SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 42
into Robeson’s image of a man who refuses to submit to his fate of being rendered socially
inferior. Both versions of the man still land in jail. Rather than succumbing to his fate of
social inferiority suggested in Hammerstein’s lyrics, Robeson’s lyrics say the man “keeps laffin'
instead of cyrin’” and expresses his protest against an inequitable society with the words, “I
must keep fightin';/ Until I'm dyin’.”13 Paul Robeson knew the power of the composition
and the lyrics when he sang “Ol’ Man River.” He also knew that he could empower himself
as a black man by changing the words in order to give an entirely different purpose to the
composition. This happened because Robeson could recognize the affective elements in the
song that he used to his advantage.
It seems Robeson continued as a close reader of the text, when he played the titular
character in Shakespeare’s Othello. Iago is powerful as a character because he appeals to the
dark possibility of a man like him, dedicated to the pursuit of evil; his humanness is what
makes him real. But Robeson played Othello with a particular intensity, incorporating his
own personal conflicts into an interpretation of Shakespeare's eponymous protagonist as
a non-white outsider living in a predominantly closed, white society. Shakespeare's genius
allows for such a possibility, but Robeson could also achieve an interpersonal misreading of
the text that accommodates his concerns as a civil rights spokesperson.
To relate to words through one’s own feelings and make connections with how you experience
life is a way of theorizing a text.
Mahatma Gandhi read Henry David Thoreau's essay “On the Duty of Civil
Disobedience,” which he could relate to as it provided the basis for his ideas on refusing to
submit to what he believed to be evil. The theory arose from a connection with the text; it's
not an externally imposed worldview that determines literary value. Lack of “feeling with” a
text makes it impossible to communicate with the reader.
No theory, no matter how sophisticated, can replace the interpersonal relationship with the
text.
In the end, flowers will be flowers. There is no theory to how we read and incorporate
flowers into a literary text. We don't anticipate that our interpretation of flowers will change
them. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s poem “Ode to a Flower in Casarsa” is about a state of mind that
defined the loneliness and angst of his work and life: “The years pass over you,/and so do
I.”14 In David Lean's film version of Doctor Zhivago, there are flowers that capture the beauty
and violence of a revolution, which forms the background to a poignant love story that ends
with the protagonist's death. It's not about whether we like flowers or not, as that would be
a simplistic response to a complex existential condition. Rather, it's about how we encounter
them through what we discover on the page of a text, the interpersonal space where the flower
becomes “a thing of beauty” and consequently “a joy forever.”15 It's these close readings of an
interpersonal kind that make a difference in how we feel about ourselves and the text itself.
13
Stead, “Paul Robeson.”
Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Ode to a Flower in Casarsa,” Poets.org, April 2, 2014, https://poets.org/poem/ode昀氀ower-casarsa.
15
John Keats, “From Endymion,” Poetry Foundation, accessed April 18, 2025, https://www.poetryfoundation.
org/poems/44469/endymion-56d2239287ca5.
14
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