Reflect here on your reading of Duck's A Thresher's Labour.
Our discussion of Mary Collier's A Woman's Labour started today with several people mentioning how hard it is to read Collier without reading Stephen Duck's Thresher's Labour. Collier refers repeatedly to Duck's poem, which annoyed her so profoundly that she was motivated to write a similar poem of her own.
Some questions to consider: What motivated Duck to write his poem? Are the ideas he wants to communicate to readers the male counterparts of Collier's ideas--or is he pursuing different poetic goals? In class today I suggested a continuum of critical awareness:
1. my life sucks
2. my life sucks because of X
3. my life sucks because of X, and that's not fair
4. my life sucks because of X, and that's not fair, and something needs to change to make it fair.
You might like to consider whether Duck positions himself somewhere along this continuum.
Cite text as necessary to support your claims.
Deadline: Wednesday (2/4), noon.
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2 comments:
I think that Duck is at a very mild Stage 1. The one detail that he continually complains about is the tediousness of his work: "Nor yet the tedious Labour to beguile, / And make the passing minute sweetly smile... 'Tis all a dull and melancholy Scene." In this section of the poem, he comments how other pastoral and more picturesque laborers are able to pass some of their time in pleasure, but when diversion comes in the form of chattering women, he becomes annoyed.
This annoyance with womanly chatter points towards Duck's true feelings toward his threshing. He likes it and takes pride in it. He repeatedly compares his diligence and precision ("And first the Threshall's gently swung, to prove, / Whether with Exactness it will move: / That once secure more quick we whirl them round") to classical myths of workers in positive lights, such as the allusion to the Cyclopes and Vulcan. Also, his enthusiasm for haying season betrays his liking for his profession; though occurring in a change of scene, the movements and the work of haying seem to be almost exactly like that of threshing signifying that it is not the work that Duck dislikes, but the constant, dreary setting in which it takes place.
In writing this poem, Duck is doing something that most people do in their daily lives: find something, anything to complain about. The only negative issues he can describe with threshing are its tediousness and its never-ending cyclical nature. More of the poem is devoted to his comparing himself to classical myths than to the downside of threshing, implying to the reader that Duck actually takes pride in his work. Even though Duck may think that his life sucks at some points he is not putting the blame on anyone or anything just yet.
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