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So now, we have a poem called If We Must Die, by Claude McKay, arguably his most
favorite poem. Claude McKay was born in Jamaica and first
published in the teens. And he published this poem in July, 1919
in a magazine called The Liberator, which was the US, the American magazine most
openly communist at the time. So, he was attracted to communism even
though never became a member. So, he is a person of color.
And he is a radical so he's got both of the things we've just been talking about.
He's got, he's got left wing radicalism of the Depression.
Or this is prior to the Depression, but certainly he participated then just after
the Russian Revolution. And he's got, as you're going to see the
anger of someone responding to racist hatred and injustice based on American
racism just after World War I. So, my question to you is the same as
before. Does the choice of form, does McKay's
choice of poetic form enhance his message or detract from it?
So, let's see where we are. Emily, does, does the, form of the poem
detract from, the message, the effectiveness of the message that.
>> For me, yeah. >> It does.
>> Just looking at the first line, let it, let us not die like hogs until you sort of
stately lofty form. >> Okay.
Alright. >> When you're talking about dying like
pigs. >> Alright, very good.
>> To me it enhances. >> We're just vote, we're just voting now
although Emily offered an argument that's nice.
>> [laugh] >> So, we're just voting. >> To me it enhances.
>> Enhances? You disagree with your buddy.
>> Cool. >> Is that the first time that's ever
happened? >> Yeah.
>> [laugh] >> Are you sad? Dave?
>> Enhances. >> Enhance.
>> Enhance. >> Definitely enhances.
A100 percent kidding, it absolutely detracts.
[laugh] ... >> Oh.
>> Detracts, definitely. >> Okay.
Detracts. Molly?
>> Detracts. >> Detracts.
>> I'm on the enhancement side. >> Whoa, you switched.
I can't keep track. >> [laugh] >> Matt, what are you doing
here, buddy? >> As they say in baseball, you know,
we're programmed to know the players. Alright.
>> [laugh] >> You said we could switch. >> So, we have, ...
>> [laugh] >> What form do we have, Emily? >> I don't know, something rhymey?
>> [laugh]. >> My goodness, count the, count the
number of lines. >> Fourteen.
>> Fourteen. Any time you see a poem of fourteen
written in English. >> Mm-hm.
>> French, Italian and possibly Russian, you've got to say sonnet, okay?
It's a sonnet. And what kind of sonnet is it, folks?
>> Shakespearean. >> Shakespeare, we said that in unison.
Uh-oh, we said the word, Shakespeare. Hm.
Just the invocation of Shakespeare, whose side does that help, Ali?
>> Their side. >> [laugh] >> This side of the detractors.
Because it's in the white male Anglo-Saxon tradition.
>> Oh boy, okay. >> [laugh] >> Well, we'd better read that
and revisit that. >> Mm-hm, [laugh] ...
>> And what about the rhyme scheme, is this a pure Shakespearean sonnet?
>> Yeah. >> We looked at a, we looked at an
Italian, a Petrarchan sonnet recently, which has the sestet and the octave.
Or I, 6/8 or is it 8/6? I can't remember.
Somebody better get me right, here. 6/8, 8/6.
>> 8/6. >> 8/6, thank you.
We'll, we'll double check that. >> [laugh] >> But this is different, this
is different. How does it work?
>> It's three stanzas. Abab, CDCD.
>> There's no stanzas, actually. >> Well, I mean, but the rhyme scheme.
>>, Three rhyme schemes. >> Acts as if it were in stanzas.
>> Good, very good. >> And then, there's a, a rhyming couplet
at the end. >> At the end, yeah.
So it's ABAB, CDCD, EFEF. That second F, no, that works.
>> Yeah. >> Efef and then GG, pack back.
Okay, so, is a perfect, at least in terms of its outward form, it's a perfect
Shakespearean sonnet. Okay.
Emily, why does McKay's, what is, what's his message, by the way?
We, I guess we better get that. What message?
What's the content of this poem? What's he saying?
What's he arguing? >> For counter-violence, fight violence
with violence. >> Counter-violence.
So, he's saying if we are attacked, we need to, we need to strike back with
killing force. Anybody want to, anybody know about the
particular historical context here? I mean, I can provide it but, Ali, you
remember? >> In 1919, well, 1919.
>> When you were around in 1919. >> Back in the day.
>> Yeah. >> If I can remember that.
>> Mm-hm. >> Far back 1919 was I forget what it was
called, I want to say the Red Summer, but it was the summer of rioting.
>> Red Summer, yup, and race riots. >> Yeah.
>> Right after World War I, white soldiers come back to the urban centers and cities,
and elsewhere, but this is particularly a conflagration of the cities.
Detroit, Tulsa, Harlem and New York. >> Chicago.
>> Chicago, and I believe Newark. These are cities that exploded in that
summer. And this was partly because white soldiers
had come home and Black families had come from the south, and there were many
African-American families in the cities, already.
Chicago and New York in particular. And they had, been, been able to set,
become shop owners, and factory workers. And suddenly, in a racist society, the,
they were being displaced. And this is, this has been called a
desperate phase of the effort to return to prewar normalcy, which is racial
separation and economic disintegration. So, this poem is an angry response to
those riots where typically police, who were supposed to be defending the victims
of the riot, shop owners, Black shop owners and citizens, stood back and
watched. And maybe even participated in sort of
keeping the crowds at bay with their dogs and so forth.
So, you get that situation. So, McKay is arguing that we should strike
back. Okay.
So, is it, is a, is a sonnet a good vehicle for that, for that message, Max?
>> I, yes, I'm on the side of enhancement [crosstalk].
>> Do you think it works? >> So, yes.
I think this is another case of, of, of subverted form and I think it's working
effectively. We have what is, what's typically a poem
about love becoming sort of a, a call to arms, a poem about resistance and I think
that there's something, there's something great about that, that classic sonnet turn
happening after the first two stanzas. >> There is a turn.
>> Where it's like. >> It's, it becomes a call to arms.
It becomes, it becomes a very [crosstalk] turn.
>> That, oh, kinsmen turn. >> Oh, kinsmen turns, turns the poem
[crosstalk]. >> Yeah, it becomes, it becomes a turn
which is, I think completely paralleling the idea of, of we have to turn, turn
back, turn to face them. >> Okay.
>> Kinsmen, it's time to do it. >> Okay.
Molly? >> I think what Max said about how a
sonnet is traditionally a love poem, is exactly why it doesn't work?
Because it doesn't perfectly sort of fit into the traditional form of the poem.
It's not able to subvert it. Whereas, with Countee Cullen's poem
incident, Because it puts you into the voice of an eight year old child.
Like, that's why it works so well. That putting himself into the voice of an
old white man in love isn't, isn't the right way to do this.
>> Okay. But you used, the word right is a pretty
powerful word. I'm glad you're taking such a strong
position. Anna?
>> My problem is mostly with the language. I mean the form is doing.
>> What kind of language is this? If we must die, let it not be like hogs.
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot. While round us bark the mad and hungry
dogs, making their mock at our accursed lot.
>> It is. >> Accursed is to be pronounced just as
I've done it. >> It's like, the highest poetic diction.
>> The highest poetic diction. Shakespearean.
Okay, you have a problem with that? >> I do have a problem with that.
Because if this is a, a poem about, well, first of all, I mean, it's not only high
poetic diction, but, I mean, kind of, like, what Ali was hinting at earlier.
It's the high-poetic diction of Shakespeare and, and his, like white
contemporaries. Like, this isn't the language of a
Jamaican. This isn't how he speaks.
This isn't how the kinsmen that he's talking about, this isn't how they speak.
>> So, he, you're saying, just to be as polite as possible here, he's saying I
will, I am speaking in a voice that's not follow up to the traditionally my own
voice. I mean, I am taking on a different voice.
>> I think that I mean. >> Yeah?
>> Yeah, I think that he should if he is writing a poem of resistance, he should
write a poem that resists in a way that speaks it in his own, in his own words.
>> You're a, you're a, you're a linguistic radical.
You think that part of the oppression is the inheritance of this high, high
language. >> Just like establishment, that llike
dictates how poetry should be written. >> Okay, Max is really looking worried
about this argument. >> [laugh] I think it's very problematic
for us to say or for anyone to say that he should be writing in a particular style,
that he should be writing in, in what we would call Jamaican English.
>> No, I don't mean that. I just mean that he should have his own
voice. He shouldn't have to buy into the
establishment to write a good poem. >> He's, he's defining his own voice and
it's, I mean it's perhaps like the greatest act of resistance to say that no
I can write like this. >> Exactly, yeah.
>> Mm-hm. >> But also, if you're calling to people,
this is a call to arms, if you're addressing your fellow man, I mean
realistically is this the way that the people he's addressing talk?
>> So, let's talk about, who's being addressed, okay?
In the poem, we have evidence of who's being addressed.
Amaris, who's being addressed? There's evidence.
It's been pointed out by Max. >> Is it his brothers, then?
>> Well, where's the enemies? >> Or his, the other Americans?
>> Where's the evidence? >> Oh, kinsmen, [crosstalk].
>> Oh, kinsmen, that's an address, right? Okay.
Okay, Dave, who were the kinsmen? >> The other oppressed that he's talking
to, that he aligns himself with. But ...
>> Do we know who they are from the poem? >> It's not clear.
It's just, he makes the distinction between him and his oppressed brothers and
monsters. And he calls the oppressors mad and hungry
dogs [inaudible]. >> So, we have opposition.
We have us and them. We have McKay and his kinsmen, w, oh,
kinsmen, and then we have others. Okay?
Is he speaking directly then, Amaris? To those victims that we were talking
about in the historical sense, is he talking to those who are victims of
racially motivated rioting? >> Well, l I think he's trying to bring
the two stories together of World War I, and the race riots.
>> Okay, but is he addressing them with oh, kinsman?
>> I think he's talking about victims, yes.
>> Okay. I got a yes out of that.
>> Yes. >> He is.
And now, we're back to you guys. Molly and Anna, and Max.
>> I mean I think it's. >> So, he's addressing them but, he's
using the Shakespearean sonnet and a high, very high elevated language to do so.
Is it possible, that his address is complex and it's not just to those who
are, right now being barked at by dogs and fear for their lives, Molly?
>> I. >> Who might he be talking to if he's not
just talking to his literal kinsmen out there on the streets?
Anybody want to guess? >> Maybe he could be talking to anyone
who's ever been oppressed, ever. >> Or he's talking to the oppressors.
>> But it's still not universally. >> Right.
>> Or he's talking to the oppressors. Who else might he be talking to?
You know, Winston Churchill used this poem and spread this poem on the BBC to
encourage his fellow Britons to hold up under the nightly attacks of the German
Air Force. At the dark, the darkest days of the
English nation, he used this poem. Taking at least race, in terms of people
of a color, of, of, of colonial inheritance and so forth out.
And, and just speaking to his own national community, taking race out of the
equation, entirely using this poem, as a way of saying, we will fight back against
the Nazis. Okay.
>> Mm-hm. I mean.
>> He did that. He used that because, Churchill used that
because he was borrowing from Shakespeare. He read this poem.
He read the passage from Richard II. This sceptered aisle, this little world,
this precious stone set in the silver sea. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England. He read that.
And he did that because he wanted to borrow from Shakespeare.
And why did he want to borrow from Shakespeare, Max?
What's the advantage of Churchill to have borrowed from Shakespeare?
>> It's because it's, it's. >> Because It reminds people.
>> It's, it's. Nationalist.
It's, it's. >> Say more.
>> He's the Bard. He's the greatest or considered to be most
canonical and greatest writer in the English Language.
>> And so, by just using Shakespeare you get what?
>> You get pride. And it, it impart some sort of authority,
saying like this is, this is our language. >> Authority, pride and a little more
specifically? >> You also get a link to every single
person who has followed in that tradition. >> You get to say.
>> So, so, so that either. >> We stand in the line of the greatest
cultural attainment that human beings have reached.
I put that in quotes, but that's, that's what you say, when you take a sonnet.
This is going to help you, and also it seem to help you so you guys can work it
out. >> [laugh] >> You say, if you're Claude
Mckay, you say, I'm writing a Shakespearean sonnet.
I am tapping in just as Churchill does when he steals my poem.
He takes the poem of a Jamaican communist. And he makes it Shakespearean and reads it
to the, to the Shakespearean effect on the BBC to encourage his people to remember
the great cultural attainment of the English, of the English language.
So, McKay is saying, if you kill me, this is to help you here.
>> Sure. >> If you kill me, you kill the cultural
attainment of all of us who speak the language, you kill culture, you kill
yourselves. So, go ahead, kill me and kill
Shakespeare. I'm Shakespeare.
I can do this. It's so, Anna go ahead.
>> I, I think. I don't.
I mean. Great, great.
Okay. Great.
Like you've reached, the highest cultural, attainment.
You've reached it. Now, go beyond it.
>> So, who. >> All I'm saying.
>> So, who. We were, we're back to this question of
audience. Who, Ali, is being addressed, maybe, when
he says, oh, kinsmen. Who is he talking to besides?
We, we sort of danced around the issue that if you're in the street, and you're
being attacked by dogs, and someone gets up on a, soapbox and starts reciting a
Shakespearean sonnet, you're probably not really going to be able to hear the
nuances of it. >> Well, in a weird almost twisted way,
oh, kinsmen could actually include the them, the enemy, just for that reason,
because. >> But who specifically?
Who's being addressed? >> Okay, who's being addressed?
>> I think he's talking to the establishment basically saying, this is a
warning, this is what's going on. >> Who's being addressed in addition,
Amaris? >> We're all racists, I would say, people
who are persecuting Blacks. >> Are those his kinsmen, who, Emily,
who's being addressed? >> He's talking specifically about other
Blacks, like other Black men. >> That was the first thing we said.
Max, who's being addressed? >> Is there, could he be, since I think we
started talking about this, could he be addressing his literary kinmen,
[crosstalk] the canon? >> And who is this literary kin?
Who is it that sees a Shakespearean sonnet and sits up a little higher and says, wow,
we humans, are not animals. >> And more.
>> Readers? >> Everyone.
Readers. >> I don't know.
>> Everyone who reads this poem in an anthology.
This is an anthology poem. Everyone who says, this is a Shakespearean
sonnet. This writer attained the status of
Shakespeare and brought with it, for better, for ill or for good.
All the baggage that is associated with that, which is high human attainment.
So, we, we are his kinsmen. We who see Shakespeare as the best
expressive version of ourselves, Ali? >> Yeah, just kind of to respond to Anna's
point. I think if you want to look at this more,
I think there's a way to read the poem almost meta-poetically.
Which might kind of just address your concerns about going a step further,
because I do think that, there's a subversion formally in that the inevitably
of the form kind of mares the inevitably of death.
Like, there's no point where the, the reason that I think it's appropriate that
it doesn't go beyond the kind of traditional form is that, is that in the
poem McKay ad, ad, admits defeat. He, you know, from the outset we know, we,
if we must die. And there are constant reminders that
they're going to die. But and so, it never, it doesn't
completely undo the form, but it definitely makes an impression.
And, and so, in the fighting back I think it's, it's the effort, it's triumphant.
>> And how will we fight back? We will fight back like men.
Like human beings. And I, Mc Kay, the speaker, I am human
being, and the only evidence you need for that fact is that you are reading me
writing in a form that is the most complex, in terms of rhyme and meager that
we can do. It's hard to do this.
And I'm taking time to do this as evidence of my humanity.
So, you know, it is, as Max says, a kind of revolutionary subversion.
You see? Here's a sign.
It will leave you looking for some kind of break.
And some kind of newness dissatisfied except if you have as Alice suggested.
Some evidence of the self-consciousness of this version, that poetry, by its very
form, can indicate humanity where content might not always do that.
The, the downside is you've got a poem that's hard to understand if you're
running away from the dogs. But it's a poem that's not being addressed
to those of his time. It's being addressed to us, those who can
link Shakespeare from the seventeenth century all the way to, to us today.