The Venus Hottentot

The poem’s title alludes to the classical Venus, the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, sex and desire, and fertility. Yet this more complimentary allusion is paired with the pejorative racial term “Hottentot.” While the term was initially used to describe a person from Khoikhoi, an indigenous group in south Africa, it soon became a word comparable to barbarian or savage. This title, thus, contrasts the ideal of Classical, white beauty with the perceived primitiveness of the title woman. In addition, in wider scholarship, the term typically has the reverse word order, with hottentot describing Venus to suggest a diminished beauty. Here, Alexander has reversed the order, so the unnamed woman is beautiful because of her Africanness.

The first part of the poem begins with the speaker’s name. Cuvier refers to the 19th century French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier, who collected Baartman’s genitalia as a scientific specimen upon her death. This first section is written in Cuvier’s voice, describing his enthusiasm for the scientific process. Cuvier’s exclamation of “Science, science, science!” (Line 1) suggests that this poem will be about scientific progress, with the optimism that “[e]verything is beautiful” (Line 2).

Yet the stanza break draws attention to the phrase “blown up” (Line 3). Cuvier means to simply describe how his specimens are enlarged under “the glass” (Line 3) of his microscope. However, Alexander seems to imply a violence that comes from shattering, foreshadowing the treatment of Baartman and her body.

For Cuvier, Baartman’s beauty comes from the individual parts of her body that he can examine. Her body is just one object that Cuvier lists as being in his laboratory. He studies “insect wings” (Line 4), a “drop of water” (Line 5), and “crumbs” (Line 7). Like Baartman’s genitalia, each of these objects is a part of the whole: the wings of an insect, a drop from the body of water, and the pieces of a larger rock. The parts are more interesting than the whole. When grouped with these items, Alexander establishes how Cuvier sees her body as an item of natural history to study and examine.

Cuvier ties the beauty he sees in these objects to objective qualities, like that of “angles / of geometry” (Line 8-9). Alexander highlights the irony of Cuvier’s tone in contrast to his actions to criticize his beliefs. The words “beautiful” (Line 3), “dazzle” (Line 4), and “perfect” (Line 8) create a tone that celebrates each object, which is at odds with the second half of Cuvier’s part.

As Cuvier continues to list his scientific specimens and results, Cuvier describes how “[c]ranial measurements / crowd [his] notebook pages” (Lines 14-15). At first, these cranial measurements are ambiguous, as it is unclear where these skulls have come from. Only when he reveals the purpose of this study, to “signify aspects of / national character” (Lines 18-19), does it become apparent that he is studying a human skull to prove racial superiority. When the title and historical details are considered, it becomes evident that this skull belongs to Baartman. While Cuvier intends for these measurements to reveal a defect in different nationalities, Alexander also suggests that these attempts at scientific racism reveal things about the French national character.

The barbarity of his scientific practice is further emphasized when the next item is revealed to be an unspecified woman’s “genitalia” (Line 19). It is “inside a labeled / pickling jar” (Lines 20-21) as a preserved object of study “in the Musée / de l’Homme” (Line 21-22). During Cuvier’s life, this institution was called Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro. Alexander uses the anachronistic name to refer to the museum to implicate her modern audience. This object remained on display in France until 1974 and was only repatriated in 2002, 12 years after the publication of this poem. The line break after Musée also allows Alexander to broadly criticize museums who hold human remains.

Her genitalia are located “on a shelf / above Broca’s brain” (Lines 22-23). Bocca was a French physician, anatomist, and anthropologist. Again, Alexander uses the character of Cuvier to represent scientists of the period at large as Broca was only a child when Cuvier died. Broca is credited with being one of the creators of scientific racism, as he used anthropometry and cranial measurements to argue that there is no common ancestor for all human races. He was one of the first to compare apes and humans. In the poem, the brain of a white man is contrasted with the genitalia of a Black woman. This emphasizes how Black women are often sexualized, while the intelligence of white men is valued. 

Alexander ends Cuvier’s section with what is now an ironic comment on how “[e]legant facts await” (Line 25) him in his studies of anatomical human differences. Cuvier’s “[s]mall things in this world” (Line 26) underscore the belittling and minimization of Baartman as a Black woman.

While the second section does not explicitly name its speaker, the stylistic and formal shift indicates a new speaker. Soon, it becomes clear that she is the titular Venus Hottentot.

Like Cuvier, the unnamed narrator of the second part begins by commenting upon nature. The “unexpected sun” (Line 27) in London seems to be a benign statement, which makes the reveal that the speaker is working in a “cage” (Line 29) in a supposedly free society all the more shocking. Alexander has also subtly separated the speaker from nature; the clouds must “sift” (Line 29) into her cage. In contrast to Cuvier’s categorization of her as a natural object or an animal that must be caged, Alexander uses Baartman’s voice to underscore her humanity. In her section, she expresses her dashed dreams, bitter despair, and deep anger. 

Alexander uses visual imagery to emphasize Baartman’s physically different skin color. Like the “clouds” (Line 28) that are most often in the sky, blotting out the sun, Baartman is a “black cutout against / a captive blue sky” (Line 31-32). Words like “cage” (Line 29) and “captive” (Line 32) rebut Cuvier’s optimistic presentation of scientific progress.

When describing her work, the speaker uses the word “pivoting” (Line 32) to characterize her movement as something mechanical, not sexual. She does not do this willingly, but rather for a “paying audience” (Line 33). While Cuvier had divided her into parts to be studied, Baartman describes the sexual objectification of her body parts, especially her “naked buttocks” (Line 34).

Only in her second stanza does the speaker give any sort of name. She emphasizes that this is only what she is “called” (Line 35), rather than who she is. By giving her title, “Venus Hottentot” (Line 35), as her identification, she manages to keep a part of herself private, as she says in line 101. The speaker never gives her real Khoekhoen name or English name.

Baartman tells the story of her abduction through deception. She “left Capetown with a promise / of revenue” (Line 35-36), which included her “passage home” (Line 38). This “boon” (Line 38) was supposed to be an equal partnership as she was to get “half the profits” (Line 37).

Based on the biographical details she includes in this stanza, Baartman seems to be speaking from about 1810. Her “Master’s brother” (Line 39) alludes to the free Black man who helped convince her to take the offer that eventually led her to England. The “magistrate” (Line 40), Lord Caledon, did approve the trip from Cape Town to London. She went in the hopes of becoming as rich as a “duchess” (Line 42). The promise that she “would return” (Line 41) to her home and her family went unfulfilled, something the speaker seems to be aware of even now.

Baartman lists the luxuries she dreamed of, contrasting with Cuvier’s list of scientific specimens. She wants nice fabrics like “watered-silk” (Line 42) and “voile and tulle” (Line 46). She wants “rogue and powders in glass pots” (Line 44). She wants “money to grow food” (Line 43) and sweets such as “sugar-studded non- / pareils, pale taffy, [and] damask plums” (Line 50). Her desire for these markers of a more upper class, white European life underscore the naive idealism of her belief that she, too, could better her life.

These items starkly contrast with her reality now, years later. She works in circuses that are “florid and filthy” (Line 52). The patrons are “cabbage-smelling” (Line 53). By calling these patrons “citizens” (Line 54), Alexander emphasizes their culpability in the British Empire’s racist ideas and colonization. Their questions about whether her buttocks were “muscle? bone? or fat?” (Line 55) dehumanize her body and reveal an obsession with using physical markers to justify racism.

The language used to refer to the act working next to Baartman demonstrates the extent of scientific racism.  This act is called “The Sapient Pig” (Line 57). Sapient refers to a human-like intelligence, emphasizing that this man is not human. His freakish talent for exhibition is that he is the “Only / Scholar of His Race” (Line 57-58). The next stanza reveals that this act is not in fact a human, but instead an actual animal with “hooves” (Line 60). Because of contemporaneous racist beliefs, his near-human intelligence is abnormal and suggests a link between humans and their animal ancestors. Initially, Alexander withholds this information with this act presented as if it were a non-white man who “plays / at cards, tells time and fortunes” (Lines 58-59). With the reveal that this act is actually an animal, Alexander shows how Baartman and a pig are treated as equally human and equally inhuman.

The poem continues mixing human and animal performers together on equal standing. The next act is a man called “Prince Kar-mi, who arches / like a rubber tree” (Line 61), but there are also “singing mice” (Line 66). All performers are handled by a “professional / animal trainer” (Lines 64-65). In the eyes of the European scientists, nonwhite performers are distinctly not as human as white Londoners.

In the next stanza, time may have shifted in the narrative, as these events happened in 1814 and 1815. Baartman refers to an engraving she calls “The Ball of Duchess DuBarry” (Line 67), where she is pictured lurching towards the onlookers. This likely refers to the 1830 print of an actual 1829 event in France. The woman in the image is not Baartman, who died in 1815. Instead, she is one of the unnamed women who continued to perform under this stage name. By conflating herself with this unnamed woman, Baartman speaks for all the women in her situation. Alexander illustrates how these women were interchangeable beasts to white Europeans. The image contrasts the animalistic unnamed woman with the delicate French ladies. The woman is portrayed as she “lurch[es]” (Line 68) and stares “mad-eyed” (Line 69). In contrast, the “belles dames” (Line 69) “swoon” (Line 70) and the well-dressed men “shield them” (Line 71). Her “buttocks are shown swollen / and luminous as a planet” (Lines 73-74), suggesting that they were positioned as a separate natural object. Unlike the woman herself, her buttocks are worthy of admiration.

The narrative returns to Baartman’s experiences in France. Baartman describes how “Monsieur Cuvier investigates” (Line 75) her genitalia. This action is cold, as he is “poking, prodding, / sure of his hypothesis” (Lines 76-77) that her genitalia shows that she is a link between animals and humans. The ridiculousness of this belief is highlighted when compared to a magic trick.

When Cuvier “complains” (Line 80) about her smell, thinking that she does not understand the language, Baartman lists that she speaks English, Dutch, some French, and “languages Monsieur Cuvier / will never know have names” (Lines 85-86). Her intelligence is unnoticed because it does not match up with European ideals. Instead, Cuvier is presented as ignorant, as he could not even recognize and name the African languages she can speak.

Baartman expresses how she is “bitter” (Line 87) and “sick” (Line 88). Her diet is “brown bread” (Line 88) and “rancid broth” (Line 89), which causes her to reminisce about her old life in Africa. She misses the food her mother makes, queasy from the English foods like “mutton / chops, pale potatoes, [and] blood sausage” (Lines 91-92). Thinking about how much she misses the basics of her homelife, Baartman states how she “was certain” (Line 93) that leaving for London “would be / better than farm life” (Lines 93-94). She wanted to be “the family entrepreneur” (Line 95). These words echo the idea of the American Dream. By contrasting the failed promises of Europe with her expectations, Alexander connects colonization and the American Dream to criticize how Black people have been treated over time.

In her despair, Baartman spends “hours in every day” (Line 96) envisioning her “imaginary / daughters” (Lines 97-98). Alexander connects future sexualized Black women to Baartman through her description of her imagined daughters. The reference to “ostrich-feather fans” (Line 99) references erotic dances. A woman “in banana skirts” (Line 98) alludes to Josephine Baker, a Black American woman who moved to France and performed in jazz clubs during the 1920s. As these images are contrasted with what Baartman had dreamed of before leaving her home in South Africa, Alexander positions the present as a continuation of the sexual objectification of Black women.

As her “genitals are public” (Line 100), Baartman works to keep “other parts private” (Line 101). This includes both the literal parts of her body and her identity. She reclaims her identity in her “silence” (Line 102) where she can “possess [her] mouth, larynx, [and] brain” (Lines 102-103). In this “single / gesture” (Lines 103-104) of silence, she keeps her thoughts to herself. These parts of her body associated with speech and thought are not desired by her white audience.

In her mind, she remembers beauty as it is revered in her home country. She puts “lanolin” (Line 105) and “gold leaf” (Line 107) in her hair and “pose[s] in profile / like a painted Nubian / archer” (Lines 105-107) while wearing diamonds. Still silent, she envisions herself as a “wordless Odalisque” (Line 109), who is an exotic, sexually attractive concubine. Reframing herself as a beautiful and noble woman, she seeks to reclaim her own sexuality and to return to her African heritage. Even after years away, she has “not forgotten [her] Xhosa / clicks” (Lines 110-111), her language that uses sounds foreign to European dialects, and she retains her heritage.

Alexander ends the poem by returning to the dissection of Baartman’s body and the scientific imagery of Cuvier’s section. Baartman wishes that during the dissection, she could “rise up / from this table” (Lines 114-115). She wants to “spirit / his knives and cut out his black heart” (Lines 115-116). Aiming for his heart, she seeks to inflict the damage he and those like him have done to her. She will store it “with science fluid inside / a bell jar” (Lines 117-118). Like her genitalia, she will display his heart in “a white man’s museum” (Lines 119), but she will keep it on “a low / shelf” (Line 118-119) instead of in a place of supposed honor. As a result, “the whole world” (Line 120) will be able to see how “shriveled and hard, geometric, deformed, unnatural” (Lines 121-122) his heart is. This final image of the dissected heart emphasizes Alexander’s criticism of scientific racism, and the mistreatment of Black women throughout history.