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Early Black Poetry, Social Justice, And Black Children: Receptions Of Child Activism In African American Literary History, Tabitha Lashay Joy Lowery

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In spite of the substantial amount of critical work that has been produced on the recovery of early African American literature in the last few decades, our representations of black authors are still limited. Current studies of early African American poets privilege the identification of African American literature with resistance to slavery. This identification has persisted and has made the field one-dimensional. My dissertation provides reception histories of four early black poets—Phillis Wheatley, George Moses Horton, Frances Harper, and Paul Laurence Dunbar—to argue for and present an expansive understanding of African American literature. A thorough examination of these authors’ circulation …