Artifact #8
Practical Grammar
EN3105
Dr. Marlinda Snow
Spring 2016
Editing project
In Practical Grammar I learned invaluable editing skills. One of the assignments was to submit a
paper written for a prior course and edit the paper using the grammatical rules we learned in
class. I chose a paper I wrote for British Literature class taught by Dr. Paul Voss during fall
2015. The paper, entitled “What’s in a Name,” was an analysis of William Blake’s poem “The
Little Black Boy.” The revised paper reads more clearly and has less punctuation errors.
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
William Blake chose to use his platform as a poet to address issues of
slavery, colonialism, and race in his poem “The Little Black Boy.” Blake is one of
the few prominent writers of the eighteenth century who portray Africans as
positive characters in their literature.
Blake defies the conventions of the
mainstream anti-slavery tracts that were more popular to early imperialists.
Instead of using childlike story-telling verses and deprecating metaphors like the
anti-slavery tracts that represented the African as a heathen in need of Christian
conversion, Blake uses lyric irony and pastoral images to redefine the label of
“black.”
Blake wrote “The Little Black Boy” to take a stance against the binary
effects of antislavery texts that bemoaned the physical brutality of slavery, but
perpetuated the inferior conceptualizations of slaves.
Race reformers and
literary critics tend to agree that writings of the antislavery movement
“characteristically attacks slavery while supporting colonialism, rejecting violent
solutions, and maintaining a condescending if not explicitly racist attitude
toward black Africans while lamenting their plight” (Richardson).
Antislavery
literature laced with images that compare African black skin to darkness and
African people to uneducated beasts began the early dehumanization of an
entire race by instilling negative images of Africans in all who read the texts. The
2
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
perceptions conceived within antislavery literature of Africa and Africans as
“culturally dark or benighted, and the savage as uncivilized or untutored”
(Richardson)set the foundation for slavery’s justification. Critics on the antislavery
side of the discussion believe that Blake uses the conventions of his day to
challenge the inhumanity of colonialism.
Alan Richardson studies both sides of the argument in his review of “The
Little Black Boy” and makes a compelling argument that Blake’s poem seeks to
imprint positive images of African slaves on his readers.
Blake’s lyric critically addresses the racist and colonialist attitudes
informing most antislavery literature of the period, and that its
complex ironies arise from Blake’s immanent critique of that
movement’s ideology; and, since the Christianizing of Africans make
a key aspect of antislavery ideology, that questions of race and
religion in the lyric should not be treated separately. Moreover, the
form and genre of the poem also reflect its concern with the racist
and imperialist subtext of antislavery literature, as issues of race and
especially
colonialism
were
related
both
discursively
and
institutionally to the development of children’s literature in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (234)
3
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
By depicting the black boy as an intellectual seeking to align with God, Blake
assigns humanlike qualities instead of images of a savage. Blake presents the
African Boy in a Christ-like image. He keeps the first four lines of “The Little Black
Boy” within the convention of mainstream antislavery literature by depicting the
English boy as “an angel” and the African boy as from the “wild” and “bereav’d
of light.”
The next seventeen lines deviate from characteristic antislavery
literature by showing how African mothers nurture and teach their children
about God’s power and His unconditional love.
”Blake’s emphasis on the
African mother’s teaching is extremely significant. It was essential that apologists
of slavery and antislavery evangelists alike to view the African as untaught,
uncivilized” (239). Yet, Blake’s black boy uses the teachings of his mothe,r which
are based in their African culture, and applies Christian principles learned from
the English to accept God’s purpose for his “little space” on earth.
The
teachings from his mother describe whites as spiritually weaker than blacks even
though whites rule over the blacks. “Look on the rising sun; there God does live/
And gives his light, and gives his heat away” (Blake). The mother of the black
boy uses pastoral images to teach her son about their African beliefs.
She
figuratively explains how the Englishman’s light pigment suggests they spend less
time under God’s heat. As they spend less time in his presence their souls are
less exposed to God’s love, making them less compassionate.
4
The slave’s dark
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
skin comes from being exposed to God’s heat and his compassion comes from
his ability to “bear the beams of love” released by God.
The image of the “shady grove” ironically places the black boy closer to
God than the English boy. Blake makes the black boy superior to the English boy
by allowing the black boy to display “Christian virtue’s triad: love, faith and
hope, virtues that can be perceived in the black boy’s discourse. And all this
knowledge, of which he has no doubt comes from his mother, easily identified
as The Mother of God” (Dumitrana). And although the black boy accepts his
role as servant to the English boy he also realizes his godliness places him in the
role of protector over the English boy. “When I from black and he from white
cloud free,/ And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,/ I’ll shade him from
the heat till he can bear/ To lean in joy upon our father’s knee” (23-26). By
presenting the black boy in the likeness of God Blake challenges his readers to
perceive blackness as a positive attribute.
In the last two stanzas the black boy comes into his own understanding
based on all he has learned about God and resolves to restore comfort to the
English by simulating to Christian ideals and extending total forgiveness. “The
black child has at this point managed to revise the Manichean gospel taught
him by his masters, as articulated in the poem’s first stanza, by subversively
mingling it with his memories of his mother’s African teachings, producing a self5
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
affirming discourse of his own” (Richardson). While the majority of antislavery
literature portrayed Blacks as uneducated, ungodly savages, Blake counters
these precepts by giving the black boy a voice and allowing him to tell his story.
In Blake’s representation of a black child’s attempt to challenge a
crippling ideology through creative subversion the English reader-child
or adult- could find a discursive site for opposition and a rare lesson in
dissent. “The Little Black Boy” both poses a critique of the colonialist
discourse informing antislavery poems and tracts, and offers a
paradigm for resisting the new forms of social discipline epitomized by
industrial children’s fiction and tracts for the lower orders, a “popular”
literature imposed from above. (Richardson)
Depicting a black boy as morally superior to an English boy makes Blake a
pioneer of his day. Whether or not the denigrating stereotypes (stemming from
colonial imperialism) that plague African Americans today would exist if more
writers of antislavery literature would have followed Blake’s model and
portrayed Africans as an intellectual and cultured people may never be known,
but the fact that Blake recognized the injustice and chose to leave impressions
of Africans as a learned race with Christ-like compassion raises questions of the
intent and motives of antislavery efforts. Blake’s decision to assert his influence
6
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
as a poet, understanding the impacts of literature on shaping perception and
literature’s ability to affect future readers, and insert a black character with
Christ-like qualities into the literary canon speaks to his innovation and prophetic
imagination.
7
Folayan Battle
Practical Grammar/Dr. Snow
April 21, 2016
Edited Paper from British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
Works Cited
Blake, William. "The Little Black Boy." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2013. 1458-1459.
Dumitrana, Magdalena. "The Christian Poetry and the Formation of an Interculltural AAttitude. "The
Little Black Boy" by William Blake." Euromentor (2006): 9-18.
Richardson, Alan. "Colonialism, Race and Lyric Irony in Bllake's "The Little Black Boy"." Papers on
Language and Literature (Spring 1990): 223-248.
8
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
William Blake uses his platform as a poet to address issues of slavery,
colonialism and race in his poem “The Little Black Boy”. The missionary based
antislavery literature of the 18th century characteristically used to convert the
heathen African to Christianity are written using childlike story telling verses and
deprecating metaphors to represent the African slave. Blake, unlike his
contemporaries, manipulates the conventions of antislavery texts to develop a
lyric poem filled with lyric irony and pastoral images that positively portrays
Africans. Blake innovatively transforms the negative image of slaves by giving
the black boy redemptive qualities, this makes his poem stand out as a
visionary’s cultural relative solution to oppressive colonialism.
Antislavery texts having two faces: one that seems to support ending the
brutality of slavery while the other promotes an acceptance of inferior
conceptualization of slaves; undermines the authenticity of the movement as
more of a conspiracy to forever subject Africans as inferior than a move to free
them from oppression. Race reformers and literary critics tend to agree that text
of the antislavery movement “characteristically attacks slavery while supporting
colonialism, rejecting violent solutions, and maintaining a condescending if not
explicitly racist attitude toward black Africans while lamenting their plight”
(Richardson). Antislavery literature laced with images that compare African
black skin to darkness – an aberration to God’s light, and African culture as
bestial needing educating, thus humanizing instilled negative images of Africans
1
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
in all who read the texts. The perceptions conceived within antislavery literature
of Africa and Africans as “culturally dark or benighted, and the savage as
uncivilized or untutored” (Richardson)set the foundation for slavery’s justification.
Critics on the antislavery side of the discussion believe that Blake uses the
conventions of his day to challenge the inhumanity of colonialism.
Alan Richardson studies both sides of the argument in his review of “The
Little Black Boy” and makes a compelling argument that Blake’s poem seeks to
imprint positive images of African slaves on his readers.
Blake’s lyric critically addresses the racist and colonialist attitudes
informing most antislavery literature of the period, and that its complex
ironies arise from Blake’s immanent critique of that movement’s ideology;
and, since the Christianizing of Africans make a key aspect of antislavery
ideology, that questions of race and religion in the lyric should not be
treated separately. Moreover, the form and genre of the poem also
reflect its concern with the racist and imperialist subtext of antislavery
literature, as issues of race and especially colonialism were related both
discursively and institutionally to the development of children’s literature in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (234)
By depicting the black boy as an intellectual seeking to align with God Blake
assigns humanlike qualities instead of images of a savage. Blake presents the
African Boy in a Christ-like image. Blake’s black boy, like Christ, accepts being a
sacrificial lamb, and thus endures oppression for sake of English boy as Christ
endured crucifixion to save humanity.
The first four lines of “The Little Black Boy” are arranged similar to the
antislavery literature in that it depicts the English boy as “an angel” and the
2
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
African boy as from the “wild” and “bereav’d of light.” The next seventeen lines
deviate from characteristic antislavery literature by showing how African
mothers nurture and teach their children about God’s power and His
unconditional love. ”Blake’s emphasis on the African mother’s teaching is
extremely significant. It was essential to apologists for slavery and antislavery
evangelists alike to view the African as untaught, uncivilized” (239). Yet, Blake’s
black boy uses the teachings of his mother which are based in their African
culture and applies Christian principles learned from the English to accept God’s
purpose for his “little space” on earth. The teachings from his mother ascribes
whites as spiritually weaker than blacks even though whites rule over the blacks.
“Look on the rising sun; there God does live/ And gives his light, and gives his
heat away;” (Blake). The mother of the black boy uses pastoral images to
teach her son about their African beliefs. She figuratively explains how the
Englishman’s light pigment suggests they spend less time under God’s heat, as
they spend less time in his presence their souls are less exposed to God’s love,
making them less compassionate.
The slave’s dark skin comes from being
exposed to God’s heat and his compassion comes from his ability to “bear the
beams of love” released by God.
The image of the “shady grove” ironically places the black boy closer to
God than the English boy. Blake makes the black boy superior to the English boy
by allowing the black boy to display “Christian virtues triad: love, faith and hope,
3
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
virtues that can be perceived in the black boy’s discourse. And all this
knowledge, of which he has no doubt comes from his mother, easily identified
as The Mother of God” (Dumitrana). And although the black boy accepts his
role as servant to the English boy he also realizes his Godliness places him in the
role of protector over the English boy. “When I from black and he from white
cloud free,/ And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,/ I’ll shade him from
the heat till he can bear/ To lean in joy upon our father’s knee” (23-26). By
presenting the black boy in the likeness of God Blake challenges his readers to
perceive blackness as a positive attribute.
In the last two stanzas the black boy comes into his own understanding
based on all he has learned about God and resolves to restore comfort to the
English by simulating to Christian ideals and extending total forgiveness. “The
black child has at this point managed to revise the Manichean gospel taught
him by his masters, as articulated in the poem’s first stanza, by subversively
mingling it with his memories of his mother’s African teachings, producing a selfaffirming discourse of his own” (Richardson). While the majority of antislavery
literature portrayed Blacks as uneducated, ungodly savages, Blake counters
these precepts by giving the black boy a voice and allowing him to tell his story.
In Blake’s representation of a black child’s attempt to challenge a
crippling ideology through creative subversion the English reader-child or
adult- could find a discursive site for opposition and a rare lesson in
dissent. “The Little Black Boy” both poses a critique of the colonialist
discourse informing antislavery poems and tracts, and offers a paradigm
4
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
for resisting the new forms of social discipline epitomized by industrial
children’s fiction and tracts for the lower orders, a “popular” literature
imposed from above (Richardson)
Depicting a black boy as morally superior to an English boy makes Blake a
pioneer of his day. Whether or not the denigrating stereotypes (stemming from
colonial imperialism) that plague African Americans today would exist if more
writers of antislavery literature would have followed Blake’s model and
portrayed Africans as an intellectual people and culture may never be known,
but, the fact that Blake recognized the injustice and chose to leave impressions
of Africans as a learned race with Christ-like compassion raises questions of the
intent and motives of antislavery efforts. Blake’s decision to assert his influence
as a poet, understanding the impacts of literature on shaping perception and
literature’s ability to affect future readers, and insert a black character with
Christ-like qualities into the literary canon speaks to his innovation and prophetic
imagination.
5
Folayan Battle
British Literature- Dr. Voss
December 7, 2015
Works Cited
Blake, William. "The Little Black Boy." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2013. 1458-1459.
Dumitrana, Magdalena. "The Christian Poetry and the Formation of an Interculltural AAttitude. "The
Little Black Boy" by William Blake." Euromentor (2006): 9-18.
Richardson, Alan. "Colonialism, Race and Lyric Irony in Bllake's "The Little Black Boy"." Papers on
Language and Literature (Spring 1990): 223-248.
6