36
TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)Q In what ways does this poem reflect
the sentiments of nationalism?
Q What, according to Pushkin, did
Napoleon fail to recognize in Russia?READING 28.4
36 CHAPTER 28 The Romantic Hero36
Bore testimony to their falling
Till blood-prints melted with the snow.
..........
Let us hold up to reprobation
Such petty-minded men as chose 50
With unappeasable damnation
To s tir his laurel-dark repose!
Hail him! He launched the Russian nation
Upon its lofty destinies
And augured ultimate salvation 55
For man’s long-exiled liberties.The Abolitionists: American Prometheans
Among the most fervent champions of liberty in
nineteenth-century America were those who crusaded
against the institution of slavery. Their efforts initiated a
movement for black nationalism that would continue well
into the twentieth century (see chapter 36). It is unlikely
that the leaders of the abolitionist movement regarded
themselves in the image of a Napoleon or the fictional
Prometheus but, as historical figures, the abolitionists were
the heroes of their time. They fought against the enslave-
ment of Africans (and their descendants), a practice that
had prevailed in America since the sixteenth century.*
Although the abolitionists constituted only a small minor-
ity of America’s population, their arguments were
emotionally charged and their protests often dramatic and
telling.
Antislavery novels—the most famous of which was
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe
(1811–1896)—stirred up public sentiment against the bru-
tality and injustice of the system. Originally serialized in an
antislavery newspaper, Stowe’s book sold over one million
copies within a year of its publication. But the most direct
challenge to slavery came from the slaves themselves, and
none more so than the slave rebels who—like
Prometheus—mounted outright attacks against their own-
ers and masters in their efforts to gain a prized privilege:
freedom. While slave rebellions were rare in nineteenth-
century America—between 1800 and 1860 only two
reached the level of overt insurrection—the threat or
rumor of rebellion was terrifying to slave owners.
One of the most notable insurrections of the century
took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831: Nat
Turner (1800–1831), a slave preacher and mystic, believed
that he was divinely appointed to lead the slaves to free-
dom. The Turner rebellion resulted in the deaths of at least
fifty-seven white people (and many more black slaves, killed
when the rebellion was suppressed) and the destruction of* The origins and history of the transatlantic slave trade are discussed
in chapters 18 and 25.From Pushkin’s “Napoleon” (1821)
A wondrous fate is now fulfilled, 1
Extinguished a majestic man.
In somber prison night was stilled
Napoleon’s grim, tumultuous span.
The outlawed potentate has vanished, 5
Bright Nike’s mighty, pampered son;
For him, from all Creation banished,
Posterity has now begun.
O hero, with whose bloodied story
Long, long the earth will still resound, 10
Sleep in the shadow of your glory,
The desert ocean all around...
A tomb of rock, in splendor riding!
The urn that holds your mortal clay,
As tribal hatreds are subsiding, 15
Now sends aloft a deathless ray.
How recently your eagles glowered
Atop a disenfranchised world,
And fallen sovereignties cowered
Beneath the thunderbolts you hurled! 20
Your banners at a word would shower
Destruction from their folds and dearth,
Yoke after yoke of ruthless power
You fitted on the tribes of earth.
..........
Vainglorious man! Where were you faring, 25
Who blinded that astounding mind?
How came it in designs of daring
The Russian’s heart was not divined?
At fiery sacrifice not guessing,
You idly fancied, tempting fate, 30
We would seek peace and count it blessing;
You came to fathom us too late...
Fight on, embattled Russia mine,
Recall the rights of ancient days!
The sun of Austerlitz,^1 decline! 35
And Moscow, mighty city, blaze!
Brief be the time of our dishonor,
The auspices are turning now;
Hail Moscow—Russia’s blessings on her!
War to extinction, thus our vow! 40
The diadem of iron^2 shaking
In stiffened fingers’ feeble clasp,
He stares into a chasm, quaking,
And is undone, undone at last.
Behold all Europe’s legions sprawling... 45
The wintry fields’ encrimsoned glow(^1) The site of Napoleon’s greatest victory where, on December 2,
1805, he defeated the combined Austrian and Russian forces,
acquiring control of European lands north of Rome and making
him king of Italy.
(^2) The iron crown of Lombardy, dating back to the fifth century, which
Napoleon had assumed some time after the Italian campaigns.