46 Introduction: Mortality and Resurrection
Every culture has had it’s perspective on death and resurrection. In this module, we will explore a variety of American perspectives on the topic, starting with the stoic yet inspiring “Thanatopsis”—a poem so original and powerful that Richard Henry Dana Sr, associate editor at the North American Review, initially doubted its authenticity, saying, “No one, on this side of the Atlantic, is capable of writing such verses.”
The author of “Thanatopsis,” William Cullen Bryant, was only 17 when he wrote it. It stands at the transition between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, somehow uniting resignation to mortality with an acceptance of returning to nature. In many ways it is “proto-transcendental,” meaning that it prefigures the particularly American version of Romanticism that emerges in the early part of the 19th century.
“On Autumn” is the sole work we will read by Artemus Ward, Mark Twain’s comedic hero. You’ll watch a short video about him and his comedy, but what we are reading is not a comedy. Instead, it is a wistful look at a season that many of us find exquisitely beautiful with its golden sunlight and leaves, made even more poignantly beautiful because we know that winter is coming. If there is a connection between Ward’s humor and his short essay tinged with nostalgia, perhaps it is in his early death.
Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) died at 32 from tuberculosis, a slow, lingering disease that killed many people in the nineteenth century. Even as he was dying, he went on stage to delivery his stand up comedy because, as he put it “the laughter is keeping me alive.” Ward was largely forgotten for many years, but slowly there has been a “resurrection” of interest in him as an important father of American comedy.
In one of her other poems, Emily Dickinson writes “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” This is indeed what she does in her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” Often this poem is read as if Death is a gentleman caller who tenderly leads the narrator gently into her final farewell. But is it? Is it really? In the brief video lecture, famous scholar Camille Paglia takes a close look at these lyrics to see what Dickinson is actually saying once you get past the rhythm that can lull the reader into a false sense of complacency.
You will also listen to two songs, both African American classics, that present on the one hand a powerfully hopeful vision—the resurrection of the body in the Spiritual “Dem Bones”—and on the other hand a gut wrenching vision—the Blues classic “Strange Fruit” with lyrics by Abel Meeropol and vocals by Billie Holiday.
Finally, the most recent of your readings is from 2020 and by one of our own English Department professors and poets, Dr. Greg Emilio. “Mushrooms in a Tennessee Graveyard” has a little bit of everything—look for it. Whether you are into the “fungus of immortality” or “The Last of Us” cordyceps-inspired horror or you simply enjoy foraging or eating chanterelle mushrooms, you can find it in the poem. And if you are not into at least one of those things, at least do a little googling to learn about them.
