As I mentioned in class, many critics regard Oroonoko as the first American novel: the first novel to be set in the Americas, framed by issues of relevance to colonial life, with characters drawn from the colonial world. I had meant to raise the question in class, but we ran out of time, so I raise it here.
What do you think? Feel free to comment with your own thoughts, pro or con, or a thoughtful response to a classmate's reflections.
Deadline: Friday (4/22), start of class.
10 comments:
In my English 250 class (American Literature before 1914), we discussed Oroonoko, and how it is looked at as the first American novel. So based on the fact that we discussed in a class that is all about the origin of the American novel, I strongly believe that it was definitely a touchstone for the American novel. We discussed how it is a combination of a medieval romance and a travel narrative, and both genres converged into what became a novel. Oronooko definitely incorporates a romantic element to it, and discusses a new world and era, not only making the novel about slavery but about romance as well. It is not just a simple piece, but definitely of the beginning works into what became the modern American novel.
I'm not entirely convinced that it's the first American novel. I can accept that it would be the ancestor, but the language and direction it takes does not reflect at least my background in American Lit. The romantic elements and writing style are, at least to me, inherently British. I'm not sure how to qualify my opinion, since I can't remember the names of any contemporary British novels, but we've been reading Swift in class and I think that Oroonoko seems more similar to that rather than the works of other outright American authors.
Maybe my opinion arises because I'm assuming "American novel" means "made in America". I might not be broad enough in my interpretation, but Behn was British and a Tory; very British.
I also am not certain that this is an American novel. For one thing this novel was written before there was an American Identity, the people living in the Americas that Behn wrote about considered themselves British or Dutch or of a particular tribe in Africa or the West Indies, as a matter of identity not as a matter of heritage. Furthermore there was nothing in their manners or language to distinguish them from their European fellows. I think that in order to have an American novel one must have something distinctly American and there is nothing in this novel to suggest something remotely particular to the Americas as American and not as a colony of a particular European power. Behn does not even set the entire novel in America but rather part of the novel in Ghana and part in America. Behn herself is also British and there is nothing in her novel to suggest that she thought of America as anything other than an extension of the European powers which claimed pieces of it.
I would tend to agree with the two comments above which suggest that Oroonoko is in fact more of a British novel than an American one. I think one way to reconcile the fact that it is taught in American Literature survey courses is to compare these survey courses to American history survey classes. I haven't taken one in awhile as I generally prefer european history, but in high school we tended to examine atleast briefly the conditions in Britain which led to the colonization of the Americas before diving headlong into what we would more easily recognize as "American History". In much the same way, any survey of American literature should examine the conditions, or predecessors of British literature which led to the creation of a distinctly recognizable American literary voice.
As regards Oroonoko specifically, I think that our discussion of Aphra Behn's beliefs regarding aristocracy point us in the direction of British literature as opposed to American lit. While there was arguably a concern class and hierarchy in the Americas, it was not so romanticized in American lit as it is in British lit. The British were, for lack of a better word, obsessed with title and rank, and this obsession and belief in a transcendent "better sort" of people clearly indicates Behn's distinctly British point of view. This in combination with the fact that Behn was a British author who circulated her works amongst a British audience confirms that Oroonok was a British novella set in the Americas, not an American novella written by a British woman.
I too am hesitant about Oroonoko being the first American novel. However, I cannot give an example of a novel that is also believed to be the first American novel. I agree with Margaret’s point that since Oroonoko is not even solely set in America, then it probably is not the first American novel.
As a few other people have said, I'm not sure about Oroonoko being the first American novel, but I don't have any previous knowledge about about the subject. Even if Oroonoko is not the first American novel, it is one of the pieces that laid the framework for future works to come.
I think that Oroonoko was the first American novel to show how Black Africans were in more sensitive and sympathetic manner than other novels during this time period. For example, I remember reading Othello in my English class in high school and I thought it related alot to the nature of race, but also kingship. Similiar to Oroonoko he is a king, but I think the style of writing that Aphra Behn used was much different and this could be related to the claims for Oroonoko being the "first American novel."
If one is not sure exactly sure whether or not Behn ever made it the Americas then I find it hard to be the first American novel. Sure, the setting is in America, but if Behn never actually went to America and is kind of guessing at how life works in America, then it's not different than an American author who never has been to Africa writing a novel considered to be an African novel. It doesn't exactly make sense to me. I think it could be considered the first novel ABOUT America. But when I think of an American novel I think of something that is well researched and understood.
Oroonoko as a work does not seem distinctly American in any significant way. It was written by a British writer who never traveled to America, and it reads like other British novels of the time. Sure, it is an inexact science to identify something under such a vague classification, but to ascribe the title to Behn's work strikes me as a stretch. I agree with Tom that the fact it was written about America far from necessarily makes it an American novel. It is as if one of the travelogues we read earlier was written by someone who only imagined the country they wrote about, and the result was subsequently classified as a work of that country.
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