Antiquity and radical authority, 1773--1861: From Phillis Wheatley to Martin Delany (William Blake, Henry David Thoreau)

My thesis, put simply, is that antique literature is a potential source of power for subversive, revolutionary, and transgressive agendas. In order to break down intellectual boundaries, I have intentionally integrated British authors, both blacks and whites, disparate theoretical paradigms, and different genres.; My dissertation identifies examples of the radical possibilities in veneratio antiquitatis, a Roman term signifying the veneration of, or deference to, things of ancient origin. In the first chapter I offer the theoretical framework for the chapters that follow. I define the conservative tendencies of the veneratio in its monumental form, so that I can then underscore its oppositional tendency in totemic form.; The second, third, and fourth chapters look closely at Phillis Wheatley and William Blake. Wheatley, writing as an African slave in New England, chooses the Roman vates as a source of chosen influence, while Blake, who writes as a cockney engraver in London, establishes a veneratio with the Jewish prophets.; The fifth chapter addresses Henry David Thoreau, whose individualism makes it impossible for him to grant social authority to anyone living around him; instead he submits to the social authority of Greek ghosts. In the sixth chapter, I examine a vacuum of heroism, resulting from America's ostensible rejection of the veneratio.; In the final chapter, I look at the 1850s. I argue that after Wheatley, black writers do not spurn the veneratio, but they subordinate it to a system of spiritual authority crystallized in the Christian model of time.