Stedman's Horror, Blake's Indifference

Abstract

Abstract:This essay studies the strange ambivalences of John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in order to develop an alternative account of how horror functions within the genre of natural history. As I hope to show, natural history, with its emphasis on sorting and categorization, does not merely create the conditions for horror. It also models a way of regarding horror with what I term "productive indifference." Upon encountering horrifying scenes of torture and mutilation, the readers of Stedman's Narrative are not left paralyzed. Instead, they retain the emotional space necessary to plot out future courses of political action.