Реферат на тему Жизнь и творчество автора НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ

Содержание:

Introduction 3
1.Olaudah Equiano short biography 4
2.«The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African» 6
Conclusion 12
List of sources 13
 

Введение:

 After spending several years traveling and trading, Olaudah Equiano came to London, where He became involved in the abolitionist movement. The movement had the strongest support among Quakers, but at that time it was no longer associated with a specific religious community.
Equiano discovered a talent for public speaking, and was introduced to many influential people who recommended that He write a biography in a book. Equiano received financial support from abolitionist philanthropists. His book surprised many with the quality and detail of its descriptions, literary style, and pathos directed against slaveholders. Under the title «The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African» the book was first published in 1789 and soon withstood several reprints. Moreover, the book was one of the first examples of a printed work by a writer of African descent in Europe.
Equiano’s story begins in a West African village where he was sold as a slave in 1756. He vividly recalls an epidemic that broke out on a ship while being transported overseas, and other horrors during the trip: «Now I wished that the last friend, Death, would come to free me». According to his book, the young Equiano was sold to a plantation in Virginia, where he was bullied. Slavery, he wrote, turns everyone into cattle — the slaves themselves, their masters, the wives of the slaveholders, and the whole society in General.
The autobiography goes on to describe how Equiano’s adventures brought him to London, where He became a fixture in British society and became a leading abolitionist. His revealing account of the infamous slave ship, from which 133 slaves were thrown into the water to get insurance money for them, shocked the country. The book also managed to demonstrate to readers the humanity of Africans and the inhumanity of slavery. The profits from the book brought Equiano independence from donors, after which he was able to devote himself to what he considered important — working to improve the economic and social situation of the people of Africa, especially Sierra Leone. Equiano recalls his childhood in Essac, where he was raised in the tradition of «great warriors». His recollections of the life of the Africans before the arrival of the Europeans are of great interest. 

Заключение:

Confessions of a former slave contains a wealth of factual, documentary material that reveals the lives of slaves, starting from the shocking details of the journey on a slave ship across the Atlantic ocean to America, experienced by an eleven-year — old teenager (Cugoano said about this, and Equiano showed, created a vivid artistic image of slaves on the ship), and including the sale at auctions, the inhumane treatment of slaves on a plantation in Virginia, labor on sugar plantations in the West Indies, the disenfranchised position of male slaves, women, children.
Equiano refers to his own ten-year experience of life in slavery, to what he witnessed («I remember, I saw, I know», much less often — «I was told»), introduces many tragic episodes from the life of slaves with the indication of the true names of the victims and their tormentors, with the exact designation of the time and place where these events took place, denounces legislation that serves the slave system.
The alternative to slavery is freedom. Equiano’s «narrative» is a passionate hymn to freedom, physical and spiritual. The narrator is obsessed with freedom; he is a free man inwardly.
An important place in the book is occupied by the problem of identification, which was to become the «eternal question» of African-American literature and journalism. Throughout the XIX-XX centuries, African-American writers literally suffered the problem of identification in their lives and in their work, considering it in philosophical, religious, psychological, ethnographic, sociological, historical aspects, solving it at the levels of personal, racial, national, and universal.
Already in the title, the author put the first name and surname received at birth — Olaudah Equiano — and emphasised his origin («African»).
His African name means «change or fate», as well as «being patronised, and having a loud voice, and expressing his thoughts correctly».The first two chapters of his life story are entirely devoted to his African roots. The phrase that will become the canonical beginning in the genre of «slave narrative» — «I was born.» related to the theme and image of Africa. The author of the XVIII century, unlike most authors of «slave narratives» of the XIX century, knows his parents and fits the life of the family into the life of the African people. 

Фрагмент текста работы:

 
1.Olaudah Equiano short biography
Olaudah Equiano was one of the most famous fighters for the abolition of slavery in Britain in the XVIII century. Was a slave in his youth, later bought his freedom, was a sailor and merchant in South and North America, as well as the Arctic.
His autobiography, which realistically described the horrors of slavery, influenced the public opinion of his contemporaries; soon after his death, in 1807, a law was passed to ban the slave trade. However, modern historians have reasonable doubts about many points from Equiano’s autobiography, primarily about whether He was actually born in Africa, or already in America.
According to his autobiography, Equiano was born in the Essaka region near the Niger river, which is now inhabited by the Igbo people. His father was an influential elder in the village and helped resolve local disputes. When his parents were not at home, his relatives kidnapped him and sold him into domestic slavery in a nearby village.
Until then, he did not meet white people according to Equiano’s recollections, he was resold several times before he sailed across the Atlantic ocean. It was bought reluctantly because of its short stature; it required strong men to work on the sugar plantation. After arriving in America, it was sent to Virginia, where it was purchased by Michael Pascal, a Lieutenant in the British Royal Navy. It was a common custom among slavers to give new names to their slaves. Pascal decided to give the new slave the name Gustavus Vassa — a Latinised form of the name of the Swedish king Gustav Vassa.
This time, however, Equiano declined and stated that he preferred the name Jacob. As a punishment, Pascal put him in irons and said that he would remain chained until he took a new name. According to Equiano’s recollections, he remained chained for a long time, but eventually agreed to respond to the new name. The reasons for choosing such an unusual name for a slave are unclear; according to historian Simon Schama, Pascal probably previously served on a ship called the Gustav Vasa and had