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ERDEMLİ BİR PANDEMİ Mİ? DANIEL DEFOE’NUN VEBA YILI GÜNLÜĞÜ’NDE KARA ÖLÜME KARŞI AHLÂKİ (OLMAYAN) TEPKİLER

Year 2022, Volume: 62 Issue: 1, 360 - 382, 25.06.2022
https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2022.62.1.13

Abstract

Tarih boyunca insanlık, insanların farklı şekillerde karşılık verdiği, baş etmek için mücadele ettiği ve nihayetinde onları alt ettiği birçok pandemiden mustarip olmuştur. Tarihin insanlığı şahit kıldığı gibi, şu ana kadar insanlığın atlatamadığı tek bir pandemi yoktur. Bununla birlikte bir pandemide hayatta kalmak, sadece fiziksel, sosyal ve finansal değil, en önemlisi ahlâki olan birçok yetenek gerektirir. Bu anlamda, pandemi anlatıları zor zamanlardan geçerken ahlâki ve ahlâk dışı tutumların nasıl benimsendiğini kavramak için ilham vericidir. Bunun ışığında, Daniel Defoe'nun 1722'de yayımlanan A Journal of the Plague Year [Veba Yılı Günlüğü] adlı eseri, bu romanı gerçekçi bir tarihsel anlatı kategorisine dahil eden rasyonalist bir bakış açısıyla 1665 Londra Büyük Veba salgınına ışık tutar. Bununla birlikte, Defoe'nun 1665 veba salgınını belgelemesi, aynı zamanda insanların pandemi zamanlarında nasıl davrandıklarını ve pandemiye ahlâki veya ahlâk dışı olarak nasıl tepki verdiklerini tasvir eden ve bunu açığa çıkaran ahlâki bir anlatıdır. Defoe'nun insan yelpazesi göz önüne alındığında-–şehirden derhal kaçan önde gelen zenginler, insanları ölüme terk ederek evleri karantinaya alan valiler, vebayı yayan cahil insanlar, sahtekâr din adamları, doktorlar ve insanları sömüren sihirbazlar; ve birbirlerini kollayarak hayatta kalmayı tercih edenler–A Journal, acı çeken insanların ve onların acılarından faydalanan diğerlerinin ölümcül bir salgına nasıl ahlâki ya da ahlâk dışı tepkiler verdiğine işaret etmektedir. Bu çalışma, günümüz Covid-19 pandemisine verilen mevcut ahlâki (olmayan) tepkilere ışık tutmak için, yüzyıllarca öteden gelen bir çağrı olarak kabul edilebilecek Defoe’nun bu anlatısında ahlâk felsefesinin yerini görünür kılma çabasıdır.

References

  • Backscheider, P. R. (Ed). (1992). Preface to A Journal of the Plague Year. In A Journal of the Plague Year: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton.
  • Collins, M. E. & Garlington, S. B. (2020). Three Moral Virtues Necessary for An Ethical Pandemic Response and Reopening. The Conversation. Retrieved August 4, 2021, from https://theconversation.com/3-moral-virtues-necessary-for-an-ethical-pandemic-response-and-reopening-140688
  • Degabriele, P., (2010). Intimacy, Survival, and Resistance: Daniel Defoe's A Journal of The Plague Year. ELH, 77/1, 1-23.
  • Faden, R. (2007). Social Justice and Pandemic Planning and Response. In Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary. Washington DC: The National Academies Press. Retrieved September 4, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54169/
  • Jeican. I. I., Botis, F. O., & Gheban D. (2014). The Plague: Medical and Historical Characterization. Representation in Literature (Case Study: “A Journal of The Plague Year by Daniel Defoe”). REVISTA ROMÂNA DE BOLI INFECTIOASE, 17/3, 124-132.
  • Kavanagh, D., (2012). Daniel Defoe: 'A Journal of the Plague Year' – 1722. Retrieved January 10, 2021, from https://www.londonfictions.com/daniel-defoe-a-journal-of-the-plague-year.html
  • Kelly, C.L., (2013). Private Meditations and Public History in Daniel Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year. The Explicator, 71:1, 52-55, DOI: 10.1080/00144940.2012.758623
  • Loar, C. F., (2019). Plague’s Ecologies: Daniel Defoe and the Epidemic Constitution. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 32: 1, 31-53. McDowell, P., (2006). Defoe and the Contagion of the Oral: Modeling Media Shift in “A Journal of the Plague Year”. PMLA, 121/1, 87-106.
  • Pollitt, K., (2020). Tales of Two Plagues: Tips on self-isolation from Daniel Defoe and Giovanni Boccaccio. The Nation, 10-11.
  • Riva, M. A., Benedetti, M., Cesane, G. (2014). Pandemic Fear and Literature: Observations from Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 20/10, 1753–1757.
  • Sansom, D. (2009). A Response to Stanley Hauerwas. Christian Scholar’s Review, 38/3, 335-339.
  • Schäbler, B. (1987). Literatur Und Anomie: Die Literarische Verarbeitung Der 'Extremen Situation' in Daniel Defoes Journal Of The Plague Year und Doris Lessings The Memoirs Of A Survivor. AAA: Arbeiten Aus Anglistik Und Amerikanistik, 12/2, 97-112. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4302343
  • Seager, N., (2008). Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Epistemology and Fiction in Defoe's “A Journal of the Plague Year”. The Modern Language Review, 103/3, 639- 653.
  • Smith, M., & Upshur, R. (2019). Pandemic Disease, Public Health, and Ethics. In (A. C. Mastroianni, J. P. Kahn & N. E. Kass Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics (pp. 797-811). New York: Oxford UP.

A VIRTUOUS PANDEMIC? (IM)MORAL RESPONSES TO BLACK DEATH IN DANIEL DEFOE’S A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR

Year 2022, Volume: 62 Issue: 1, 360 - 382, 25.06.2022
https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2022.62.1.13

Abstract

Throughout the history, humanity has suffered many pandemics which people have responded to in various ways, struggled to cope with, and ultimately survived. As the history has made humanity witness, there is not even one pandemic until now which humanity has not come through. However, to survive a pandemic requires multiple capabilities, not only physical, social, and financial, but most importantly a moral capability. In this sense, the narratives of pandemic are stimulating to discern how moral and immoral attitudes are adopted while going through hard times. In the light of it, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year published in 1722 sheds light on the Great Plague of London in 1665 by using a rationalist point of view which places the novel among realist historical narratives. However, Defoe’s documentation of the 1665 plague is also a narrative of morality that depicts and gives insight into how people behave in the times of a pandemic and respond them morally or immorally. Considering Defoe’s range of people–the wealthiest people running away from the city at once, the governors who quarantine houses leaving people to death, the ignorant infectious people spreading the plague, the fraud ecclesiastics, physicians, and magicians who exploit people; and the ones who prefer to survive by taking care of each other–A Journal signs how the people who are suffering and the others who take advantage of their suffering give moral or immoral responses to a fatal pandemic. To provide an insight into the current (im)moral responses to today’s Covid-19 pandemic, this study is an effort to make the place of moral philosophy visible in the narrative of Defoe which could be accepted as a call from over the centuries.

References

  • Backscheider, P. R. (Ed). (1992). Preface to A Journal of the Plague Year. In A Journal of the Plague Year: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton.
  • Collins, M. E. & Garlington, S. B. (2020). Three Moral Virtues Necessary for An Ethical Pandemic Response and Reopening. The Conversation. Retrieved August 4, 2021, from https://theconversation.com/3-moral-virtues-necessary-for-an-ethical-pandemic-response-and-reopening-140688
  • Degabriele, P., (2010). Intimacy, Survival, and Resistance: Daniel Defoe's A Journal of The Plague Year. ELH, 77/1, 1-23.
  • Faden, R. (2007). Social Justice and Pandemic Planning and Response. In Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary. Washington DC: The National Academies Press. Retrieved September 4, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54169/
  • Jeican. I. I., Botis, F. O., & Gheban D. (2014). The Plague: Medical and Historical Characterization. Representation in Literature (Case Study: “A Journal of The Plague Year by Daniel Defoe”). REVISTA ROMÂNA DE BOLI INFECTIOASE, 17/3, 124-132.
  • Kavanagh, D., (2012). Daniel Defoe: 'A Journal of the Plague Year' – 1722. Retrieved January 10, 2021, from https://www.londonfictions.com/daniel-defoe-a-journal-of-the-plague-year.html
  • Kelly, C.L., (2013). Private Meditations and Public History in Daniel Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year. The Explicator, 71:1, 52-55, DOI: 10.1080/00144940.2012.758623
  • Loar, C. F., (2019). Plague’s Ecologies: Daniel Defoe and the Epidemic Constitution. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 32: 1, 31-53. McDowell, P., (2006). Defoe and the Contagion of the Oral: Modeling Media Shift in “A Journal of the Plague Year”. PMLA, 121/1, 87-106.
  • Pollitt, K., (2020). Tales of Two Plagues: Tips on self-isolation from Daniel Defoe and Giovanni Boccaccio. The Nation, 10-11.
  • Riva, M. A., Benedetti, M., Cesane, G. (2014). Pandemic Fear and Literature: Observations from Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 20/10, 1753–1757.
  • Sansom, D. (2009). A Response to Stanley Hauerwas. Christian Scholar’s Review, 38/3, 335-339.
  • Schäbler, B. (1987). Literatur Und Anomie: Die Literarische Verarbeitung Der 'Extremen Situation' in Daniel Defoes Journal Of The Plague Year und Doris Lessings The Memoirs Of A Survivor. AAA: Arbeiten Aus Anglistik Und Amerikanistik, 12/2, 97-112. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4302343
  • Seager, N., (2008). Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Epistemology and Fiction in Defoe's “A Journal of the Plague Year”. The Modern Language Review, 103/3, 639- 653.
  • Smith, M., & Upshur, R. (2019). Pandemic Disease, Public Health, and Ethics. In (A. C. Mastroianni, J. P. Kahn & N. E. Kass Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics (pp. 797-811). New York: Oxford UP.
There are 14 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Seda Arıkan

Early Pub Date June 22, 2022
Publication Date June 25, 2022
Submission Date September 1, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 62 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Arıkan, S. (2022). A VIRTUOUS PANDEMIC? (IM)MORAL RESPONSES TO BLACK DEATH IN DANIEL DEFOE’S A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 62(1), 360-382. https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2022.62.1.13

Ankara University Journal of the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography

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