Summary for On The Duty of Civil Disobedience

Transcription

1 Summary for On The Duty of Civil Disobedience Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away (Thoreau, Walden 258). Form Audience Content Style 1

2 Form Originally a lecture Delivered twice at Concord, Mass. Lyceum on January 26 and February 16, 1848 The Lyceum sponsored a lecture series every winter Lecture originally entitled: The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government Sometimes referred to as the Declaration of Independence for the Conscience Form, cont. Essay entitled Resistance to Civil Government Pub. by Elizabeth Peabody in Aesthetic Papers (only issue) 1866 pub in posthumous collection, entitled, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and Reform Papers Now, typically published in conjunction with Thoreau s essay, Walden. Available on the internet 2

3 Audience Neighbours queried Thoreau on his desire to go to jail His explanation became the two lectures Audience is the common folk within his village Audience is initially local, then within the U.S. northeast, England, finally global Becomes how-to manual of peaceful resistance for anyone facing oppression from government Taken up by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Viet Nam war resisters Content Refuses to acknowledge the government of the U.S. if it continues to support slavery and wage war on Mexico The obligation and importance of peaceful resistance to government in response to injustice The only obligation of the individual is to do what is right Power of individual to affect change in a peaceful and significant way You must not commit injustice, even if such a refusal causes you harm (269) You are not obliged to eradicate all wrongs, but you are obliged to refuse to support such wrongs 3

4 Action from principle, - the perception and the performance of right, - changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary. (273). To disapprove of a government (an injustice), yet continue to pledge your allegiance and support to it, is to hinder the reform of the government Style Swift vs. Thoreau: Both essays announce their topic in the title Swift invokes both authorities and tested systems of thought: the American, the projector, mathematics; Thoreau dismisses Paley, a common authority, and government officials in favour of individual conscience and experience Swift writes for the affluent, Thoreau for all men Swift gives thesis or argument in the first paragraph; Thoreau waits several pages Swift relies on logic and reason as the realm of all intelligent men; Thoreau relies on feeling, empathy, sentiment 4

5 Swift uses satire and parody to mock current situation; Thoreau s work is devoid of irony Swift invokes persona of projector, while Thoreau speaks from personal experience (night in jail) Swift s persona is detached; Thoreau is impassioned Swift observes the poor and offers corrective; Thoreau goes to mail and relates how the experience changed his experience Swift s solution apparent only when mask or persona slips; Thoreau gives us imperatives from the beginning: Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it (266) Thoreau s Style Metaphor of government as machine Creates binary of humanity vs machine Invokes war of 1775 and need for revolution to create analogy: as colonies were to Britain, so the free states are to the current U.S. government; use of familiar topic to gain audience attention and support Reminds audience of cases where government has oppressed new thinkers (Christ, Copernicus, Washington 273) 5

6 Oral delivery means audience has only one opportunity to take in message; must be easily remembered uses exclamatory sentences that rely on repetition and rhythmic sentence structure to allow for quick and easy assimilation of message (275) Use of rhetorical questions to provoke thought and create possibility of change Asks us to imagine something better: Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? (287). Modernism Loosely defined as period Includes experiments in science, visual art, literature, music all over the world 6

7 Significant Innovations Psychology Sigmund Freud s assertion of the presence of an unconscious Science - challenges to ideas of time and space 1905 Einstein s Theory of Special Relativity 1915 Einstein s Theory of General Relativity Music - irregular meter, emphasis on rhythm over melody, dissonance 1913 Igor Stravinsky s Rite of Spring (Le sacre du printemps) 1938 Bela Bartok 7

8 Visual Art non-representational, rejection of 3- dimensional perspective Cubism 1910 Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London Secessionists in Austria Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles D Avignon,

9 Literature emphasis on point of view, stream of consciousness, multiple perspectives, form mirrors content 1915 Dorothy Richardson s Pilgrimage 1922 James Joyce s Ulysses, T.S. Elliot s The Waste Land, Virginia Woolf s Jacob s Room Excerpt from Ulysses that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all night I couldn t rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter its more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those mountains the something Nevada sierra Nevada standing at the fire with the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I hope hes not going to get in with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night squandering money and getting drunker and drunker.. 9

10 Virginia Woolf b. 25 Jan. 1882, d. March 1941 Adeline Virginia Stephen Wrote essays, novels short stories, sketches, literary criticism; 8 novels between 1915 and s and 60s difficult to find her work; rarely included in modernist canon Now considered a major innovative author Father Leslie Stephen, editor of Dictionary of National Biography Mother Julia Stephen wrote children s stories Woolf was not allowed to attend Cambridge as her brother did, but was encouraged to use her father s extensive library Family typically entertained number of authors including Thomas Hardy, Henry James 1905 until her death - reviewer for Times Literary Supplement Dreadnought Hoax Adrian, Virginia, Duncan Grant and others impersonal visiting Abyssinians Tour the H.M.S. Dreadnought Given a 21 gun salute and tour of the ship Leaked to press Hogarth Press Virginia and Leonard Woolf purchase their own hand press; print works by Katherine Mansfield, E.M. Forster, Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf s works Inter-personal relationships 10

11 Three Guineas Socialist, feminist and pacifist polemic 10 years to research, 6 years to write Original title: Answers to Correspondents or On Being Despised Local reviews: Sold 8000 copies in U.K. but a dead failure in U.S.A (Woolf, A Writer s Diary, Feb. 19, 1940) Constructed as a letter 3 sections to respond to each of 3 requests for funds First section begins with a response to the question: How in your opinion are we to prevent war?... (153). Argues from feminist position Feminist: advocate of the rights of women based on equality of the sexes 11