Frederick Douglass, Shakespearean, & the Birth-Pangs of Social Change
I was born on the 5th of July, thankfully missing by just a day the opportunity to have the line from the patriotic and vacuous George M. Cohen song, “I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” applied to my birth:
I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She's my Yankee Doodle joy
Yankee Doodle came to London
Just to ride the ponies
I am the Yankee Doodle Boy
Instead, I am pleased to know that this date also marks the historic occasion of Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" given to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in the state of New York.
[Image of Frederick Douglass from Wikipedia. Image of Romans 8:18 from Archive.org, The Bishops Bible, 1568, which the 1599 Geneva translation renders, "For I count that the afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory, which shall be showed unto us," an interesting apocalyptic hope of early Christians that some in Shakespeare's time may have felt applied to their own time, with plagues and wars and divisions between Christians, even as people today feel afflicted by grave injustices, divisions, and a global pandemic.]
Because of the BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests that are still taking place across the USA, a variety of more liberal or progressive news media outlets have been featuring stories about this Frederick Douglass speech.
In one of these, from Democracy Now!, James Earl Jones reads excerpts from the Frederick Douglass speech (click here to go to this source).
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/3/what_to_the_slave_is_4th
In another, from National Public Radio, five descendants of Douglass read excerpts from the speech and comment on it (click here to go to this source).
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/03/884832594/video-frederick-douglass-descendants-read-his-fourth-of-july-speech
Teaching Tolerance, a website and organization devoted to tolerance of difference (religion, nationality, skin color, gender), also encourages teaching and discussion of the speech
(click here to go to this source).
https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/texts/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july
A recent CBS poll in the US asked respondents if it’s easier for white people to get ahead: 52% of all respondents (of any skin color) said yes, it’s easier for whites. Of white respondents, only 50% said it’s easier for whites, “up from 35% five years ago.” The USA is split into thirds, with slightly more than a third claiming to be independent, slightly more than a third claiming to be Democrats, and slightly less than a third claiming to be Republicans (or in each case, tending to vote that way). The same CBS poll claims there is more movement of opinion among Democrats regarding white chances for success than among Republicans, who more often feel there is equal chance for success, and perhaps who prefer to ignore evidence of discrimination.
A poll by KFF.org published this June found that “the vast majority (71%) of Black Americans say they’ve experienced some form of racial discrimination or mistreatment during their lifetimes – including nearly half (48%) who say at one point that they felt their life was in danger because of their race.”
But sadly, perhaps due to a combination between the BLM protests, removal of statues of Confederate generals, and the heightened publicity for the anniversary of Douglass’ speech, some people may have decided it was a good day to vandalize the Frederick Douglass statue in Rochester, New York, the city where the speech was delivered (click here to go to a news item on this story of the vandalism). The statue was removed from its base and left leaning on a fence near a gorge nearby, as if perhaps the plan was to throw the statue into the gorge.
These vandals seem to represent a minority of US citizens who feel threatened by BLM protests and who are willing to commit crimes to express their feelings. But unfortunately, with our current president, it seems to many in the US and perhaps to others in the world that people like these vandals have been given entirely too much power.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, SHAKESPEAREAN
It is in that context that I was very pleased to find a number of resources on Frederick Douglass and his love for Shakespeare. Two of them are from The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC:
“Frederick Douglass, A Shakespearean in Washington,” by John Muller, was published about a year ago by The Folger Shakespeare Library.
https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/07/19/frederick-douglass-shakespearean-washington/
“Frederick Douglass, William Shakespeare, and English Language Learners,” by Angela Ward from 2015, is a helpful resource published by Teaching Shakespeare! A Folger Education Blog.
https://teachingshakespeareblog.folger.edu/2015/06/18/frederick-douglass-william-shakespeare-and-english-language-learners/
A number of sources note that Douglass read the part of Shylock in a reading of “The Merchant of Venice” by the Uniontown Shakespeare Club in 1877, an interesting note, in part because Shylock is discriminated against as a Jew, while Douglass was discriminated against as a descendant of black slaves. (His mother was black, and his father was white, yet even a drop of black blood could potentially make a person be considered black, evidence of how terms like “white” and “black” are in fact social constructs and tools of oppression). Shylock becomes obsessed with revenge, yet in much of his writing, while Douglass exposed the evils of slavery, he repeatedly asserted that he held no ill will against his former owners, claiming that he hated slavery, not the people who enslaved him.
A blog post from The Lion of Anacostia regarding this 1877 Uniontown Shakespeare Club meeting notes:
It also notes the picture of Othello and Desdemona on the mantle at the Douglass home; students of Douglass might also recall that after his first wife died, Frederick Douglass married a white woman, a decision that was controversial at the time.
How did Frederick Douglass use, or appropriate, Shakespeare in his speeches and writings? One examination of this question might be found in an essay by John C. Briggs called “The Exorcism of Macbeth: Frederick Douglass’s Appropriation of Shakespeare,” which can be found in a book called Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance, edited by Scott L. Newstok and Ayanna Thompson.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Besides Frederick Douglass’ love for and appropriation of Shakespeare, students of Douglass would find other Shakespeare influences; it has also been noted that Abraham Lincoln loved and appropriated aspects of Shakespeare, and his alleged assassin, John Wikles Booth, was at times famous for his portrayal of characters in Shakespeare plays.
ALL THE WORLD GROANS WITH NEW BIRTH?
To some, it may seem that the current protests and unrest in the USA are something like labor pangs, hopefully leading to a new birth of freedom and equal rights at best. But of course, it may be something worse that comes out of the current unrest; nothing is certain. It's a mystery pointed to by the oft-cited poem, "The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats, with its last lines,
In times of social unrest and change, sometimes things get worse before they get better; sometimes, authoritarian and abusive powers crack down even harder to oppress; sometimes temporary progress is made before a period of regression.
At best, things will become what we make of them, and large numbers will work for positive changes.
People in Shakespeare’s lifetime would have read, or heard many times in church, the words of St. Paul using a similar birth-pang metaphor for social change, in Romans 8:18-23:
[Screenshot images from Archive.org, 1568 Bishops Bible]
The same text, with modern spelling, from the popular Geneva Bible (1599) would speak of the social unrest early Christians were feeling in the following way:
18 For I count that the afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory, which shall be showed unto us.
19 For the fervent desire of the creature waiteth when the sons of God shall be revealed,
20 Because the creature is subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him, which hath subdued it under hope,
21 Because the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
22 For we know that every creature groaneth with us also, and travaileth in pain together unto this present.
23 And not only the creature, but we also which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we do sigh in ourselves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our body.[Modernized spelling of Geneva Bible 1599 from BibleGateway]
Regarding the use of birth pangs and other medical language, literally or as a metaphor in Shakespeare, Sujata Iyengar, Professor of English at the University of Georgia, has written
Shakespeare's Medical Language: A Dictionary (2014, Bloomsbury Publishing), which includes occurrences of language about birth-labor and labor-pangs (among many other things). She has also written Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (2004, U. Penn Press). I will be curious to check and see how Shakespeare may use language about birth-pangs in relation not only to treason (as in Richard II), but also to other aspects of social change. Perhaps Francisco's description of himself as sick-at-heart in Hamlet 1.1., and later, the prince's complaint to Horatio in 5.2. that "thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart" become the equivalent of birth-pangs in a time of great social change and uncertainty?
My point here is not to distract from current conflicts toward some other-worldly reward, but to examine how unrest and social change in various periods envisions hope. This was true for early Christians who felt oppressed by Rome; it was true in Early Modern England, by Protestants who were persecuted by Catholics under Mary I, and by Catholics persecuted under others of the late Tudor monarchs and James. It was true in Frederick Douglass' lifetime, witnessing the end of slavery but still wrestling with discrimination, and is true in our own time as well.
WHAT THIS MAY HAVE TO DO WITH HAMLET
In the contrast between the chivalry and honor-code of the dead King Hamlet's call for revenge, and the Christianity of Shakespeare's England, Shakespeare's Hamlet may represent similar birthing-pangs of social change: In the introduction to the 1989 edition of Hamlet edited by Paul A. Cantor, we are told of the stark contrast between the Christian point of view and the classical hero (7-17). I may explore this at greater length next week. Cantor, of the University of Virginia, curates a website on Shakespeare and Politics, and he has an interesting series on Hamlet (which you can find here [1 of 3], and here [2 of 3], and here [3 of 3]. I may explore this contrasts between the classical and Christian/Renaissance worldview at greater length next week.
Till then, have a good week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages in my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over any other, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.
I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She's my Yankee Doodle joy
Yankee Doodle came to London
Just to ride the ponies
I am the Yankee Doodle Boy
Instead, I am pleased to know that this date also marks the historic occasion of Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" given to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in the state of New York.
Because of the BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests that are still taking place across the USA, a variety of more liberal or progressive news media outlets have been featuring stories about this Frederick Douglass speech.
In one of these, from Democracy Now!, James Earl Jones reads excerpts from the Frederick Douglass speech (click here to go to this source).
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/3/what_to_the_slave_is_4th
In another, from National Public Radio, five descendants of Douglass read excerpts from the speech and comment on it (click here to go to this source).
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/03/884832594/video-frederick-douglass-descendants-read-his-fourth-of-july-speech
Teaching Tolerance, a website and organization devoted to tolerance of difference (religion, nationality, skin color, gender), also encourages teaching and discussion of the speech
(click here to go to this source).
https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/texts/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july
A recent CBS poll in the US asked respondents if it’s easier for white people to get ahead: 52% of all respondents (of any skin color) said yes, it’s easier for whites. Of white respondents, only 50% said it’s easier for whites, “up from 35% five years ago.” The USA is split into thirds, with slightly more than a third claiming to be independent, slightly more than a third claiming to be Democrats, and slightly less than a third claiming to be Republicans (or in each case, tending to vote that way). The same CBS poll claims there is more movement of opinion among Democrats regarding white chances for success than among Republicans, who more often feel there is equal chance for success, and perhaps who prefer to ignore evidence of discrimination.
A poll by KFF.org published this June found that “the vast majority (71%) of Black Americans say they’ve experienced some form of racial discrimination or mistreatment during their lifetimes – including nearly half (48%) who say at one point that they felt their life was in danger because of their race.”
But sadly, perhaps due to a combination between the BLM protests, removal of statues of Confederate generals, and the heightened publicity for the anniversary of Douglass’ speech, some people may have decided it was a good day to vandalize the Frederick Douglass statue in Rochester, New York, the city where the speech was delivered (click here to go to a news item on this story of the vandalism). The statue was removed from its base and left leaning on a fence near a gorge nearby, as if perhaps the plan was to throw the statue into the gorge.
These vandals seem to represent a minority of US citizens who feel threatened by BLM protests and who are willing to commit crimes to express their feelings. But unfortunately, with our current president, it seems to many in the US and perhaps to others in the world that people like these vandals have been given entirely too much power.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, SHAKESPEAREAN
It is in that context that I was very pleased to find a number of resources on Frederick Douglass and his love for Shakespeare. Two of them are from The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC:
“Frederick Douglass, A Shakespearean in Washington,” by John Muller, was published about a year ago by The Folger Shakespeare Library.
https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/07/19/frederick-douglass-shakespearean-washington/
“Frederick Douglass, William Shakespeare, and English Language Learners,” by Angela Ward from 2015, is a helpful resource published by Teaching Shakespeare! A Folger Education Blog.
https://teachingshakespeareblog.folger.edu/2015/06/18/frederick-douglass-william-shakespeare-and-english-language-learners/
A number of sources note that Douglass read the part of Shylock in a reading of “The Merchant of Venice” by the Uniontown Shakespeare Club in 1877, an interesting note, in part because Shylock is discriminated against as a Jew, while Douglass was discriminated against as a descendant of black slaves. (His mother was black, and his father was white, yet even a drop of black blood could potentially make a person be considered black, evidence of how terms like “white” and “black” are in fact social constructs and tools of oppression). Shylock becomes obsessed with revenge, yet in much of his writing, while Douglass exposed the evils of slavery, he repeatedly asserted that he held no ill will against his former owners, claiming that he hated slavery, not the people who enslaved him.
A blog post from The Lion of Anacostia regarding this 1877 Uniontown Shakespeare Club meeting notes:
In an unfinished letter dated December 21, 1877 to “My dear Friend” Douglass writes, “I spoke to a very [illegible] and elegant audience at Mt. Pleasant Wednesday night, and read with the Uniontown Shakespeare Club last night.
The play was the Merchant of Venice and my part [was] Shylock. This is my second meeting with the Club. I find it very pleasant and entertaining and I have no one at my home to go with me and I often fancy that I am losing one half of the happiness of such occasions because in all such matters I am alone.”
It also notes the picture of Othello and Desdemona on the mantle at the Douglass home; students of Douglass might also recall that after his first wife died, Frederick Douglass married a white woman, a decision that was controversial at the time.
How did Frederick Douglass use, or appropriate, Shakespeare in his speeches and writings? One examination of this question might be found in an essay by John C. Briggs called “The Exorcism of Macbeth: Frederick Douglass’s Appropriation of Shakespeare,” which can be found in a book called Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance, edited by Scott L. Newstok and Ayanna Thompson.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Besides Frederick Douglass’ love for and appropriation of Shakespeare, students of Douglass would find other Shakespeare influences; it has also been noted that Abraham Lincoln loved and appropriated aspects of Shakespeare, and his alleged assassin, John Wikles Booth, was at times famous for his portrayal of characters in Shakespeare plays.
ALL THE WORLD GROANS WITH NEW BIRTH?
To some, it may seem that the current protests and unrest in the USA are something like labor pangs, hopefully leading to a new birth of freedom and equal rights at best. But of course, it may be something worse that comes out of the current unrest; nothing is certain. It's a mystery pointed to by the oft-cited poem, "The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats, with its last lines,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
In times of social unrest and change, sometimes things get worse before they get better; sometimes, authoritarian and abusive powers crack down even harder to oppress; sometimes temporary progress is made before a period of regression.
At best, things will become what we make of them, and large numbers will work for positive changes.
People in Shakespeare’s lifetime would have read, or heard many times in church, the words of St. Paul using a similar birth-pang metaphor for social change, in Romans 8:18-23:
[Screenshot images from Archive.org, 1568 Bishops Bible]
The same text, with modern spelling, from the popular Geneva Bible (1599) would speak of the social unrest early Christians were feeling in the following way:
18 For I count that the afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory, which shall be showed unto us.
19 For the fervent desire of the creature waiteth when the sons of God shall be revealed,
20 Because the creature is subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him, which hath subdued it under hope,
21 Because the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
22 For we know that every creature groaneth with us also, and travaileth in pain together unto this present.
23 And not only the creature, but we also which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we do sigh in ourselves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our body.[Modernized spelling of Geneva Bible 1599 from BibleGateway]
Regarding the use of birth pangs and other medical language, literally or as a metaphor in Shakespeare, Sujata Iyengar, Professor of English at the University of Georgia, has written
Shakespeare's Medical Language: A Dictionary (2014, Bloomsbury Publishing), which includes occurrences of language about birth-labor and labor-pangs (among many other things). She has also written Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (2004, U. Penn Press). I will be curious to check and see how Shakespeare may use language about birth-pangs in relation not only to treason (as in Richard II), but also to other aspects of social change. Perhaps Francisco's description of himself as sick-at-heart in Hamlet 1.1., and later, the prince's complaint to Horatio in 5.2. that "thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart" become the equivalent of birth-pangs in a time of great social change and uncertainty?
My point here is not to distract from current conflicts toward some other-worldly reward, but to examine how unrest and social change in various periods envisions hope. This was true for early Christians who felt oppressed by Rome; it was true in Early Modern England, by Protestants who were persecuted by Catholics under Mary I, and by Catholics persecuted under others of the late Tudor monarchs and James. It was true in Frederick Douglass' lifetime, witnessing the end of slavery but still wrestling with discrimination, and is true in our own time as well.
WHAT THIS MAY HAVE TO DO WITH HAMLET
In the contrast between the chivalry and honor-code of the dead King Hamlet's call for revenge, and the Christianity of Shakespeare's England, Shakespeare's Hamlet may represent similar birthing-pangs of social change: In the introduction to the 1989 edition of Hamlet edited by Paul A. Cantor, we are told of the stark contrast between the Christian point of view and the classical hero (7-17). I may explore this at greater length next week. Cantor, of the University of Virginia, curates a website on Shakespeare and Politics, and he has an interesting series on Hamlet (which you can find here [1 of 3], and here [2 of 3], and here [3 of 3]. I may explore this contrasts between the classical and Christian/Renaissance worldview at greater length next week.
Till then, have a good week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages in my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over any other, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.
Dr. Fried,
ReplyDeleteYour blog entries continue to enlighten me. Of note, the link to the Briggs essay is priceless, as are the other embedded links.
Thank you,
- Michael A. Segal
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThanks, Michael! I had known that Lincoln [edit] appropriated scripture and Shakespeare, but not Douglass, before working on this blog post. I'm assuming one might find more Shakespeare in Douglass than this Macbeth appropriation, but this particular appropriation of Macbeth seems not only interesting, but also potentially problematic, so it's fun to see that explored.
Delete