Beggar's Opera

Throughout the "Beggar's Opera" one of the most interesting parts of it is how Mr. and Mrs. Peachum treat Polly, their daughter. Even though this play is centered around a high people idea, opera, but is in a low people setting, robbers and thieves, Gay has successfully added this element even in the family dynamic.

For example Mr. and Mrs. Peachum chastise their daughter when she believes that she wants to get married. The terrible treatment of Polly is a common theme throughout the entire play. Constantly she is called a slut or a whore by her mother. The name calling by a parent is the first idea of high people and low people within in the familial ties. By calling her something degrading and something that is definitely below high class people, Mrs. Peachum automatically sets herself up as the high people. She is not an adorer of her daughter or one with constructive criticism, she only brings her daughter down and mentally makes Polly lower her idea of her own social status. 

Through this Gay himself through his writing has reached out and personified the dividing factor between the opera and the beggars. The parents are the opera, they are the high people in everyone's eyes while Polly is the low person, the thief. She has gone out to find love and through this adventure she has found Macheath. In a sense she is a thief of love because she went behind other's wishes. 

Gay's integration of the high people and the low people other than the initial in the title, "the BEGGAR'S OPERA" is interesting to watch and see progress throughout the writing. You can see each party shift and change throughout the writing and of course how each regard each other, Mr. and Mrs. Peachum to Polly and Polly to Mr. and Mrs. Peachum. Again also the bookends of the Player and the Beggar at the beginning and at the end of the play is of course also marking this idea of high and low people.   

To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty

I found the first part of "Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum" very interesting and different than the other things that we have read thus far. For example it is a women's prospective of Queen Elizabeth. Most of our readings are Men's prospective of the Queen or her own perspective about herself. This poem, instead, shows a different idea and shows a response of the same sex of Elizabeth.
The focus of the first part of the poem is about her adoration of the Queen and through this she compares her to Eve in the garden. By doing this she is putting Elizabeth in the elevated state of Eden, the garden or the ideal pastoral land. Again, here through Lanyer's writing the nostalgia for Elizabeth is shown. She is longing for the previous time. By comparing Elizabeth to Eve she has, like I said, put her in the pastoral land which is a representation of England. Lanyer goes on to say, "And do refer unto your majesty/To judge if it agree not with the text:/And if it do, why are poor women blamed,/Or by more faulty men so much defamed" (75-78). Through this statement Lanyer is making two different comments: one, that Adam was to blame for the fall. It was not the woman's fault and yet she is the one who is constantly blamed while the man is usually uplifted and seen as not as bad as the woman. Secondly she is referring again back to England and Elizabeth's rule. Elizabeth was not to blame for the restoration or the shift in England, instead that had to do with Charles I and the restoration. This unfortunate event, in Lanye's opinion, was because of Elizabeth's death but was not Elizabeth's fault. She is longing for the time of Elizabeth and the pre-restoration land like everyone is longing for Eden and the pastoral time before the fall.
Throughout this poem Lanyer is constantly praising Elizabeth and through this the nostalgia that was the Stuart age is shown in her writing.    

"A Modest Proposal" and The Onion

As I was reading Swift's A Modest Proposal, I couldn't help but draw connections to the satire news source The Onion. The one news story that kept coming back to me as I was reading was one satirizing Taco Bell and it's quality of ingredients. The Onion news cast performed a story that said that environmentalists can rejoice because Taco Bell can now use no naturally found substances in their meals, conserving nature and helping the planet. They used the example that though Taco Bell was very close to being this environmentally friendly before, the company had now found a way to substitute the lettuce they use for a man made lettuce-like product.When I first heard this story, the scandal about schools using the "pink slime" in their cafeteria meat was coming out and the public was starting to be more aware of where our food was actually coming from. The story was funny and entertaining in the same way that Swift's was, it addressed an issue that was current and gave it a resolution that, though it is completely amoral and nobody would actually do it, rationally makes sense.
Nobody would ever eat babies, no government would purpose or encourage that, but through Swifts use of satire, he makes it look like a completely valid argument. He has point after point of arguments that make sense, and if they were for any other issue, would be persuasive to any politician. The same for the Onion, they combined the issue of food safety and environmental preservation and made one ridiculous argument.

Public vs Private Literature

Something that Doug said that struck me was the comment about how the literature from the 16th/17th centuries were written for private audiences while the pieces from the 18th century were more public. I haven't ever thought about whether a writing was public or private, I automatically assumed it was a public piece because I was reading it. The idea that Donne wrote "The Flea" for a very specific and private audience makes sense, it's pretty sexual to be made for public publications; but I guess I always thought that these writers wanted their writings to be shared/viewed, so that means they would have published them. Obviously this is not the case, and looking through my other text books I find other private writings like letters and correspondences like the ones between Ralegh and Queen Elizabeth, but, especially Donne's poems, seemed like something that would be extremely public in today's modern era. Maybe this is because of our culture's saturation of sexuality, Carl Junior's latest commercial for their hamburgers was a bikini clad woman... that was it, which makes me think that this poem would fit right in to our society and mainstream media.

Anti Slavery in Oronooko -Hanna A.

Behn’s Oronooko is a disturbing piece of literature that has a surprising anti-slavery bent to it. The characters in the story are people who have been torn as royalty from Africa and are now stuck in slavery in a British colony. Oronooko, an African prince, is reunited to the love of his life after being sold into slavery. They are all but married in their love for one another. Oronooko plans a great escape but is caught. He realizes that this is the end of any trust that his masters might have in him and he realizes that he, his love, and his soon to be born child will be doomed to slavery forever. He tells his wife that he his going to kill her swiftly so that she and the baby will not have to endure slavery, he vows revenge on his masters, and states that he will commit suicide after killing them.

It is confusing that he would kill his wife however because he was treated quite well as a slave because he was royalty and so his life was relatively normal until he tried to run away. Why would he end his wife’s life, his child’s life, and let himself be tortured to death when he could have had a decent life? It is clear that Behn is making the point that all slavery is worse than death, and so death was the better option. However, it seems like slitting his wife’s throat and letting her bleed to death would be a terrible and painful way to let her die. Her death then drives him so mad with grief that he is incapable of living out his revenge and instead is killed in a terrifying, painful, and drawn out way.

Behn is very much against slavery, and this piece humanizes and gives a clear picture of the lives of slaves and how slavery is a dehumanizing, cruel, and disgusting practice. The British people are consistently liars and are seldom kind, and are therefore portrayed in a radically different light than most works of the time would have shown. This particular piece is showing how the lives of men and women are completely destroyed by slavery and that slavery should never be an option no matter how economically advantageous it may be to have slaves.

Through graphic images of death and pain, Behn is able to show his readers why slavery is a problem, and why it should be put to an end. Oronooko is one of thousands upon thousands of stories that shows how slavery is cruel and should never be an option.

Cannibalism and Politics -Hanna A.

Jonathan Swift, in “A Modest Proposal,” is writing a satirical political commentary about overpopulation, poverty, and the icy attitude of the upper classes towards the lower—particularly Irish—classes. He especially pokes fun at religious affiliation, and how Catholics have way too many children. He also assumes that Americans are savages, and promotes his own savage opinion by citing an American on how it is most definitely a good idea for the upper class to become cannibals and eat all the children of the lower classes.

Swift satirically solves the problem of overpopulation. However, he clearly has very little knowledge of how children actually are, or what the process of child rearing is like. He writes, “I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a solar year if tolerably nursed increaseth to twenty-eight pounds” (2635). Very few children are born weighing twelve pounds, and woe to the mother who bears a child that heavy. Most newborns weight about eight pounds or less unless they are overdue or particularly large. In sections like this, Swift betrays his satirical voice by have incorrect facts that exaggerate the reality of what he is actually talking about.

Swift goes on to describe in rather crass terms just how one might use every bit of the child that is killed. He mentions flaying the skin in order to “make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen” (2635). It is truly disturbing to actually think about these images, and shocking that Swift was able to write such a piece at the time when he was living.

It seems that the literal cannibalism that Swift is describing in “A Modest Proposal” stands for a different and more metaphorical cannibalism of his society politically. He uses political rhetoric to say that this idea is the bottom line and it solves practically every problem by itself. Swift is clearly making fun of the politicians of his time by coming up with a completely ludicrous, cruel, and morally disturbing proposal in order to bring into perspective the kind of manipulation that happens rhetorically with politicians. It is a very effective tool and is hard to miss in this particular work, which is absolutely dripping with political satire.

Chaucer Fun in the HUB!

I am glad that I took the time to grab a study break on Thursday and check out the Chaucer class performing in the HUB. I thought they did an excellent job, and it was really fun to see some of the things they'd been working on and reading this semester.

Like Audrey, I was struck by the similarities between the second play from the N-town cycle and the Second Shepherds' Play. They are both mystery plays, so that shouldn't have been surprising, but it still feels so new and different to me whenever these plays add pseudo-religious passages. How do these add on/expand the biblical narrative? Isn't there something a little sacrilegious to this, like the author is claiming that they are qualified to "add to" what the common people know about the Bible?

Well, I was thinking about this question and trying to think of instances in our world today where we try to stick pretty close to the text. And then I realized that my childhood hasn't been like this at all. For instance, some of my favorite things growing up were Veggietales, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and The Prince of Egypt. These works add, change, and interpret the stories they are trying to reflect. Nevertheless, they're excellent because they are involving, in some cases funny, and ultimately humanizing.

Both the play that the Chaucer class performed and the Second Shepherds' Play featured the addition of humorous, morally iffy characters. In the Second Shepherds' Play it's Mak, and in the play on Thursday it was the two accusers of Mary and Joseph. These characters are funny, for sure, and add drama to the story, but I wonder if the reason why they're included is because they're humanizing. These characters embody not only humor, but also the vice that is associated with humanity after the Fall. One of the main purposes behind the mystery plays was to make biblical stories accessible and relatable to the everyday man, and before I thought of this just in reference to subject matter. I figured that an audience would associate with only the pure and good characters. However, now I wonder if that's the case, or if these morally degenerate characters are there to represent the fallenness of the audience--and not just provide comic relief.

This is just a question I wanted to throw out after watching the Chaucer class perform. It was a really interesting and enjoyable show and got me back to thinking about the ways that writers shape their texts to fit their audiences and their times, which has been a huge focus of this course. Thanks to all of them for their excellent performance!