TIMELINE OF CULTURAL & LITERARY HISTORY
When studying the literature and culture of a period of time that covers centuries and a place as geographically and culturally broad and diverse as America, it becomes quickly clear that some particular focus is needed, to avoid the pitfall of merely looking at a random collection of disconnected works. Such a focusing device is sometimes called a motif.
The motif of this course is based on these words, taken from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, written and loosed on an unsuspecting world in 1776:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—”
“Unalienable” means built-in, inherent, something which cannot be taken away, at least not rightfully. The reason the world was unprepared for such a claim–that people are born with the dignity of crucial rights–is because that is simply not how civilization had ever worked. Karen Armstrong, a contemporary historian, has pointed out that almost every single civilized country or region throughout history had followed the same pattern, which was that a powerful and privileged few consisting of a ruler plus his followers would control the majority of the people by means ranging from serfdom to outright slavery, and use their labors to fund the lifestyle of the ruling class. Meanwhile, 90% of the people barely subsisted. Given this almost universal pattern, who would believe the claim that people are born with “unalienable rights”?
Yet that very claim is the founding concept of this country. And ever since, in this country and then elsewhere, a new pattern of history has emerged: A struggle to “cash that check,” as Dr. Martin Luther King once put it, and be granted the opportunity to actually pursue those inherent rights and the dignity they confer. It is arguable and probably true that even Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration, and his fellow “founding fathers” of this country did not truly understand the magnitude of the claim their words make. For example, what about women? Are people of color included? What about slaves? What about Native Americans, from whom our European ancestors took this land? What about LGBTQ people? But each of these groups, and others, have slowly forced, through legal challenge and slow cultural change, their inclusion beneath the canopy of also having the right to pursue a life of reasonable happiness that does not harm others. In fact, The Bill of Rights and the further amendments to the U.S. Constitution are basically a ledger of the slow expansions made to the canopy of equal opportunity under the law.
So this is our motif in this course: The ongoing struggle of diverse groups of people to be granted the same rights as others. We will study key works of literature which are important to this struggle. Some will connect directly and obviously, while other works connect less directly, but the basic task for you the student will be to analyze each work for how it does in fact connect to this motif. This struggle, which has done nothing less than change the pattern of world civilization, is still ongoing. It’s all around us. We’ll take a look at where it first emerged–in this country.
