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We started out by looking at some postings by Louisa and Claire about what makes a classic. Is the phrase “instant classic” an oxymoron? Claire suggested that books that are extremely popular when they’re first released can be considered instant classics if the basis for that distinction is social impact; but other standards for “classic” standing could be artistic, entertainment, etc. We also looked at Ellen’s diagram of the deceptively simple sentence “Call me Ishmael” and talked about her question of how useful, really, is physical grammar in examining underlying meaning.

Today we delved into Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first by talking about our initial impressions and then by taking a look at some theorists’ opinions. One sense that Megan and others came away with was that the book feels racist because of the use of dialect and the way some slaves are depicted as dumb (“bobservations”) or very subservient to their masters. Claire talked about how comedy plays a (sometimes problematic) role in African-American literature. We talked about how Stowe's and her contemporaries’ expectations about race are not ours, and we don’t accept her invitation to laugh at the slaves’ mannerisms, etc.

Another reading by Jess and others was that the book was radical in its day despite the aspects we still find racist. Even black characters played for laughs are smart. Although in the Civil Rights movement and today an “Uncle Tom” referred dismissively to a black person who cooperates too much with white culture, Uncle Tom’s character in the book is actually more complicated; he obeys, at least in large part, to save his family from being sold.

We also talked about the form of the book, which we designated a sentimental novel, though at some points it feels like an essay because it didactically tells the reader what to think. There’s the basic narrative, interspersed with comments by the author that especially address women/mothers. The women are the moral ones in the book, and they are guided by their feelings. The characters supported by the author’s voice are the ones who rely on emotion, and this is the suggestion to the reader as well.

James Baldwin had a problem with this sentimentality; he said that it is not purposeful, but instead focuses on a performance. We said that he would have preferred a different genre, a protest novel, with the aim of making readers angry instead of sad, responsible for their actions instead of wallowing in an emotional reaction. Jane Tomkins (BMC grad!) on the other hand, has the opposite opinion; she thinks Uncle Tom’s Cabin is so effective because it’s a sentimental novel. Her analysis changed the way the academic world looked at this novel and all literature with a socio-political agenda—helped cause these books, in fact, to be accepted as literature. We did take umbrage with the fact that she focused on the book as women’s literature instead of a book about slavery and race.


In other news, I went to the “British Sign Language Poetry” performance by Paul Scott at Haverford today and was really impressed. I hadn’t known that such a thing existed—for me, it’s a totally new genre! Interestingly, the presenter mentioned how not many different genres of sign language poetry are accepted today. That comment seemed to express the idea that if a form of artistic expression has many sub-genres, it is seen as more legitimate, maybe because that would mean that many people put effort and creativity into it and it is a versatile form. Sign Language Poetry definitely has that potential, and I hope it becomes more popular, especially in the U.S. As was emphasized at the performance, it is a great way for people in the deaf community to come together, express themselves, and educate the non-deaf. And it offers possibilities for expression that poetry in spoken or written languages can’t offer—for example, the use of space and symmetry and visual rhymes and rhythms, which are just really amazing. I liked how the poetry is not exactly BSL, but it uses elements of the language in a way so that even people who don’t know it can understand the meaning.