These are two very different poems and we will, perforce, be discussing them separately in tomorrow's online discussion, but in preparation for that discussion, let me here ask if there is any interesting overlap between them (beyond the fact that they both, very broadly, deal with issues of conflict and conquest beyond British shores...).
Do these poem present two very different world-views? Or is there a way to see them as compatible with each other? Are they too different to be discussed meaningfully in the same question or are there interesting ways that they might connect?
Respond with your thoughts.
Deadline: Monday (11/16), 11am.
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2 comments:
There's certainly a way to see the views as compatible with each other.
"The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;"
Britain is self-recognizing their stereotype to not have the ability to produce their own arts. This promotes the stereotype that the British are cold and have no ability to produce arts. It relates to the stereotype of Christianity in Warton's poem.
The dying Indian has a prowess about him that elucidates the fact that he will never be part of another culture. He is part of his own culture. Rule Britannia is much the same in that it is saying it will not be ruled by some other culture: "Britons never will be slaves." Both are displaying the necessity to never be ruled or dominated.
I believe that these poems act as a kind of discussion, a kind of call-and-response. "Rule Britannia!" carries an overt flavor of dominance (the repeated line ("Britons never will be slaves," for instance) that reminded me of the "Manifest Destiny" that America would adopt less than a century later. In Warton's poem, this theme of English superiority is continued, as it seems to be the Spanish (not the English) that bring harm with their conquest. However, such horrors as the "deflour[ing]" of the "virgins of the sun" and the stealing of the gems from Vitzipultzi's statue that occur in "The Dying Indian" can be seen as the result of such sentiments as those found in stanza 2 of "Rule, Britannia!" (even if they were not committed by the British themselves.)
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