The issue of slavery can be considered to be of great importance during the 18th and 19th century in Great Britain. Since the 1770s there has been the formation of an abolitionist movement because rational thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man and furthermore for being heresy.
In 1790 the first abolition bill was presented to parliament, but it did not pass and it needed another 43 years until the abolition of slavery in the British Territories could be called a success. Especially women started to engage themselves in the abolitionist movement and tried to change the situation with means of sensibility and empathy. Therefore, I chose to analyze two poems by two very popular female anti- slavery writers, Anne Yearsley’s A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave- Trade (1788) and Hannah More’s The Sorrows of Yamba or the Negro Woman’s Lamentation (1795) to show the perspective of a woman on slavery.
The seminar "Romantic Women Writers" serves as a basis for this paper. I will start with an outlook on the involvement of the two women in the anti- slavery discourse, show briefly what there lives were like, through what they were shaped and influenced and what their reasons were to act against slav- ery. In the main part I will focus on the two poems and compare them with regards to similarities and differences. Both poems tell a story about a slave and his or her life in captivity. There is on the one hand the story of Yamba in Hannah More’s poem and on the other hand the story of Luco in the poem of Ann Yearsley. I chose this as a starting point for my analysis. For that, I will briefly look at the fictional characters Yamba and Luco to find out in how far they either resemble each other or differ from each other. Furthermore, I will analyze how Hannah More and Ann Yearsley use their means of sensibility and empathy and afterwards show the biggest contrasts of the two poems. Finally, I will summarize and evaluate my results in form of a conclusion.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 More and Yearsley as abolitionist’s
3 The comparison of the two poems
4 Conclusion
5 References
Objectives & Topics
This paper examines how female writers in the 18th and 19th century utilized their literary work to support the abolitionist movement in Great Britain. By comparing Hannah More’s "The Sorrows of Yamba" and Ann Yearsley’s "A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade," the study analyzes how these authors employed sensibility and empathy to challenge the institution of slavery and appeal to the moral conscience of their contemporary readers.
- The role of female abolitionist writers in 18th/19th-century Britain.
- The use of "sensibility" and empathy as rhetorical tools against slavery.
- A comparative literary analysis of characters and narrative strategies in the poems.
- The distinction between religious conversion narratives and political critique in anti-slavery discourse.
- The impact of social class and education on the authors' perspectives and target audiences.
Excerpt from the Book
3 The comparison of the two poems
The poem The Sorrows of Yamba or the Negro Woman’s Lamentation (1795) by Hannah More consists of 47 stanzas, written in heroic quatrains. This stands in direct contrast to the topic of the poem (slavery), which is not all heroic.
The poem of Ann Yearsley A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade (1788) is contrastively written in iambic pentameter blank verse. There are two possible explanations for that: She is either "tying her poetry to well-established traditions of English poetry" (Andrews 31), because even Shakespeare used this rhythmic way to write poetry or she is trying to make the lines appear more fluently, so that the readers are not interrupted while reading about a topic so important to her. This technique can be described as an early form of stream of consciousness, because it expresses the spontaneous thoughts and feelings of the writer.
I chose the stories of Yamba and Luco as a starting point for my analysis, because they are to some extent quite similar: Both authors tell a story about a slave and his or her conditions and life.
Yamba, the first-person narrator of Hannah More’s poem and Luco, the Indian of Yearsley’s poem both get kidnapped and are torn apart from their families and partners. Both have the wish to die in order to escape the cruelty of their captivity (a typical feature in anti-slavery works). But from here on, their lifes develop differently: Yamba gets rescued by an "English Missionary good" (More l.82), who converts her to a Christian believer and Luco gets rescued by some "seamen" (Yearsley l.263), but then he is punished for "usurping the authority of the colonizer" (Subject to Others 170) and has to die "chain’d / To a huge tree" (Yearsley l.273 f.) burning slowly "[a]s the hot death approaches" (Yearsley l. 283).
Summary of Chapters
1 Introduction: This chapter contextualizes the importance of the 18th and 19th-century abolitionist movement and outlines the motivation for comparing the works of Hannah More and Ann Yearsley.
2 More and Yearsley as abolitionist’s: This section details the involvement of both women in the anti-slavery discourse, highlighting their distinct social backgrounds and their shared commitment to using sensibility as a tool for social change.
3 The comparison of the two poems: This chapter provides an in-depth literary analysis, comparing the narrative techniques, character depictions, and the rhetorical use of religious conversion versus political protest in the two poems.
4 Conclusion: The final section synthesizes the research findings, confirming that while both authors were "Eurocentric," they successfully provided individual human faces to the victims of the slave trade.
5 References: A list of secondary sources and literary works used for the analysis.
Keywords
Abolitionism, Slavery, Hannah More, Ann Yearsley, Sensibility, Empathy, Romantic Literature, British History, Yamba, Luco, Anti-Slavery Discourse, Religious Conversion, Colonialism, Eurocentric, Humanitarianism
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central focus of this paper?
The paper examines how two prominent female writers, Hannah More and Ann Yearsley, used their poetry to contribute to the abolitionist discourse in Britain during the late 18th century.
What are the primary themes discussed?
Key themes include the exploitation of slaves, the separation of families, the role of religious conversion, and the power of "sensibility" to evoke empathy among the British public.
What is the main research objective?
The objective is to compare how More and Yearsley utilized different narrative styles and perspectives to address the inhumanity of slavery while considering their varying social backgrounds.
Which methodology is applied in the research?
The author performs a comparative literary analysis of two specific poems, focusing on syntax, character construction, addressees, and the underlying ideological goals of the writers.
What topics are covered in the main section?
The main part covers the historical involvement of the authors in the abolitionist movement, a detailed comparison of the fictional characters Yamba and Luco, and an analysis of how religion and rhetoric were used to engage the reader.
Which keywords best describe this study?
The study is best characterized by terms such as Abolitionism, Slavery, Sensibility, British Romanticism, and the works of Hannah More and Ann Yearsley.
How do More and Yearsley differ in their approach to the abolitionist message?
While both aim to evoke empathy, More heavily emphasizes religious conversion as the primary solution for the suffering of slaves, whereas Yearsley focuses more on political critique and direct appeals to the moral responsibility of the reader, particularly the merchants of Bristol.
Why does the author classify the slave characters as "Eurocentric constructs"?
The author argues this because both Yamba and Luco are created based on the imagination and stereotypical views of British poets rather than authentic representations of individual African or Indian experiences.
- Quote paper
- Kim Vahnenbruck (Author), 2010, "The Sorrows of Yamba" by Hannah More and "A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade" by Ann Yearsley − A comparison, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/165210
