Figures in Black : Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" SelfOxford University Press, USA, 1987 M07 16 - 348 pages "The originality, brilliance, and scope of the work is remarkable.... Gates will instruct, delight, and stimulate a broad range of readers, both those who are already well versed in Afro-American literature, and those who, after reading this book, will eagerly begin to be."--Barbara E. Johnson, Harvard University. "A critical enterprise of the first importance.... Gates promises to lead and to show the way in boldness of conception, in vigor of execution, and in vitality and pertinence of expression."--James Olney, Louisiana State University. Recently awarded Honorable Mention from the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize Committee of the American Studies Association, Figures in Black takes a provocative new look at how we analyze and define black literature. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., attacks the notion that the dominant mode of Afro-American literature is, or should be, a kind of social realism, evaluated primarily as a reflection of the "Black Experience." Instead, Gates insists that critics turn to the language of the text and bring to their work the close, methodical analysis of language made possible by modern literary theory. But his goal in this volume is not merely to "apply" contemporary theory to black texts. Indeed, as he ranges from 18th-century poet Phillis Wheatley to modern writers Ishmael Reed and Alice Walker, he attempts to redefine literary criticism itself, moving it away from a Eurocentric notion of a hierarchical canon--mostly white, Western, and male--to foster a truly comparative and pluralisic notion of literature. In doing so, he provides critics with a powerful tool for the analysis of black art and, more important, reveals for all readers the brilliance and depth of the Afro-American tradition. |
Contents
Literary Theory and the Black Tradition | 3 |
A Critique of the Sign | 9 |
Phillis Wheatley and the Nature of the Negro | 61 |
Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Narrative of the Life | 80 |
Frederick Douglass and the Language of the Self | 98 |
Fictions of the Self | 125 |
Dialect and the Descent | 167 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic African Afro-American Afro-American literature argues artistic autobiographies become Bellmont biography black American Black Arts black criticism black literature black poet black texts black tradition Brown called Cane century Chapter color concludes critique culture curious death defined dialect poetry discourse Ellison English essay Estwick European explicate fiction figure Frado Frederick Douglass function Harlem Renaissance Harlequin Harriet Harriet Adams Harriet E Harriet Wilson human irony Ishmael Reed Jean Toomer Jes Grew Johnson language literary criticism literary tradition mask matter meaning metaphor Mumbo Jumbo myth narration nature Negro notion novel parody perhaps Phillis Wheatley poems poetic political published race racial Ralph Ellison Reed Reed's relation relationship remarkable Renaissance rhetorical strategy sense slave narratives slavery social speech spiritual Sterling Brown structure suggest theory tion trope University voice W. E. B. Du Bois Western Wheatley's Wilson word writing written wrote York