British, Postcolonial, and Works in Translation

This is Unit Twenty of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one stated decision D8 and began with Equiano. This part takes the rest of the ancestors, the empire texts, and what the exam actually asks of a tradition band. Part one's governing idea was that the tradition bands cut across the others and that in translation the translator's choices are the translator's. This part pays it off on the exam itself: the tradition weightings describe where passages are drawn from, not what is asked about them, so no question asks a candidate to place a work in a tradition, and the licensing gap costs less than it seems. First Mary Prince, whose authority of experience is her only ground, read as testimony under O-8; McKay and Tagore, each in two bands; and the Irish strand, which is public domain and can be worked directly. Then the empire texts: Conrad, whose own frame invites scepticism, and Jane Eyre, each answered by a later writer named and not quoted. Then what the exam asks, the American band that has been present since unit six, McKay in two bands, and band labels as a way to distribute preparation and nothing more. Last, a procedure for a translated passage, three traps, and the record with no new craft terms. By the end you will be able to read Prince as testimony and place McKay and Tagore. To describe writing back without quoting it. To say the weightings say where and not what. And to run the procedure and defeat three traps.

Seven entries to start: Mary Prince and her plain statement, testimony read as testimony, McKay across two bands, Tagore across two bands, the Irish strand, and why it can be quoted where later writing cannot.

Born at Brackish-Pond, Bermuda.

AIL 1926 Mary Prince

Prince's history opens that she was born at Brackish-Pond in Bermuda on a farm, and later states plainly that she has been a slave herself, that she knows what slaves feel, and that she can tell by herself. Published eighteen thirty-one and public domain.

The authority of having been there.

AIL 1927 "I Have Been a Slave Myself"

The sentence asserts the authority of experience against argument conducted at a distance. Unit twelve called that ethos, the appeal from who the speaker is. Here the appeal is not a technique chosen among others; it is the only ground she has, not a technique among others.

Describe the craft; name the subject.

AIL 1928 Testimony, Read as Testimony

Obligation O-8 governs both: their accounts are presented as accounts. Naming the devices is legitimate analysis and does not replace saying what the text is an account of. Unit twelve stated this and it holds with equal force here, obligation O-8 restated.

Jamaica and America, one writer.

AIL 1929 McKay and the Caribbean Strand

McKay was born in Jamaica and wrote in the United States, so he sits in the British and postcolonial band and the American band at once. Units eight and nineteen worked Harlem Shadows, published nineteen twenty-two and free to quote; he sits in two tradition bands.

Translation and postcolonial at once.

AIL 1930 Tagore and the Indian Strand

Tagore wrote in Bengali, translated himself into English, and was read widely in Britain. Gitanjali appeared in nineteen twelve and is public domain. He belongs to the translation band and the postcolonial band together, which is why this unit takes both at once; the two bands meet in him.

Four Irish writers, all quotable.

AIL 1931 Ireland in This Band

Unit nineteen noted that Yeats, Joyce, Wilde and Shaw were all Irish. Ireland's relation to Britain places their work inside this band's joined traditions, and all four published before nineteen thirty, so the strand can be taught from quotable text; unit nineteen supplied them.

A strand that can be worked directly.

AIL 1932 The Strand That Can Be Quoted

Because Irish writing of this period is public domain, it supplies a postcolonial tradition the course can work directly rather than describe. Joyce's Dublin and Yeats's Ireland are both available, which is why unit nineteen spent time on them; available, where later writing is not.

Five entries on the empire texts: Conrad's opening from unit ten, the responses to it named and not quoted, what his own frame invites, Jane Eyre and the later novel that answers it, and the technique of writing back.

The band's central empire text.

AIL 1933 Conrad as an Empire Text

Unit ten worked the opening of Heart of Darkness: an unnamed narrator aboard a yawl on the Thames, handing the story to Marlow. Published eighteen ninety-nine, public domain, and set in a colonised territory. It is the band's central empire text here; unit ten worked the opening.

The responses are named, not quoted.

AIL 1934 The Responses to Conrad

Later writers have disputed the book's account of Africa at length, and the most influential of those responses are in copyright. This course names that a critical tradition exists and describes its position without quoting it, which is D8's second part: describing, not reproducing.

The structure invites the scepticism.

AIL 1935 What Conrad's Own Frame Invites

Unit ten established that a frame narrative puts a listener between reader and tale, so the reader weighs the telling as well as the events. The book's own structure invites scepticism about its narrator, and later readers extended that scepticism to the book, and extended it further.

A later novel answers this one.

AIL 1936 Jane Eyre and Its Answer

Unit ten worked Brontë's opening. The novel contains a Creole woman confined in an attic, and a twentieth-century novelist wrote her story from her side. That later novel is in copyright, so it is named and described and not quoted, named and described only.

Retelling from the margin.

AIL 1937 Writing Back

The technique is to take a canonical text and retell it from the position it marginalised. Naming it is enough for the exam, because a question about a printed passage asks what that passage does. The pairing is context and the extract is the evidence.

Six entries on the exam and the American band: the same seven types and never a tradition, why the constraint costs less than it seems, the American band's weight and contents, McKay in both, and band labels as distribution only.

The weightings say where, not what.

AIL 1938 What the Exam Asks of This Band

The same seven question types on a printed passage. No question asks a candidate to place a work in a tradition, name a movement, or discuss a critical debate. The tradition weightings describe where passages are drawn from, not what is asked about them; here the governing idea pays off.

The paper tests close reading.

AIL 1939 Why the Constraint Costs Less Than It Seems

If the exam asked about postcolonial theory the gap would be serious. It asks what words do on a page. A candidate who can read an Equiano paragraph closely can read any paragraph closely, and that is what the paper tests; the gap is smaller than it looks.

Forty to fifty percent.

AIL 1940 The American Band

Forty to fifty percent, equal with British and postcolonial. This course's anchor is a Canadian text with heavy American content, and its poetry chapters supply Frost, Hughes, Dickinson and others. Units six, eight and nineteen worked several of them already.

Present since unit six, unnamed.

AIL 1941 What the American Band Holds

Writing from the United States across every period and genre. The anchor's glossary quotes Frost, Dickinson and Hughes among its own examples, so the band has been present in this course since unit six without being named as a band; the glossary's own examples are American.

One writer, both large bands.

AIL 1942 McKay in Two Bands

A Jamaican-born writer publishing in New York counts in both large tradition bands. That is not a difficulty to resolve; it is how the weightings work. Unit one's observation that bands cross rather than add is the whole explanation, and there is no difficulty to resolve.

They distribute preparation only.

AIL 1943 Band Labels Are Not Questions

Knowing which band a passage sits in earns nothing directly. The bands tell a candidate how to distribute preparation, which unit seventeen said about periods and which holds for traditions. After that they do no work on the paper; they do no work on the paper.

Seven entries to close: a procedure for a translated passage, three traps, what this unit supplied, what remains of the course, and the capstone ahead.

Identify, classify, then read.

AIL 1944 A Procedure for a Translated Passage

Ask whether the passage is a translation, which a headnote usually says. If it is, ask which of the three decisions the translator appears to have made. Then read the English as English, because the English is what the questions are about, and the English is what is asked about.

The form belongs to the English.

AIL 1945 Trap: Crediting the Translator's Form

Obligation O-9 exists for this and unit sixteen stated it. Pope's rhyme is not Homer's; Longfellow's unrhymed tercets are not Dante's rhyme scheme. An option about verse form in a translated passage is about the translation, unit sixteen's trap restated.

The subject is not the technique.

AIL 1946 Trap: Reading Testimony as Literary Effect

Equiano's restraint and Prince's plainness are rhetorical decisions and they are also accounts of what happened. An option treating the suffering as a device has mistaken the subject for the technique, which obligation O-8 exists to prevent, and O-8 prevents this.

A label is not a reading.

AIL 1947 Trap: The Movement or Theory Label

Options naming a critical school or a movement explain less than options describing what the words do. Unit nineteen made the point about modernism and unit seven about device names. A label is not a reading; two earlier units said this.

Three decisions, one policy, six ancestors.

AIL 1948 What This Unit Supplied

The three translator decisions, decision D8 stated in full, and the ancestors on which the band's technique can be worked. No new craft terms were needed, which is the third orientation unit running where the craft units had already done the work; no new craft terms were needed.

One unit: the procedure, run cold.

AIL 1949 What Remains of the Course

One unit. The capstone takes the board's ten published sample questions and runs the whole procedure on them cold, which is the only honest test of whether twenty units of method actually answer the paper; the only honest test available.

Ten questions, worked in order.

AIL 1950 What the Next Unit Does

The capstone works all ten sample questions in order, naming the type, applying the procedure, and reporting the board's own answer as the board's. Nothing new is introduced, and any question the method fails to answer is reported as a failure; failures are reported as failures.

That is the ancestors, the empire texts, what the exam asks, the American band, the procedure and the traps, with the governing idea paid off in weightings that say where and not what. You can read Mary Prince's I have been a slave myself as the authority of experience and her only ground, read Equiano and Prince as testimony under O-8, place McKay in Jamaica and America and Tagore in translation and postcolonial at once, and work the Irish strand directly because it is public domain. You can read Conrad as the band's central empire text whose frame invites scepticism, name that responses to him and to Jane Eyre exist without quoting them, and describe writing back as retelling from the margin with the extract still the evidence. You can say the exam asks the same seven types and never about a tradition, that the gap costs less because the paper tests close reading, that the American band has been present since unit six, that McKay counts twice, and that band labels only distribute preparation. And you can run identify, classify, read, refuse the translator's form, testimony as effect, and the theory label, and know one unit remains. Unit twenty-one runs the procedure cold.