I don't know about anyone else, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to use Delicious. I set up an account in the lab that I can't seem to access at home. Is it because I'm using Explorer at home, and FireFox in the lab? Whatever it is, I can't seem to find our class Tag, nor can I, obviously, find the info I collected while in the lab. At this point, I've had to re-join the site, and I'm feeling pretty frustrated. I'll keep trying, and in the meantime, I think I feel another gray hair growing in, or maybe it's just heartburn...
Later: Okay. It's working so far, but we'll see how much of a taste I really have for this.
Of Whitman: My focus is the recurrence of the slavery motif in "Leaves." Why would Whitman choose the image of the slave, and the fugitive slave when celebrating the individual as self and part of a larger whole? Enslaved people were viewed as chattel, treated as livestock, and denied by law the right to vote, or to read and write. How do enslaved African Americans contribute to Whitman's larger vision? How does he connect these people to the whole of American humanity, and to himself? I'm examining the political climate surrounding slavery and the abolitionist movement at that time, as well as incidents of resistance among the enslaved. I've collected some good stuff, but there is a lot to sift through, and quite a bit of it is geared towards children. The Library of Congress site is interesting, offering sound bytes of "slave narratives," and a bunch of other stuff. I'm getting there...
THe slavery motif is rich . . . contextually and within the poem . . . the slave as the "lowest" of low and also slavery as an instance of the "despots" that Walt wants to scare . .etc.
ReplyDeleteAs for delicious . . . have you downloaded the buttons for Explorer? these are also on the tools page at delicious . ..