The Dying Negro Explained
The Dying Negro: A Poetical Epistle was a 1773 abolitionist poem published in England, by John Bicknell and Thomas Day. It has been called "the first significant piece of verse propaganda directed explicitly against the English slave systems".[1] It was quoted in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano of 1789.[2]
Details of publication
The first draft of this pioneering work of abolitionist literature was written by Bicknell. Published versions were edited by Day, from 1773.[1] The first edition was anonymous; in all there were six editions.[3]
The work was dedicated to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[4] A substantial introduction by Day to the second edition (1774), and reproduced in later editions, attacked West Indian slaveowners, and drew a parallel with ancient Sparta.[5] [6] In the fifth edition of 1793, the names of both authors appeared.[7]
Background
The poem arose from a report in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser of 28 May 1773. It concerned a black servant of a Captain Ordington, who had intended to marry a white woman, being taken on board the Captain's vessel on the River Thames, and shooting himself.[8] The 1772 English legal decision in Somerset v Stewart had been widely interpreted as a ruling abolishing slavery in England, and the implication of what had occurred to the servant was a reaction to an illegal deportation. Day expanded Bicknell's draft, added footnote material on Africa, and played up the "nobleness" of the African depicted in the story.[9]
Influence
The poem ends on a note suggesting future African vengeance. It was influential on later abolitionist writers.[10] It has been suggested that The Negro Revenged, an illustration by Henry Fuseli to the poems of William Cowper, may also have been influenced by The Dying Negro.[11]
External links
Notes and References
- Book: Marcus Wood. The Poetry of Slavery: An Anglo-American Anthology, 1764–1865. 2003. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-818709-7. 36.
- Book: William L. Andrews. Henry Louis Gates. Slave Narratives: Library of America #114. 15 January 2000. Library of America. 978-1-59853-212-8. 115.
- Erickson . Lee . 'Unboastful Bard': Originally Anonymous English Romantic Poetry Book Publication, 1770-1835 . New Literary History . 2002 . 33 . 2 . 247–278 . 10.1353/nlh.2002.0013 . 20057723 . 161192445 .
- McCann . Andrew . Conjugal Love and the Enlightenment Subject: The Colonial Context of Non-Identity in Maria Edgeworth's 'Belinda' . Novel: A Forum on Fiction . 1996 . 30 . 1 . 56–77 . 10.2307/1345847 . 1345847 .
- Book: Samuel Johnson in Context. January 2012. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-19010-7. 356.
- Book: Edith Hall. Richard Alston. Justine McConnell. Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood. 7 July 2011. OUP Oxford. 978-0-19-957467-4. 131.
- Book: Jack P. Greene. Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain. 29 March 2013. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-107-03055-8. 187 note 79.
- Book: Vincent Carretta. Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage. 2011. University of Georgia Press. 978-0-8203-3338-0. 129.
- Rodgers . Nini . Two Quakers and a Utilitarian: The Reaction of Three Irish Women Writers to the Problem of Slavery 1789-1807 . Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature . 2000 . 100C . 4 . 137–157 . 25516261 .
- Book: James G. Basker. Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery, 1660–1810. 2002. Yale University Press. 978-0-300-09172-4. 203.
- Book: Jean Vercoutter. Hugh Honour. The Image of the Black in Western Art. 1989. Office du livre. 93.
