial quarrels, and, influential though he was, none of his papers was profitable. • His political and satirical poems have value mainly for historians, but his place as the earliest important American lyric poet is secured by the poems in the Anthology. • “Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man”

13. William Blake • 1757–1827, English poet and artist, b. London. • Although he exerted a great influence on English romanticism, Blake defies characterization by school, movement, or even period. • A poet more sensitive or responsive to the realities of the human condition and of his time would be hard to find

14. Song of Liberty • Blake’s prophecy of America etching • Note expansion of the concept of liberty to consciousness • Note trading on common prejudices of the day even in cause • Sexual liberty

15. Phyllis Wheatley • On being brought from Africa to America. • 'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither fought now knew, 5: Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

16. Blake, THE LITTLE BLACK BOY • My mother bore me in the southern wild, • And I am black, but O! my soul is white; • White as an angel is the English child, • But I am black, as if bereav'd of light.5     My mother taught me underneath a tree,6     And sitting down before the heat of day,7     She took me on her lap and kissed me,8     And pointing to the east, began to say:

17. The Little Black Boy • "Look on the rising sun: there God does live,10   And gives his light, and gives his heat away;11   And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive12   Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.13   And we are put on earth a little space,14   That we may learn to bear the beams of love;15   And these black bodies and this sunburnt face16   Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

18. The little Black Boy 17   For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,18   The cloud will vanish; we shall hear his voice,19   Saying: 'Come out from the grove, my love and care,20   And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.' 21   Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;22   And thus I say to little English boy,23   When I from black and he from white cloud free,24   And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,25   I'll shade him from the heat, till he can bear26   To lean in joy upon our father's knee;27   And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,28   And be like him, and he will then love me.