Liminality as a Catalyst within Black Classicism

The liminality woven throughout ancient epic—from Ovid’s conception of Earth (a phenomenon brought by the translation between opposing energies, Chaos and Eros) to the transgressions of physical and political boundaries evoked by mythological frontmen—is simultaneously shaped and deconstructed by myth’s modern reconfigurations and correspondingly, the people for whom they speak. Such reciprocity, when reworked into modernity, has rendered the notion of ‘classical enfranchisement’ as one which transcends mere ‘classical influence,’ instead being harnessed by neoclassicists as a method of adaptation, subversion, and rejection. In reclamation of a previously-homogenous and Eurocentric field, Black Classicists have reimagined antiquity to their own telos, or end, contextualizing their sociopolitical commentary through subverting myth’s cyclical tradition. Similar instances of aequivocare—or classical-sociopolitical doublespeak—are explored in the transitory natures of poet Phillis Wheatley and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois’s “To Maecenas” and “Of the Wings of Atalanta,” respectively, both of which capitalize upon the malleability of epic to allude to societal mobility and self-determinism. Throughout their writings, Wheatley and Du Bois invoke symbolic imagery reminiscent of fluidity into the leitmotif of transitory states, effectively showcasing their classical enfranchisement and simultaneous subversion of a Eurocentric modernity. Such leitmotifs—as depicted by protagonists’ dynamic movements and interactions with bodies of air, earth, and water—draw upon the likeness of classical liminality to restore intellectual ownership to historically oppressed groups, functioning as metaphors for determinism and directional agency.

In establishing a distinguishable classical identity separate from that of traditional reception, Phillis Wheatley embodies both her physical and intellectual transformations through an invocation of the patron Maecenas—in doing so, her classical prowess, as depicted by her descriptors of movement within scenic elements and usage of dynamic, equivocating language, is harnessed to undermine the power imbalance within social hierarchies. In the opening lines of her poem—and as follows, her publication, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”—Wheatley extends a direct bid to Maecenas, the patron of classically-acclaimed poets including Horace and Virgil. Such an outright invocation of the patron (in place of the Muse) would typically have permitted readers to infer that a tone of reverence would be employed throughout the remainder of the poem, given Wheatley’s own reliance on patrons and most prominently, her then-owners, John and Susanna Wheatley. Despite addressing individuals who seemingly would have been of higher social standing than she, Wheatley instills ambiguity within the power dynamic between patron and poet, employing potentially-iussive verbiage as she either commands—or narrates—the actions of the patron in the closing the lines of her poem:

“Then grant, Maecenas, thy paternal rays,

Hear me propitious, and defend my lays” (Wheatley, 9).

The verbs, “grant,” “hear,” and “defend” can be perceived as either a passive verb or command, effectively transitioning authority from one entity to the other as the reader oscillates between interpretations. In her employment of aequivocare, as classicist Emily Greenwood notes, Wheatley “equali[zes] speech: a verbal strategy that makes the addressee into the speaker’s equal… even impel[ling] agreement on the part of her addressee,” thus operating within a liminality in which she subverts previously-established dynamics of power, transferring authority both to and from the patron by altering the reader’s frame of reference (Greenwood, 169).

Such poetic agency is mirrored by not only Wheatley’s figurative metamorphosis—from enslaved person to poet; her physical translation “from Africa to America”—but also her self-proclaimed integration into the pantheon of acclaimed rhapsodes from antiquity. In seemingly directing praise towards Homeric works, Wheatley covertly embeds her poetry’s merit and intellectual prowess through the eloquence of her prose, exclaiming, “While Homer paints lo! circumfus’d in air… Heav’n quakes, earth trembles, and the shores resound” (Wheatley, 9). Though initially appearing to laud Homeric epics through likening their lasting impact to movements of grandiose scale, Wheatley’s poetics are executed with a dexterity and literary agility comparable to that of the originator—in subsequence, her praise adapts an equalizing undertone. The dynamized notions of fluidity utilized by Wheatley in describing the classical significance of Homer’s works—”quakes,” “trembles,” and “resounds”—perhaps employ movement as a vehicle for mobility, both intellectual and social: not only does the former exercise sole ownership of such verbiage, but she also employs similar language in referencing her own works (Wheatley, 9). In the final stanza of “To Maecenas,” Wheatley appeals to the patron a final instance, bidding that he “Hear [her] propitious” for “As long as Thames in streams majestic flows,” eliciting the cyclical quality of myth to suggest a continuity in movement—a transference of poetic authority from the likes of Homer and Virgil to herself (Wheatley, 9). In referencing a “flow[ing]” current whose steadfast constancy propels forward movement, in turn granting her “propitious[ness],” Wheatley appears to construct a continuum bridging classical antiquity to her own writing—an exercise of subversion towards those who have previously undermined her literary prowess due to her social standing as a formerly-enslaved person (Wheatley, 9).

Parallels to the fluidity characterizing Wheatley’s conceptions of movement—from physical metamorphoses to dynamic transferrences of energies between geographical bodies—later manifest in the essays of W.E.B. Du Bois in the following century, perhaps most prominently in a reworking of Ovid’s myth of Atalanta in his collection, “The Souls of Black Folk.” In characterizing Atalanta—a tragic heroine made akin to her near-homonym: the Southern city of Atlanta—as a wing-footed maiden condemned to run in perpetuity, Du Bois equates her internal strife to the desire for simultaneous societal progress and instantaneous gratification, or in the words of classical analyst Irenae Aigbedion, issues a caveat for “African American youths, who [...] must strive to pursue education rather than quick financial gain” (Aigbedion, 28). Leitmotifs depicting movement—from the fluidity characterizing Du Bois’s “sullen waters” to Atalanta’s own swiftness—inform the former’s outlook on such liminal states as a simultaneous impetus and end goal of progress. In describing Atalanta’s beginnings, Du Bois identifies strife-ridden waters as among the initial catalysts for her movement, narrating that, “the iron baptism of war awakened her with its sullen waters, aroused and maddened her, and left her listening to the sea,” neglecting to mention neither Hippomenes, her suitor, nor his golden apples as a root of temptation (Du Bois, 54). In characterizing war—an exchange of power between two peoples—as a baptism, or submergence under and rebirth from water, Du Bois’s subsequent descriptors of the “madden[ing]” and “arous[ing]” divisiveness of the city inform his initial discontent regarding Atlanta’s vocational and monetary fixations. Despite water’s coursing and divisive nature acting as the root of strife regarding higher education, its simultaneous mobilization of Atalanta’s travels initially renders its fluid nature as neither a beneficiary nor an antagonizer—neither a means nor an end of progress. However, Du Bois’s closing remarks on the chapter uncover Atalanta’s perpetual transitory state as being catalyzed by the very movements brought by such fluidity, narrating, “a wind gathers itself from the seas [...] and at its bidding, the smoke of the drowsy factories sweeps down [...] yon gray mist is the tunic of Atalanta pausing over her golden apples” (Du Bois 62). With sea-borne winds propelling Atalanta forward amidst materialistic distractions including vocational wealth, the cyclical nature of classicism is placed in greater emphasis as the movement born from fluidity further instigates directionality, one not only propelling the other forward, but becoming one and the same—as both the means and the telos.

Through mobilizing liminal states and harnessing the movement of various entities within their works, Wheatley and Du Bois exercise their control—and agency—over the cyclical nature of classical myth, in acts of reclamation and subversion of a historically-ostracizing field.