Early American Literature Pub Date : 2024-02-12 , DOI: 10.1353/eal.2024.a918907 Anna Brickhouse , April Langley , Kaitlin Tonti
- The 2023 SEA Common Reading ForumOn Toni Morrison's A Mercy
- Anna Brickhouse (bio), April Langley (bio), and Kaitlin Tonti (bio)
a mercy
if you don't read this no one will.(one question: can you read?)this story begins in a language Ican't recall but I will tryto build a house of wordsanyway. it is the only way.on the cobblestones of umamemória portuguesa a minha mãeheld close to one life as the otherdrifted away. it was the only way.someone says dominion is wickedbut what she doesn't understand isthat the wilderness inside can bewicked, too. the wilderness ofletting go. so there is no protection herebut there is difference and if I can justremember the contours of thisportuguese memory it will makeall the difference. a man lovedme once, minha mãe, and so toodid women, but he shatteredat the dying inside and the others,at the dying without. those whopray to god say it is the only way.I say it is cruel. unforgiving.(another question: who is responsible?) [End Page 95] so in a moment like the crackingof creation my feathers unfoldedand I too became unforgiving.unforgiven. it was no miracle,minha mãe. it was simply the only way.my company now is the words that caress meand the darkness that thickens butdon't be afraid. if you don't readthis no one will and before it burnsI want you to understand:my soul is hard as cypress nowand I am free at last. I last.oh minha mãe. meu amor.hear a Florens. in full.this is the only wayand I last.
—Madeline Stokes
The poem above, by undergraduate Madeline Stokes (University of Virginia), represents one product of the SEA's 2023 Common Reading Initiative. The initiative is still new, imagined and then created in the year leading up to the 2021 conference by Cassander Smith, Brigitte Fielder, and Tara Bynum. These scholars and others, taking on the project of "conference organizing for change," aimed to create a sense of community centered on a single text while also broadening the intellectual approaches and perspectives shaping the SEA—including those of contemporary writers as well as scholars and undergraduate and graduate students focused on other periods. In 2023 the organizing text was Toni Morrison's A Mercy, the Nobel laureate's unforgettable novel about colonial America. As part of the initiative, SEA members around the country taught the novel in classes at various levels and grappled with its enduring questions.
Maddie Stokes works through some of these in her poem and the reflection she submitted with it. The poem rests on questions that came up for her as a reader: Why is the novel addressed to the character known simply as "the blacksmith"? "How would the narrative change," she asks, "if Florens attempted to bridge the gap between herself and her mother, the 'one sadness' that remains at the end of the novel? This poem is my experiment in [End Page 96] answering that question. It is, in effect, an attempt to retell the novel's story through Florens' voice and to Florens' mother."
As Maddie notes, Florens is "a character who lives among and between different cultures, languages, and power structures," some of which receive less attention in early American literature classrooms than others. To think through the significance of the novel's "memória portuguesa" required Maddie to consider and consult a language other than English, as Morrison also did, and to bump up against the limits of her own proficiency in its spoken and written form. A small exercise, one that Maddie chose herself, in recognizing the vast number of spoken and written tongues of the Americas—including those that have been lost, just as Florens loses not only her mother but, in her enforced adaptation to English, most of her mother's Portuguese, and all of her mother's natal African language. What does "a mercy" mean in this layering of language loss and acquisition that results in Florens's narration...
中文翻译：
2023年SEA共同阅读论坛：论托妮·莫里森的《仁慈》
以下是内容的简短摘录，以代替摘要：
- 2023年东南亚托尼·莫里森《仁慈》共同阅读论坛
- 安娜·布里克豪斯（简介）、阿普丽尔·兰利（简介）和凯特琳·通蒂（简介）
怜悯
如果你不读这篇文章，没有人会读。（一个问题：你能读吗？）这个故事以一种我不记得的语言开始，但无论如何我会尝试建造一座文字之家。这是唯一的方法。在uma memória portuguesa的鹅卵石上，一位 Minha Mãe紧紧抓住一个生命，而另一个生命却渐行渐远。这是唯一的方法。有人说统治是邪恶的，但她不明白的是，里面的荒野也可能是邪恶的。放手的荒野。所以这里没有保护，但有区别，如果我能记住这个葡萄牙记忆的轮廓，那就会产生很大的不同。曾经有一个男人爱过我，minha mae，女人也爱过我，但他因内心的垂死和其他人的垂死而破碎，因外在的垂死而破碎。那些向上帝祈祷的人说这是唯一的方法。我说这很残酷。无情的。（另一个问题：谁负责？）[结束第95页] 因此，在造物破裂的那一刻，我的羽毛展开，我也变得无情。不可原谅。这不是奇迹，米哈·梅。这是唯一的方法。现在陪伴我的是那些爱抚我的话语和越来越浓重的黑暗，但不要害怕。如果你不读这篇文章，没有人会读，在它燃烧之前，我想让你明白：我的灵魂现在像柏树一样坚硬，我终于自由了。我最后。噢，米哈·梅。我的爱。听到弗洛伦斯的声音。在全。这是唯一的方法，也是我最后的方法。
——马德琳·斯托克斯
上面的这首诗由弗吉尼亚大学本科生 Madeline Stokes 创作，代表了 SEA 2023 年共同阅读计划的一项产品。该倡议仍然是新的，是由 Cassander Smith、Brigitte Fielder 和 Tara Bynum 在 2021 年会议召开前一年提出的设想和创建的。这些学者和其他人承担了“变革会议组织”的项目，旨在创造一种以单一文本为中心的社区意识，同时拓宽塑造 SEA 的知识方法和观点——包括当代作家和学者的知识方法和观点。本科生和研究生则专注于其他时期。 2023 年的组织文本是托妮·莫里森 (Toni Morrison) 的《慈悲》( A Mercy)，这是诺贝尔奖获得者关于美国殖民地的令人难忘的小说。作为该倡议的一部分，全国各地的 SEA 成员在不同级别的课堂上教授这部小说，并解决其长期存在的问题。
麦迪·斯托克斯在她的诗中以及她在诗中提出的反思中探讨了其中的一些内容。这首诗的基础是她作为读者提出的问题：为什么小说中的人物被简单地称为“铁匠”？ “如果弗洛伦斯试图弥合她和她母亲之间的鸿沟，即小说结尾处残留的‘唯一的悲伤’，那么叙事会发生怎样的变化？”她问道，“这首诗是我在[第 96 页结束]中的实验。回答这个问题。实际上，这是试图通过弗洛伦斯的声音向弗洛伦斯的母亲重述小说的故事。”
正如麦迪所指出的那样，弗洛伦斯是“一个生活在不同文化、语言和权力结构之间的人物”，其中一些在美国早期文学课堂上比其他文化、语言和权力结构受到的关注较少。为了思考小说中“葡萄牙语记忆”的意义，玛蒂需要考虑和参考英语以外的语言，正如莫里森所做的那样，并突破她自己在口语和书面形式上的熟练程度的极限。麦迪自己选择的一个小练习，旨在认识美洲大量的口语和书面语言——包括那些已经消失的语言，就像弗洛伦斯不仅失去了她的母亲，而且在她被迫适应英语的过程中，失去了大部分语言。她母亲的葡萄牙语，以及她母亲的母语非洲语言。在导致弗洛伦斯叙述的语言丧失和习得的分层中，“怜悯”意味着什么……
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