Colonialism and Expansionism Literature

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William Blake, an Englishman who was part of the abolitionist movement, writes his poem “The Little Black Boy” from the perspective of an African child. Olaudah Equiano shares an autobiographical account of his lived experiences as an African child. Both pieces are written in the first person, and both were written for English audiences. Please answer the following questions in a two to three paragraph response.

  • In what ways do the political and literary goals of Blake and Equiano overlap?
  • In what ways do they diverge?

The Little Black Boy"

Blake black boy

Blake’s poem “The Little Black Boy” was published in 1798 as part of Songs of Innocence. This collection was followed in 1793 by Songs of Experience, and a combined edition was produced the next year bearing the title Songs of Innocence and Experience showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

In this poem, Blake directly connects his larger discussions of human freedom, which were influenced by the recent events of the French Revolution, to the current debate about slavery. In doing so he was contributing to The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a young but growing organization formed in 1787 that sought artists and writers to participate in their cause.

In "The Little Black Boy," slavery is presented as incompatible with Christianity. The little back boy learns from his mother the purpose of life, that “we are put on earth a little space” in order to learn “to bear the beams of love.” Racial coloring is presented as of little consequence.

In the 5th stanza, we see all of humanity being united: “For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear, The cloud will vanish....” Here, Blake uses the clouds as a metaphor for the human body, implying that after physical life has passed, all will be united with God. In the 6th stanza this metaphor is continued: “When I from black and he from white cloud free...” The little black boy hopes that he will finally be like the little white boy and that “he will then love me.” There is woe in this world, cruelty and poverty and division, but all will be well in heaven.

“The Little Black Boy” of Innocence seems to offer simple religious solace to children in dire situations, but the reader should be able to perceive more than the speaker of the poem. It may be highly ironic, or it may not be. The answer, of course, is never given. The two states of innocence and experience are not always clearly separate in the poems, and one can see signs of both states in many poems. Neither perspective is true by itself; both have to be understood.

The images that accompany this poem complicate our understanding of its meaning because in some versions of the plate the little black boy is indeed colored black or brown and in others the child is white or pink. To what degree does that alteration in image affect the meaning of the words themselves, given the multiple overlapping racial and colonial contexts in which the plate was produced?

Now, read "The Little Black Boy" - http://www.bartleby.com/235/48.html


The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

EquianoExeterpainting

Olaudah Equiano was born in about 1745 in what is now Nigeria. He was kidnapped at age twelve and sold into slavery. Shortly thereafter, Equiano was transported by English slaver traders to the Caribbean before being brought to Virginia, where he was purchased by the owner of a small plantation. Subsequently, Equiano was bought by Michael Henry Pascal, an English sailor who commanded a trans-Atlantic merchant ship. Pascal made the youth his personal servant and renamed him Gustavus Vassa. After a few years, Pascal sold Equiano to the captain of another merchant ship who then sold him to Robert King, a trader from Pennsylvania. By then Equiano was fluent in English and familiar with Western commercial practices. Equiano saved enough money to be able to purchase his freedom from King on July 11, 1766. He then worked briefly aboard merchant ships before returning to England, where he worked for Charles Irving, an oceanographer, whom he accompanied once on a scientific expedition to the Arctic. Even while based in England, Equiano continued to travel to places as far as New York and Turkey. Equiano's personal experiences and extensive travels led him to become an active member of the antislavery movement in England by the 1780s. Notably, in 1789 he delivered a formal petition to end England's involvement in the practice of slavery to Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. He married Susanna Cullen, an Englishwoman, in 1792; they had two daughters.

Equiano's greatest contribution to the abolitionist movement is this story of his own life, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. His goals are explicitly political. The book begins with an epistolary note addressed to the members of the British Parliament, urging them to end Britain's involvement in the international slave trade, and the book ends with his petition to Queen Charlotte, requesting her personal involvement in the abolitionist cause. The autobiographical narrative in-between offers a detailed summation of Equiano's life from his childhood in West Africa to his days as an antislavery crusader in England in the 1780s. The book was widely read and went through many editions in Britain and the United States.

A major feature of Equiano's narrative is his quest for personal and political empowerment through literacy. For example, during his first voyage to England, while in servitude to Pascal, Equiano notices that some of the white men aboard the ship, including Pascal, regularly read books. He senses that these books are at least partly responsible for the power of these white men. So, when alone, he picks up books at random and speaks to them in the hope that they will talk back to him. They do not, at least in the way that he expects initially, but during this time he becomes acquainted with a young American sailor on board, who teaches him how to read and write. By the time Equiano arrives in England he is determined to master the English language, and he is fluent by age fifteen. His literacy enables not only his emancipation but, later, his activism as an abolitionist.

Ten years after his death, the English slave trade was finally abolished by the Slave Trade Act of 1807

Now, read the The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm#CHAPTER_I.

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Running head: BLAKE AND EQUIANO

Blake and Equiano
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BLAKE AND EQUIANO

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Blake and Equiano

From Blake's perspective, the world was distraught with its nervousness, carnage,
persecution, mercilessness, self-centeredness, coldness, and abusive ethical quality. A significant
number of the ills burdening society, he felt, were established in tribute which structured the
premise of a harsh social association that transformed youngsters into chimney stack clears, for
instance. The real reason for our twisted civilizati...


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