Lecture 4 Women and The New World

Lecture for Fourth Class: Women and the New World

Aphra Behn

It could be that the strict hierarchy of the Catholic Church was already in decline in the decades before the discovery of the New World. First, there was the crisis of faith caused by the plagues, and then the brutality of the witchcraft trials and the Spanish Inquisition. Splinter groups, like that of John Wycliffe, began to be more prevalent. But the power of the Church remained unbridled for most individuals, and the Church strictly controlled the activities of women.

And, already, in 1454, the movable type of Gutenberg allowed for access to the Bible and other reading materials. The use of the printing press spread swiftly--

In the mid-fifteenth century Johann Gutenberg invented a way of
mechanizing the production of printing type, as distinct from individually
engraved or cast letters. This was the beginning of the mass production
of books. The Gutenberg Bible was printed in Mainz around 1454-5.
It is the first major book printed in the west. We have reason to
believe that about 180 copies were printed and significant parts of 48
copies still survive.

By 1499, there were printing presses, sometimes multiple, in 250 cities in Europe. However, each of these presses could produce, at maximum, about five books a year. [If you are interested in this subject, I recommend Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe.]

[another site that you might be interested in is the Gutenberg Project, a collection of complete versions of many classics. You can read on-line or print them out.

Of course, in any class about women writers, the advent of moveable type is an important development. And, equally, the ability of people outside the monastic world to read and study the Bible led to a wide questioning of doctrine. Martin Luther's broadsides against the church, nailed on the church door, were made possible by the new printing press.

October 31, 1517
Luther posts the 95 Theses [picture] on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, which was a kind of bulletin board for the University. His intent is to spur debate. He also sends copies of the theses to a few bishops and some friends. Initially, he gets very little response.

Still, there is not much question that the presence of the New World, its wealth, its people, and its influence in our concept of the globe also contributed in large part to the questioning of spiritual authority that has continued to this day.

The Growth of Trade

Again, Trade, as such, was already picking up in 13th Century Europe. The Hanseatic League was very active in Northern Germany and the Baltic areas, including Norway. And in the south, Mediterranean seafarers were making attempts to find a new route to the rich lands of the East. Vasco de Gama actually found the route around the horn of Africa to India during the time Columbus was making his voyages.

The discovery of the spice route to the real India/Indies would have stimulated trade in any event, offering a compensation for the loss of Byzantium in 1453 and giving the merchants of Europe a way to circumvent the Turk/Islamic domination of the land routes to Asia. Still, the visual change that we notice in the world as it is depicted, and, therefore, probably experienced by many, is stunning. We see both the smallness and the sparseness of the world pre-Columbus, and then the richness of the interiors, the lavish gowns, the food, the new attention to physical beauty - all things that come to characterize the Renaissance in full bloom.

The re-generation of Cities

Another thing that has a direct role, although not so prominent a reputation, in the history of women and writing, is the re-growth of cities after 1500. As trade and manufacture began to take the place of farming as ways of making a living, more people gravitated to the centers of trade and power. Historically, oppression has thrived upon isolation. A woman in the countryside, who would have contact with neighbors perhaps once a week (far less often in the cold of winter), would not have a chance to share intimacies. Families are breeding grounds for certain kinds of complaint, but not revolt against authority, usually. As women began to gather in workshops, marketplaces, and at social gatherings, they began to know each other better . . . and question, together, the tenets of a society that excluded them from participation.

The Scientific Revolution

It is nearly impossible to over-exaggerate the historical significance of Christopher Columbus. The ultimate expression of the Columbian Legacy has been nothing less than global in its impact. Though much has been written about the subsequent Columbian Exchange, that is, the exchange of plants and animals, of diseases, of human migration, and of cultural exchange, students of history should not forget that the discovery of a New World had an intellectual impact as well. During the Age of Discovery (15th and 16th centuries), Western Europeans acquired the ability to exchange information with nearly all parts of the world. As one of the great thinkers of the age and one who led the way, Columbus deserves recognition for the intellectual transformation that took place. As a result, a new age was ushered in, the Modern Age, and after 1500 the world would never be the same, nor would the human race.

In hope of finding a way to circumvent the Muslim monopoly on the riches of the Spice Islands and the Far East, Columbus and other late Medieval adventurers sailed away from a world that still believed that Earth was the center of the Universe. This geocentric theory left little room for compromise throughout Western Christendom. Was it not logical that since Man was the center of the Universe, the Earth as his home had to be at the very core?

The idea that humankind inhabited a third rate planet that rotated daily on its axis and hurled itself through space at astronomical speeds around a fixed Sun was totally unacceptable in the Middle Ages. In 1530, however, things began to change. The Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus published his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) in which he challenged the prevailing geocentric view. Advancing the heliocentric theory, Copernicus influenced many other great thinkers with his theory that the Earth and all other planets revolved around the Sun. In the next century the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) advanced the Copernican theory significantly with observations made with a telescope. In 1633, however, the Inquisition in Rome condemned Galileo for heresy. The next thinker was the German Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). He too accepted the Copernican theory but went further by deducing that the orbits of the planets were elliptical and not circular.

Now, contrast this picture with that of today. As beneficiaries of this scientific revolution, school children throughout the world have a more accurate image of the Universe than the most learned scholars of the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Renaissance periods. Consider also the manner in which new information is handled today. Within minutes of its revelation, new information enters the information super highway of the Internet and television and radio broadcasting. Almost instantly it appears in our homes, our offices and every other place where there is a computer monitor or TV set. Reflect for a moment upon the spectacular show from space in July, 1994. Almost simultaneously with the scientific community, hundreds of millions of people in a worldwide audience watched in awe as the Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed onto the surface of Jupiter. This once-in-a-lifetime experience was, in itself, remarkable. What made it even more amazing was that this new information entered the global knowledge base at the same moment it revealed itself to the scientific world.

and so Begins Oroonoko, The Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn

[also, some Aphra Behn sites: at The Aphra Behn Society -

and a complete selection of plays, works, and books about her - at Aphra Behn.]

I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet's pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him: and it shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of invention.

But before I give you the story of this gallant slave, 'tis fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these new colonies; those they make use of there not being natives of the place: for those we live with in perfect amity, without daring to command 'em; but, on the contrary, caress 'em with all the brotherly and friendly affection in the world; trading with them for their fish, venison, buffalo's skins, and little rarities; as marmosets, a sort of monkey, as big as a rat or weasel, but of marvelous and delicate shape, having face and hands like a human creature; and cousheries, a little beast in the form and fashion of a lion, as big as a kitten, but so exactly made in all parts like that noble beast that it is it in miniature. Then for little paraketoes, great parrots, mackaws, and a thousand other birds and beasts of wonderful and surprising forms, shapes, and colors. For skins of prodigious snakes, of which there are some threescore yards in length; as is the skin of one that may be seen at his Majesty's Antiquary's; where are also some rare flies, of amazing forms and colors, presented to 'em by myself; some as big as my fist, some less; and all of
various excellencies, such as art cannot imitate. Then we trade for feathers, which they order into all shapes, make themselves little short habits of 'em and glorious wreaths for their heads, necks, arms, and legs, whose tinctures are unconceivable. I had a set of these presented to me, and I gave 'em to the King's Theater, and it was the dress of the Indian Queen, infinitely admired by persons of quality; and was unimitable. Besides these, a thousand little knacks and rarities in nature; and some of art, as their
baskets, weapons, aprons, etc. We dealt with 'em with beads of all colors, knives, axes, pins, and needles; which they used only as tools to drill holes with in their ears, noses, and lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long beads, bits of tin, brass or silver beat thin, and any shining trinket. The beads they weave into aprons about a quarter of an ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in flowers of several colors; which apron they wear just before 'em, as Adam and Eve did the fig-leaves; the men wearing a long stripe of linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these beads also on long
cotton threads, and make girdles to tie their aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the waist, and then cross, like a shoulder-belt, both ways, and round their necks, arms, and legs. This adornment, with their long black hair, and the face painted in little specks or flowers here and there, makes 'em a wonderful figure to behold. Some of the beauties, which indeed are finely shaped, as almost all are, and who have pretty features, are charming and novel; for they have all that is called beauty, except the color, which is a reddish yellow; or after a new oiling, which they often use to themselves, they are of the color of a new brick, but smooth, soft, and sleek. They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touched. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives forever among 'em there is not to be seen an undecent action, or glance: and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no wishes, there being nothing to heighten curiosity; but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity. Not but I have seen a handsome young Indian dying for love of a very beautiful young Indian
maid; but all his courtship was to fold his arms, pursue her with his eyes, and sighs were all his language: while she, as if no such lover were present, or rather as if she desired none such, carefully guarded her eyes from beholding him; and never approached him but she looked down with all the blushing modesty I have seen in the most severe and cautious of our world. And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin. And 'tis most evident and plain that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous mistress.

Paintings from Dutch Masters

Pieter de Bloot
Rotterdam 1601 - 1658 Rotterdam
Christ in the house of Martha and Maria, Vaduz, 1637

Continue with Lecture 4

Literature 45 - Women in Literature:

Marjorie C. Luesebrink, MFA

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