JAMES NACK
(1809–1879)
James Nack was one of the first deaf people to publish a book in the United States. Born hearing in New York City on January 4, 1809, he grew up in an impoverished family. His older sister taught him at home, and he could read by age four. When he was eight, he was already showing skill at writing verse and rhyme. That same year, his life suddenly changed. He fell down a staircase and hit his head on a heavy fire screen, which left him unconscious for weeks and totally deaf. In 1818, Nack entered the newly-opened New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. He became increasingly interested in poetry, writing a complete tragedy when he was twelve. After leaving school at age fourteen, he began to produce romantic verse. One of these, “The Blue-Eyed Maid,” caught the attention of Abraham Asten, a clerk of the city of New York. Asten befriended the boy and found him a job in a lawyer’s office. Nack took advantage of the attorney’s library, reading numerous books and learning several foreign languages on his own. Asten also introduced the prodigy to some of the city’s leading poets and writers, who encouraged him to publish a collection of his work.
Nack’s first volume, The Legend of the Rocks and Other Poems, appeared in 1827. It contained sixty-eight poems he had written before age eighteen, and received substantial attention. Hearing reviewers marveled at Nack’s youth and talent, calling him an “intellectual wonder” and comparing him favorably to the young Lord Byron. The New York Critic commended his smooth and harmonious versification, which seemed all the more remarkable because of his deafness. Others praised the feeling in his work and wondered how Nack, as a deaf person “cut off” from society, could write so well about human emotion.1 Nack became something of a sensation, and his poetry caused readers to reconsider their assumptions about deaf people.
In 1838, Nack married a hearing woman who had been a friend since childhood. They had three daughters. He supplemented his writing career by working as a legal clerk for over thirty years and translating literature from German, French, and Dutch. Nack represented one of the earliest success stories of deaf education in America. Leaders in later years would often cite him as an example of the potential many deaf people have. For example, in his 1854 essay calling for the establishment of a national college for the deaf, John Carlin refers to Nack as proof that “mutes of decided talents can be rendered as good scholars” (see p. 104).
Nack produced four volumes of poetry in all, but perhaps none was quite as influential as his first. His verse is typical of the sentimental style of the period, and may appear imitative and dated today. However, it marked an important step forward for deaf people. Nack showed that deaf authors were capable of producing that most difficult form of writing, poetry; he challenged stereotypes the public had about deaf individuals; and he no doubt helped to inspire subsequent deaf poets like John Burnet (who was Nack’s close friend) and Carlin to write poems and seek to publish their work.
James Nack
The excerpt in this chapter is from “The Minstrel Boy,” a long poem of sixty-three stanzas that Nack composed when he was just sixteen. It is one of his few works that deals directly with deafness. Nack later wrote that he produced this poem at a time when he was “peculiarly unhappy.” In it, he mourns the loss of his hearing and implores readers to extend their charity to “heathen” deaf people who do not know the gospel. Contemporary critics praised it for its emotive power.
The Minstrel Boy
1.
And am I doom’d to be denied forever,
The blessings that to all around are given?
And shall those links be reunited never
That bound me to mankind, till they were riven
In childhood’s day? Alas, how soon to sever
From social intercourse, the doom of heaven
Was past upon me! and the hope how vain,
That the decree may be recal’d again!
2.
Amid a throng in deep attention bound,
To catch the accents that from others fall,
The flow of eloquence—the heav’nly sound
Breath’d from the soul of melody, while all
Instructed or delighted list around,
Vacant unconsciousness must me enthral!
I can but watch each animated face,
And there attempt th’ inspiring theme to trace.
3.
Unheard, unheeded are the lips by me,
To others that unfold some heav’n-born art;—
And melody—Oh dearest melody!
How had thine accents, thrilling to my heart,
Awaken’d all its strings to sympathy,
Bidding the spirit at thy magic start!
How had my heart responsive to the strain,
Throb’d in love’s wild delight, or soothing pain!
In vain—alas, in vain! thy numbers roll—
Within my heart no echo they inspire;
Though form’d by nature in thy sweet control
To melt with tenderness, or glow with fire,
Misfortune clos’d the portals of the soul,
And till an Orpheus rise to sweep the lyre
That can to animation kindle stone,
To me thy thrilling power must be unknown.
5.
Yet not that every portal of the mind
Is clos’d against me, I my lot deplore;
Although debar’d by destiny unkind
From one that never shall be open’d more,
Still from the lot at times relief I find,
When science, I thy temple stand before,
Whose portal thou hast open’d, to my sight;
The gems displaying there enshrin’d in light.
6.
Blest Science! but for thee what were I now?
Denied the rights of man, as to employ
Those rights incapable—mankind, if thou
Hadst not aris’n the barrier to destroy,
No human blessings would to me allow;
The sensual pleasures which the brutes enjoy
Alone were mine, than brutes a nobler name
Entitled only by my form to claim!
Friends of misfortune’s race, whose heart and hand
Are never clos’d against affliction‘s prayer,
To heathens can your charity expand!
Will you to them the gospel tidings bear?
And yet neglect your own, your native land?
O shall the gospel be a stranger there?
Behold the Deaf and Dumb! What heathens need
More eloquently for your aid can plead?2
8.
Strangers to God!—And shall they still be so?
Will you not lift a hand the veil to rend—
Their intellectual eyes to heaven throw,
And lead them to a father and a friend?
Will you not snatch them from the gulfs of woe,
To which they else unrescued must descend?
O save them! save them! that the Deaf and Dumb
May bless you in this world, and in the world to come!
1. Quoted in Harry G. Lang and Bonnie Meath-Lang, Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary (Westport, Conn.: Greenword Press, 1995), 270.
2. Here Nack echoes not only Laurent Clerc (see p. 10, n. 5, and p. 18, n. 14), but also Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who called deaf people “heathen” in an 1824 sermon. It begins: “There are some longneglected heathen; the poor deaf and dumb, whose sad necessities have been forgotten, while scarce a corner of the world has not been searched to find those who are yet ignorant of Jesus Christ.” See Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, “The Duty and Advantages of Affording Instruction to the Deaf and Dumb,” reprinted in The Deaf and Dumb, or, a Collection of Articles Relating to the Condition of Deaf Mutes, ed. Edwin Mann (Boston: D. K. Hitchcock, 1836), 217.