UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item Exodus: Literary Migrations of Afro-Atlantic Authors, 1760-1903(2007-04-26) Thomas, Rhondda Robinson; Peterson, Carla L.; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation analyzes Afro-Atlantic Exodus narratives that challenged slavery and racism throughout the African diaspora. Although many scholars have examined black writers' Exodus stories, none has explored the early development of these narratives from the mid-eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. My study of the extent to which Exodus stories pervade black literature supports my contention that their use is more complex than scholars have acknowledged. Tracing the origins of American Exodus narratives to the Puritan tradition, I explore how Afro-Atlantic people from Briton Hammon who invokes the Joseph story in his 1760 Narrative to W. E. B. DuBois who appropriates the Joshua story in his 1903 Souls of Black Folk decenter and rewrite white Christians' Exodus narratives, characterizing themselves as one of God's people deserving of freedom and equality. Detailed examinations of the Joseph and Joshua stories are two of the missing components of this discussion; they provide the essential bookends of the story. Quite simply, without an analysis of these narratives and the Moses story, any critique of this topic is incomplete and perhaps even misleading. In contrast to white writers who create linear narratives that chart the Puritans' transatlantic Exodus from European communities to the promised land of the New World, black authors develop multi-layered, sophisticated stories to advance their cause for freedom and equality. I demonstrate this complexity through an analysis of the literary strategies they rely on to develop their Exodus stories. Afro-Atlantic writers include fissures--breaks in the chronology of the biblical story--to depict their many varied experiences. Women writers are responsible for some of the major fissures. Afro-Atlantic writers also conflate biblical and secular/republican discourse as they demand their rights as citizens. Rather than recapitulate the entire Exodus story, they select specific episodes to support their arguments. Finally, in their search for a safe home, they represent their promised land, both in America and abroad, as unstable. Ultimately, Afro-Atlantic writers create Exodus narratives that reflect their persistent, diverse, and competing efforts to achieve their racial uplift goals but the stories do not fulfill the promise of freedom and equality.Item The Golden Chain: Royal Slavery, Sovereignty and Servitude in Early Modern English Literature, 1550-1688(2006-12-06) Bossert, Andrew Raymond; Leinwand, Theodore B.; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Enchained kings, enthroned slaves, and enthralled subjects--these are the emblems of royal slavery abounding in early modern English literature. They express concerns over national identity and monarch-subject relationships, and they arise in debates regarding absolutism, constitutionalism, and imperialism between the years 1550 and 1688. Thus, my dissertation performs close readings of rhetorical tropes relating to two early modern debates: monarchy's function and servitude's nature. This research synthesizes work by David Norbrook, Rebecca Bushnell, and Constance Jordan regarding the influence of domestic politics on English literature with studies by Kim Hall, Ania Loomba, and Nabil Matar on English imperialism. The introduction explores early modern depictions of Moses, whose self-denial advances nation-building. Three types of royal slavery emerge: 1) a slave who becomes a prince, 2) a slave who becomes a prince's property, or 3) a prince who becomes a slave. Moses experiences all three types, and serves as a model for other royal slaves and English leaders. Chapter One examines enslavement to monarchs. Political rebels and love slaves in [i]Julius Caesar[/i], [i]Antony and Cleopatra[/i], accounts of Hercules, and the [i]Fairie Queene[/i] describe slavery to excuse disloyalty. However, these examples also blame subjects for enslaving themselves. Chapter Two shows how images of enslaved kings appeal to pathos. Sympathetic royal slaves appear in Guevara's [i]Diall of Princes[/i], Owen Feltham's [i]Resolves[/i], and Marlowe's [i]Tamburlaine[/i]. Shakespeare's plays problematize sympathetic royal slave rhetoric, while [i]The Rape of Lucrece[/i]'s royal slave images question the poem's republicanism. Hutchinson's [i]Order and Disorder[/i] uses royal slave figures as anti-monarchical invectives. Chapter Three discusses slaves who become rulers who learn that true restoration is impossible. In Milton's [i]Paradise Lost[/i], the devils' utopia masks their vulnerability; Scudery's Briseis in [i]Several witty discourses[/i] depicts an enslaved princess's false restoration. However, Scudery's Cariclia and Cartwright's protagonist in [i]The Royal Slave[/i] suggest that patience yields rewards surpassing one's original state. My conclusion argues that the slave revolt in Aphra Behn's [i]Oroonoko[/i] fails because, like the English themselves, the slaves have a fractured national identity. Without commonwealth, the slaves surrender to private interests. Thus, Behn comments directly on colonial practice and metaphorically on English politics.