伊莫因达的叛乱:阿芙拉·本恩的《奥罗诺科》中的主权、奴隶制和古代宪法

IF 0.2 2区 文学 0 LITERATURE
ELH Pub Date : 2023-09-01 DOI:10.1353/elh.2023.a907204
Sarah Marsh
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These characters' heroic lives and tragic deaths have led readers to study Oroonoko's transoceanic dynamics between a contested, divine-right monarchy in Stuart England and the development of chattel, racial slavery in its colonies. The consensus on this aspect of the novel remains best summarized by Laura Brown's 1987 insight that \"both Charles I and Oroonoko are victims of the same historical phenomenon—those new forces in English society loosely associated with an antiabsolutist mercantile imperialism.\"2 Charles I and Oroonoko are similar, that is, because they are overthrown by anti-monarchical proponents of England's commercial empire. This consensus arises from scholars' appraisal of Oroonoko's execution by English slavocrats at the end of the novel, which bears unmistakable likeness to the regicide of 1649. Abrupt and brutal, this scene is the fulcrum on which critical attention to sovereignty, [End Page 639] slavery, and race in Oroonoko turns.3 Scholars' focus on the execution is noteworthy because, while spectacular, the event occupies just three paragraphs of the story. By contrast, the slave rebellion in Oroonoko—which also dramatizes the relation of sovereignty, slavery, and race—is typically noticed only in passing.4 And yet: this rebellion consumes the attention of Oroonoko's narrator and directs the novel's plot. Imoinda's justification for the rebellion, a moral claim in herself against sovereign and slaveholding tyranny, coordinates the novel's dual episodes in Coramantien and Surinam. Both the rebellion and its suppression are framed by a racializing vocabulary through which Africans, regardless of social rank, are animalized into chattels along the color line. Imoinda, consort to the Coramantee heir apparent Oroonoko, rebels to stop her family's chattelization by the English; in turn, the English retrench in the colony by animalizing Oroonoko. The rebellion's nuances disclose the power dynamics of sovereignty, slavery, and race in much greater detail than can be understood through Oroonoko's execution alone. This essay's fundamental claim is that the slave rebellion in Oroonoko is a comprehensive study of how anti-tyrannicism, exemplified by Imoinda, collapses under the evolving colonial pressures of chattel-racialization. By \"anti-tyrannicism,\" I mean the early modern political discourse that pitted itself against tyranny, or arbitrary absolute power. Drawing on Kurt A. Raaflaub's work, Mary Nyquist describes anti-tyrannicism as an ideology that \"represents the tyrant's subjects as figuratively enslaved—enslavement that seeks to dishonor and disenfranchise citizens who are meant to be 'free.'\"5 Nyquist underscores that this \"political slavery needs to be differentiated from the chattel slavery against which it asserts its claims\" because \"political slavery has its own unique logic and codes, none of which arise from concern for those who are actually enslaved.\"6 At the same time, \"political servitude… is not inherently independent of chattel slavery or indifferent to its legitimacy.\"7Because Oroonoko's plot mixes the categories of political and chattel slavery—sometimes beyond distinction—anti-tyrannicism offers a comprehensive rubric for evaluating the narrative's political meanings. Behn's novel consummates chattel-racialization's defeat of antityrannicism when Oroonoko, who ultimately accepts the racial logic of slavocrats, kills Imoinda, who resists sovereign and slaveholding tyranny. Behn arranges this ideological battle by writing Imoinda [End Page 640] as an African and sometimes enslaved woman, who asserts a moral claim in her reproductive body against sovereign prerogative at home and slavocratic interests abroad. Imoinda thus embodies anti-tyrannicism as a...","PeriodicalId":46490,"journal":{"name":"ELH","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Imoinda's Rebellion: Sovereignty, Slavery, and the Ancient Constitution in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko\",\"authors\":\"Sarah Marsh\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/elh.2023.a907204\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Imoinda's RebellionSovereignty, Slavery, and the Ancient Constitution in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko Sarah Marsh Indeed, the attribution of divinity to the king had probably always been motivated in some measure by the desire to limit him to actions becoming a god. —Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America Oroonoko was no sooner return'd from his last Conquest, and receiv'd at Court … like a Deity, when there arriv'd in the Port an English Ship. —Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave1 In her 1688 novel, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave, Aphra Behn writes of an African divine-right prince and his wife, Imoinda, who die as insurrectionists instead of living as slaves in English colonial Surinam. These characters' heroic lives and tragic deaths have led readers to study Oroonoko's transoceanic dynamics between a contested, divine-right monarchy in Stuart England and the development of chattel, racial slavery in its colonies. The consensus on this aspect of the novel remains best summarized by Laura Brown's 1987 insight that \\\"both Charles I and Oroonoko are victims of the same historical phenomenon—those new forces in English society loosely associated with an antiabsolutist mercantile imperialism.\\\"2 Charles I and Oroonoko are similar, that is, because they are overthrown by anti-monarchical proponents of England's commercial empire. This consensus arises from scholars' appraisal of Oroonoko's execution by English slavocrats at the end of the novel, which bears unmistakable likeness to the regicide of 1649. Abrupt and brutal, this scene is the fulcrum on which critical attention to sovereignty, [End Page 639] slavery, and race in Oroonoko turns.3 Scholars' focus on the execution is noteworthy because, while spectacular, the event occupies just three paragraphs of the story. By contrast, the slave rebellion in Oroonoko—which also dramatizes the relation of sovereignty, slavery, and race—is typically noticed only in passing.4 And yet: this rebellion consumes the attention of Oroonoko's narrator and directs the novel's plot. Imoinda's justification for the rebellion, a moral claim in herself against sovereign and slaveholding tyranny, coordinates the novel's dual episodes in Coramantien and Surinam. Both the rebellion and its suppression are framed by a racializing vocabulary through which Africans, regardless of social rank, are animalized into chattels along the color line. Imoinda, consort to the Coramantee heir apparent Oroonoko, rebels to stop her family's chattelization by the English; in turn, the English retrench in the colony by animalizing Oroonoko. The rebellion's nuances disclose the power dynamics of sovereignty, slavery, and race in much greater detail than can be understood through Oroonoko's execution alone. 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引用次数: 0

摘要

伊莫因达的叛变,主权,奴隶制,以及阿芙拉·贝恩的《奥罗诺科》中的古代宪法的确,国王的神性在某种程度上可能一直是出于限制他成为神的愿望。——埃德蒙·s·摩根《创造人民:英美人民主权的兴起》奥鲁诺科刚从他最后一次征服的地方回来,就在宫廷里受到了神一般的欢迎,就在这时,一艘英国船抵达了港口。——阿弗拉·贝恩,奥罗诺科;在她1688年的小说《奥罗诺科》中;阿芙拉·贝恩在《皇家奴隶》一书中描写了一位非洲神权王子和他的妻子伊莫茵达,他们没有在英国殖民地苏里南做奴隶,而是作为叛乱分子而死。这些人物的英雄生活和悲剧性的死亡,引导读者去研究奥鲁诺科的跨洋动态,在斯图尔特英格兰一个有争议的神权君主制和殖民地发展的动产和种族奴隶制之间。劳拉·布朗(Laura Brown)在1987年的洞见对小说这方面的共识进行了最好的总结:“查理一世和奥罗诺科都是同一历史现象的受害者——英国社会中与反专制主义的商业帝国主义松散联系在一起的新势力。”查理一世和奥鲁诺科是相似的,因为他们都被英格兰商业帝国的反君主制支持者推翻了。这一共识源于学者们对小说结尾英国奴隶贩子对奥罗诺科的处决的评价,这与1649年的弑君事件有着明显的相似之处。这个场景突然而残酷,是对《奥罗诺科》中主权、奴隶制和种族问题的关键关注的支点学者们对处决的关注是值得注意的,因为尽管场面壮观,但这一事件只占据了故事的三段。相比之下,oroonoko的奴隶叛乱——它也戏剧化了主权、奴隶制和种族之间的关系——通常只是偶尔被注意到然而,这种反叛消耗了奥鲁诺科叙述者的注意力,并指导了小说的情节。伊莫因达对这场叛乱的辩护,是她对主权和蓄奴暴政的道德主张,与小说在科拉曼提恩和苏里南的双重情节相协调。叛乱和镇压都是由种族化的词汇构成的,通过这种词汇,非洲人,无论社会地位如何,都被动物化成沿着肤色界线的奴隶。伊莫因达,科拉曼蒂家族的配偶,奥鲁诺科,反抗以阻止她的家族被英国人占有;反过来,英国人通过把奥罗诺科变成动物来缩减在殖民地的规模。叛乱的细微差别揭示了主权、奴隶制和种族的权力动态,这些细节比仅仅通过奥鲁诺科的处决所能理解的要详细得多。本文的基本观点是,奥鲁诺科的奴隶叛乱是对以伊莫因达为代表的反专制主义如何在不断演变的殖民主义压力下崩溃的全面研究。所谓“反专制主义”,我指的是早期现代政治话语,将自己与专制或专制的绝对权力对立起来。玛丽·奈奎斯特借鉴了库尔特·a·拉弗劳布的作品,将反专制主义描述为一种意识形态,“将暴君的臣民形象地描绘为奴隶——这种奴役旨在羞辱和剥夺本应‘自由’的公民的公民权。”’”奈奎斯特强调,这种“政治奴隶制需要与它所主张的动产奴隶制区分开来”,因为“政治奴隶制有其独特的逻辑和准则,它们都不是出于对实际被奴役者的关心。与此同时,“政治奴役……并非本质上独立于动产奴隶制,也不是对其合法性漠不关心。”因为Oroonoko的情节混合了政治和奴隶制度的范畴——有时超越了区别——反专制主义为评价叙事的政治意义提供了一个全面的标准。当奥鲁诺科最终接受了奴隶主的种族逻辑,杀死了反抗君主和奴隶主暴政的伊莫因达时,本恩的小说完善了奴隶种族化对反暴政的失败。贝恩将伊莫因达(Imoinda)写成了一名非洲妇女,有时是被奴役的妇女,她在自己的生殖身体中主张一种道德主张,反对国内的主权特权和国外的奴隶利益。因此,伊莫因达体现了反专制主义作为一个……
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Imoinda's Rebellion: Sovereignty, Slavery, and the Ancient Constitution in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko
Imoinda's RebellionSovereignty, Slavery, and the Ancient Constitution in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko Sarah Marsh Indeed, the attribution of divinity to the king had probably always been motivated in some measure by the desire to limit him to actions becoming a god. —Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America Oroonoko was no sooner return'd from his last Conquest, and receiv'd at Court … like a Deity, when there arriv'd in the Port an English Ship. —Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave1 In her 1688 novel, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave, Aphra Behn writes of an African divine-right prince and his wife, Imoinda, who die as insurrectionists instead of living as slaves in English colonial Surinam. These characters' heroic lives and tragic deaths have led readers to study Oroonoko's transoceanic dynamics between a contested, divine-right monarchy in Stuart England and the development of chattel, racial slavery in its colonies. The consensus on this aspect of the novel remains best summarized by Laura Brown's 1987 insight that "both Charles I and Oroonoko are victims of the same historical phenomenon—those new forces in English society loosely associated with an antiabsolutist mercantile imperialism."2 Charles I and Oroonoko are similar, that is, because they are overthrown by anti-monarchical proponents of England's commercial empire. This consensus arises from scholars' appraisal of Oroonoko's execution by English slavocrats at the end of the novel, which bears unmistakable likeness to the regicide of 1649. Abrupt and brutal, this scene is the fulcrum on which critical attention to sovereignty, [End Page 639] slavery, and race in Oroonoko turns.3 Scholars' focus on the execution is noteworthy because, while spectacular, the event occupies just three paragraphs of the story. By contrast, the slave rebellion in Oroonoko—which also dramatizes the relation of sovereignty, slavery, and race—is typically noticed only in passing.4 And yet: this rebellion consumes the attention of Oroonoko's narrator and directs the novel's plot. Imoinda's justification for the rebellion, a moral claim in herself against sovereign and slaveholding tyranny, coordinates the novel's dual episodes in Coramantien and Surinam. Both the rebellion and its suppression are framed by a racializing vocabulary through which Africans, regardless of social rank, are animalized into chattels along the color line. Imoinda, consort to the Coramantee heir apparent Oroonoko, rebels to stop her family's chattelization by the English; in turn, the English retrench in the colony by animalizing Oroonoko. The rebellion's nuances disclose the power dynamics of sovereignty, slavery, and race in much greater detail than can be understood through Oroonoko's execution alone. This essay's fundamental claim is that the slave rebellion in Oroonoko is a comprehensive study of how anti-tyrannicism, exemplified by Imoinda, collapses under the evolving colonial pressures of chattel-racialization. By "anti-tyrannicism," I mean the early modern political discourse that pitted itself against tyranny, or arbitrary absolute power. Drawing on Kurt A. Raaflaub's work, Mary Nyquist describes anti-tyrannicism as an ideology that "represents the tyrant's subjects as figuratively enslaved—enslavement that seeks to dishonor and disenfranchise citizens who are meant to be 'free.'"5 Nyquist underscores that this "political slavery needs to be differentiated from the chattel slavery against which it asserts its claims" because "political slavery has its own unique logic and codes, none of which arise from concern for those who are actually enslaved."6 At the same time, "political servitude… is not inherently independent of chattel slavery or indifferent to its legitimacy."7Because Oroonoko's plot mixes the categories of political and chattel slavery—sometimes beyond distinction—anti-tyrannicism offers a comprehensive rubric for evaluating the narrative's political meanings. Behn's novel consummates chattel-racialization's defeat of antityrannicism when Oroonoko, who ultimately accepts the racial logic of slavocrats, kills Imoinda, who resists sovereign and slaveholding tyranny. Behn arranges this ideological battle by writing Imoinda [End Page 640] as an African and sometimes enslaved woman, who asserts a moral claim in her reproductive body against sovereign prerogative at home and slavocratic interests abroad. Imoinda thus embodies anti-tyrannicism as a...
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