Kimmi's Class Summary

The number one thing I took away from our second day of the section “The French Revolution and the Rights of Man” was that Robert Burns poetry was never meant to be read in any accent but a Scottish accent, and certainly never in an American accent. It was a great disappointment to me that no one volunteered to attempt a Groundskeeper Willy accent. In fact, it’s a greater disappointment to my father that I never picked up his knack for impersonating characters from The Simpsons, despite being part of the lucky generation that has never known a world without them.

Of course, none of that is really that important in the vast scheme of things or even just in the not so vast scheme of this single class period. The truly important lesson of the day was that all over Great Britain, the members of the working class were beginning to realize their rights as men, their power in numbers, and their hunger for liberty. It was all thanks to the French Revolution, which, though gory and full of horrifying acts, proved that the lower class, as the majority, possessed the power to rise up and seize control of its world.

We started off the class with a reward quiz and the quick assurance that the word “titular” means nothing shocking and in fact, is just an adjective form of the word “title.” After suffering – I mean totally acing – the reward quiz, we were informed of the flow for the period. First, we would discuss Robert Burns in a large group. Second, Dr. Foss’s daughter was in BVL that morning and she had a cute hat. Real Second, we’d small group Napoleon Bonaparte, then large group Sydney Owenson, and end by small grouping the long poem “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.” In reality, of course, we ran out of time, which was disappointing because we missed out on discussing Ireland at greater length than to learn that the English were oppressing the Irish and there is an incendiary subtext to Irish harps as they are a patriotic symbol of Ireland, and separate Ireland from England.

In large group first, we discussed Robert Burns’s history. He was successful as a writer, despite his poor, farming background, because “Lard” Robert Graham liked his work and got him a decent job as a favor. Of course, he lived and wrote during the time of the French Revolution and at this time there was a great fear of armed insurrections breaking out in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales as well. Burns, of course, was “Scottish to the core” and many were afraid that his patriotic poetry, which often referenced Robert Bruce, defeater of the English at Bannockburn on June 24, 1314 and King Robert I of Scotland, might lead to an uprising in Scotland. In his poetry, he characterized the English as oppressive and tyrannical, “proud usurpers” who should be struck down. Scotland, on the other hand, signified liberty and freedom. He emphasized heritage and history, and the dishonorableness of those in Scotland with economic power who had sold them out to the English. Generally, Burns’s message with the two poems selected for our readings this day was that the English are not like the Scots.

Moving on to small groups, we discussed the responses to Napoleon Bonaparte by three members of The Big Six at three different times during Napoleon’s reign. The first was by William Wordsworth in 1802, “I Griev’d for Buonaparte”. We discussed this at great length in my group, and we all agreed that what Wordsworth’s speaker was really grieving was Napoleon’s focus on military conquest, rather than political leadership and the betterment of his country and people. Then, because we were running low on time, and because Lord Byron’s poem was longer and therefore seemed more daunting, we moved on to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte.” This we read as much less kind than Wordsworth’s disappointment. After all, the opening three words are “I hated thee,” quite a strong opening statement. However, Shelley’s ultimate conclusion seemed to be that while Napoleon was bad, what succeeded him – a return of the Old Regime – was worse. After all, what had the French revolted for, what had the blood been spilt for, if the monarchy was just going to be restored so soon afterward? It was after this small group discussion that we realized our minutes were ticking away. We very briefly skimmed our “Guinness Time” and jumped into small groups to discuss “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” for just long enough for my group to admit that though we’d all read it, we’d each been hoping someone else would have processed the meaning well enough to take the lead in the discussion. Honestly, all I could remember was that it took place before the War of 1812. (I even got that particular “titular” question wrong on the reward quiz by guessing 1810.)

And so it was that I left class with the song “Scotland the Brave” stuck in my head, a need to liberate the working class, and the full intention of finding some good Groundskeeper Willy clips online so that I could spend the rest of the day attempting a Scottish accent.