The political value of African American literature has long been a topic of great debate among American writers, both black and white, from Thomas Jefferson to .
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- Сведения о продавце
- What Will Be African-American Literature?
- What Will Be African-American Literature?
These spiritual narratives have often been left out of the study of African-American literature because some scholars have deemed them historical or sociological documents, despite their importance to understanding African-American literature as a whole. African-American women who wrote spiritual narratives had to negotiate the precarious positions of being black and women in early America. Women claimed their authority to preach and write spiritual narratives by citing the Epistle of James , often calling themselves "doers of the word".
Women who wrote these narratives had a clear knowledge of literary genres and biblical narratives. Zilpha Elaw was born in in America to free parents. She was a preacher for five years in England without the support of a denomination. Her narrative was meant to be an account of her spiritual experience. Yet some critics argue that her work was also meant to be a literary contribution. Stewart published a collection of her religious writings with an autobiographical experience attached in The publication was called Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. She also had two works published in and titled Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality and Meditations.
Maria Stewart was known for her public speeches in which she talked about the role of black women and race relations. Stewart's works have been argued to be a refashioning of the jeremiad tradition and focus on the specific plight of African Americans in America during the period. Jarena Lee published two religious autobiographical narratives: These two narratives were published in and respectively. Both works spoke about Lee's life as a preacher for the African Methodist Church. But her narratives were not endorsed by the Methodists because a woman preaching was contrary to their church doctrine.
She turned to religion at the age of 16 in an attempt to find comfort from the trials of her life. She became a missionary and in she tried to raise funds for missionary work in the West Indies, publishing a pamphlet entitled The West Indies: These publications were both spiritual narratives and travel narratives. Sojourner Truth — was a leading advocate in both the abolitionist and feminist movements in the 19th century.
Born Isabella to a wealthy Dutch master in Ulster County, New York , she adopted the name Sojourner Truth after 40 years of struggle, first to attain her freedom and then to work on the mission she felt God intended for her. This new name was to "signify the new person she had become in the spirit, a traveler dedicated to speaking the Truth as God revealed it".
She worked tirelessly on several civil rights fronts; she recruited black troops in Michigan, helped with relief efforts for freedmen and women escaping from the South, led a successful effort to desegregate the streetcars in Washington, D. Truth never learned to read or write but in , she worked with Olive Gilbert, a sympathetic white woman, to write the Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
This narrative was a contribution to both the slave narrative and female spiritual narratives. After the end of slavery and the American Civil War, a number of African-American authors wrote nonfiction works about the condition of African Americans in the United States. Many African-American women wrote about the principles of behavior of life during the period. Among the most prominent of post-slavery writers is W.
At the turn of the century, Du Bois published a highly influential collection of essays entitled The Souls of Black Folk. The essays on race were groundbreaking and drew from Du Bois's personal experiences to describe how African Americans lived in rural Georgia and in the larger American society. Du Bois believed that African Americans should, because of their common interests, work together to battle prejudice and inequity. He was a professor at Atlanta University and later at Howard University. Another prominent author of this period is Booker T.
Washington — , who in many ways represented opposite views from Du Bois. Washington was an educator and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute , a historically black college in Alabama. In contrast to Du Bois, who adopted a more confrontational attitude toward ending racial strife in America, Washington believed that Blacks should first lift themselves up and prove themselves the equal of whites before asking for an end to racism.
While this viewpoint was popular among some Blacks and many whites at the time, Washington's political views would later fall out of fashion. Elizabeth Keckley — was a former slave who managed to establish a successful career as a dressmaker who catered to the Washington political elite after obtaining her freedom. However, soon after publishing Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years as a Slave and Four Years in the White House , she lost her job and found herself reduced to doing odd jobs.
Although she acknowledged the cruelties of her enslavement and her resentment towards it, Keckley chose to focus her narrative on the incidents that "moulded her character", and on how she proved herself "worth her salt". Keckley was also deeply committed to programs of racial improvement and protection and helped found the Home for Destitute Women and Children in Washington, D. In addition to this, Keckley taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Brown wrote the first ten chapters of the narrative while studying in France, as a means of satisfying her classmates' curiosity about her father.
Brown was a qualified teacher but she was also extremely active as an advocate against slavery. Although not a US citizen, the Jamaican Marcus Garvey — , was a newspaper publisher, journalist, and activist for Pan Africanism who became well known in the United States. He encouraged black nationalism and for people of African ancestry to look favorably upon their ancestral homeland. Some of his lecture material and other writings were compiled and published as nonfiction books by his second wife Amy Jacques Garvey as the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or, Africa for the Africans and More Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Paul Laurence Dunbar , who often wrote in the rural, black dialect of the day, was the first African-American poet to gain national prominence.
Much of Dunbar's work, such as When Malindy Sings , which includes photographs taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club, and Joggin' Erlong provide revealing glimpses into the lives of rural African Americans of the day. Though Dunbar died young, he was a prolific poet, essayist, novelist among them The Uncalled , and The Fanatics , and short story writer. Other African-American writers also rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Among these is Charles W. Chesnutt , a well-known short story writer and essayist. Mary Weston Fordham published Magnolia Leaves in , a book of poetry on religious, spiritual, and occasionally feminist themes with an introduction by Booker T.
Сведения о продавце
Harper — wrote four novels, several volumes of poetry, and numerous stories, poems, essays and letters. Born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland, Harper received an uncommonly thorough education at her uncle, William Watkins' school. Harper was hired by the Maine Anti-Slavery Society and in the first six weeks, she managed to travel to twenty cities, giving at least thirty-one lectures.
Harper was often characterized as "a noble Christian woman" and "one of the most scholarly and well-read women of her day", but she was also known as a strong advocate against slavery and the post-Civil War repressive measures against blacks. The Harlem Renaissance from to was a flowering of African-American literature and art. Based in the African-American community of Harlem in New York City , it was part of a larger flowering of social thought and culture.
Numerous Black artists, musicians and others produced classic works in fields from jazz to theater; the renaissance is perhaps best known for the literature that came out of it.
What Will Be African-American Literature?
Among the most renowned writers of the renaissance is poet Langston Hughes , whose first work was published in The Brownies' Book in Edited by James Weldon Johnson , this anthology featured the work of the period's most talented poets, including Claude McKay , who also published three novels, Home to Harlem , Banjo and Banana Bottom, a nonfiction book, "Harlem: Negro Metropolis" and a collection of short stories.
Perhaps his most famous poem is " The Negro Speaks of Rivers ", which he wrote as a young teen. His single, most recognized character is Jesse B. Simple, a plainspoken, pragmatic Harlemite whose comedic observations appeared in Hughes's columns for the Chicago Defender and the New York Post. Simple Speaks His Mind is perhaps the best-known collection of Simple stories published in book form.
Until his death in , Hughes published nine volumes of poetry, eight books of short stories, two novels and a number of plays , children's books and translations. Although Hurston wrote 14 books that ranged from anthropology to short stories to novel-length fiction, her writings fell into obscurity for decades.
Walker found in Hurston a role model for all female African-American writers. While Hurston and Hughes are the two most influential writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, a number of other writers also became well known during this period. They include Jean Toomer , author of Cane , a famous collection of stories, poems, and sketches about rural and urban Black life, and Dorothy West , whose novel The Living is Easy examined the life of an upper-class Black family.
Another popular renaissance writer is Countee Cullen , who in his poems described everyday black life such as a trip he made to Baltimore that was ruined by a racial insult. A Novel of Negro Life , which focused on intraracial prejudice between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance marked a turning point for African-American literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other Black people.
With the renaissance, though, African-American literature—as well as black fine art and performance art—began to be absorbed into mainstream American culture. During this Great Migration , Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the American South and settled in northern cities such as Chicago , where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy.
This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The migration also empowered the growing Civil Rights Movement , which made a powerful impression on Black writers during the s, '50s and '60s. Just as Black activists were pushing to end segregation and racism and create a new sense of Black nationalism, so too were Black authors attempting to address these issues with their writings.
One of the first writers to do so was James Baldwin , whose work addressed issues of race and sexuality. Baldwin, who is best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain , wrote deeply personal stories and essays while examining what it was like to be both Black and homosexual at a time when neither of these identities was accepted by American culture. Baldwin's idol and friend was author Richard Wright , whom Baldwin called "the greatest Black writer in the world for me".
Wright is best known for his novel Native Son , which tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a Black man struggling for acceptance in Chicago. Baldwin was so impressed by the novel that he titled a collection of his own essays Notes of a Native Son , in reference to Wright's novel. However, their friendship fell apart due to one of the book's essays, "Everybody's Protest Novel," which criticized Native Son for lacking credible characters and psychological complexity. The other great novelist of this period is Ralph Ellison , best known for his novel Invisible Man , which won the National Book Award in Even though he did not complete another novel during his lifetime, Invisible Man was so influential that it secured his place in literary history.
After Ellison's death in , a second novel, Juneteenth , was pieced together from the 2,plus pages he had written over 40 years. A fuller version of the manuscript was published as Three Days Before the Shooting The Civil Rights time period also saw the rise of female Black poets, most notably Gwendolyn Brooks , who became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize when it was awarded for her book of poetry, Annie Allen. Along with Brooks, other female poets who became well known during the s and '60s are Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez.
During this time, a number of playwrights also came to national attention, notably Lorraine Hansberry , whose play A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a poor Black family living in Chicago.
What Will Be African-American Literature?
Another playwright who gained attention was Amiri Baraka , who wrote controversial off-Broadway plays. In more recent years, Baraka became known for his poetry and music criticism. It is also worth noting that a number of important essays and books about human rights were written by the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning in the s, African-American literature reached the mainstream as books by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status.
This was also the time when the work of African-American writers began to be accepted by academia as a legitimate genre of American literature. A number of scholars and writers are generally credited with helping to promote and define African-American literature as a genre during this time period, including fiction writers Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and poet James Emanuel.
Negro Literature in America , a collection of black writings released by a major publisher. Toni Morrison , meanwhile, helped promote Black literature and authors when she worked as an editor for Random House in the s and '70s, where she edited books by such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones.
Morrison herself would later emerge as one of the most important African-American writers of the 20th century. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye , was published in Among her most famous novels is Beloved , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery. Another important novel is Song of Solomon , a tale about materialism , unrequited love , and brotherhood.
In the s novelist and poet Alice Walker wrote a famous essay that brought Zora Neale Hurston and her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God back to the attention of the literary world. An epistolary novel a book written in the form of letters , The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her stepfather and then is forced to marry a man who physically abuses her.
The novel was later made into a film by Steven Spielberg. The s also saw African-American books topping the bestseller lists. Among the first to do so was Roots: A fictionalized account of Haley's family history—beginning with the kidnapping of his ancestor Kunta Kinte in Gambia through his life as a slave in the United States— Roots won the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular television miniseries.
Haley also wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X in African-American poets have also garnered attention. Cassells is a recipient of the William Carlos Williams Award. Lesser-known poets such as Thylias Moss also have been praised for their innovative work. Most recently, Edward P. African-American literature has also crossed over to genre fiction. A pioneer in this area is Chester Himes , who in the s and '60s wrote a series of pulp fiction detective novels featuring "Coffin" Ed Johnson and "Gravedigger" Jones, two New York City police detectives. Himes paved the way for the later crime novels of Walter Mosley and Hugh Holton.
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African Americans are also represented in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, with Samuel R. Delany , Octavia E. Saunders , John Ridley , John M. Faucette , Sheree Thomas and Nalo Hopkinson being just a few of the well-known authors. Finally, African-American literature has gained added attention through the work of talk-show host Oprah Winfrey , who repeatedly has leveraged her fame to promote literature through the medium of her Oprah's Book Club.
At times, she has brought African-American writers a far broader audience than they otherwise might have received. While African-American literature is well accepted in the United States, there are numerous views on its significance, traditions, and theories. To the genre's supporters, African-American literature arose out of the experience of Blacks in the United States, especially with regards to historic racism and discrimination, and is an attempt to refute the dominant culture's literature and power.
In addition, supporters see the literature existing both within and outside American literature and as helping to revitalize the country's writing. To critics [ who? In addition, there are some within the African-American community who do not like how their own literature sometimes showcases Black people. Throughout American history, African Americans have been discriminated against and subject to racist attitudes. This experience inspired some Black writers, at least during the early years of African-American literature, to prove they were the equals of European-American authors.
As Henry Louis Gates, Jr, has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture. By refuting the claims of the dominant culture, African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States.
Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora , African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power.
This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for Black political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, perhaps most famously by W. According to Joanne Gabbin, a professor, African-American literature exists both inside and outside American literature. Even though African Americans have long claimed an American identity, during most of United States history they were not accepted as full citizens and were actively discriminated against.
As a result, they were part of America while also outside it.
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Similarly, African-American literature is within the framework of a larger American literature, but it also is independent. As a result, new styles of storytelling and unique voices have been created in relative isolation. The benefit of this is that these new styles and voices can leave their isolation and help revitalize the larger literary world McKay, This artistic pattern has held true with many aspects of African-American culture over the last century, with jazz and hip hop being just two artistic examples that developed in isolation within the Black community before reaching a larger audience and eventually revitalizing American culture.
Since African-American literature is already popular with mainstream audiences, its ability to develop new styles and voices—or to remain "authentic," in the words of some critics—may be a thing of the past. Some conservative academics and intellectuals argue that African-American literature exists as a separate topic only because of the balkanization of literature over the last few decades, or as an extension of the culture wars into the field of literature.
This book is also a recital of racism and anti-semitism in England in the early century - not merely among the uneducated or the lunatic fringe of the Tory Party, but amoing the well-educated, the stars of Oxford and Cambridge, and the leaders of the Liberal Party as well. It demonstrates that even so educated and affluent a man as Montagu, almost totally assimilated, who spent a life time trying to escape his Judaism, who married a woman who had nothing but scorn for all religions - was not immune from the pain and humiliation of anti-semitism.
Encompassing a wide range of time periods starting with Thomas Jefferson and ending with Obama as well as diverse categories of literature, the author is successful in answering his opening question--"What is the political value of African American literature? Ultimately, Jarrett argues that literature has been not just a cultural but also a political way for African Americans to combat racism. Encompassing a wide range of time periods starting with Thomas Jefferson and ending with Obama as well as diverse categories of literature, the author is successful in answering his opening question"What is the political value of African American literature?
Jarrett draws our attention away from the legacy of Black Arts in the s to a richly historicized set of case studies from the colonial era to the present. Representing the Race should be of value to anyone interested in the political and social relevance of African American literature. African-American literature and literary engagement is cast in the totalizing light of racial and political representation.
The historical stakes are sweeping and the weight and force of Jarrett's argument cannot be lightly tossed aside. An exemplary model of interdisciplinary inquiry, Representing the Race deftly engages fierce historic and contemporary debates about the relationship between literature, culture and politics to bring us to new and nuanced understandings of them all.
This latest scholarship of Jarrett's is not only field-defining; it stunningly redefines altogether what we think of as the field of African American Studies. Race, Politics and Aesthetics "Representing the Race