English Language and Literature Commons^™

Black Eve Or Madonna? A Study Of The Antithetical Views Of The Mother In Black American Literature, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Within these two extreme views of woman - the mother who brings death and destruction versus the mother who brings life and salvation - where does the Black American mother stand? It seems to me that it would not be inappropriate to look at the literature, not as mere fiction, but rather as an interpretation and compilation of history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and a host of other areas. Thus the true literary artist reveals life more accurately and with more insight than any historical facts and statistical details, because he deals with the truth of the human heart, with the …

The Hollow Of Echoes, Kathleen Danker, Felix White Sr.

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The Hollow of Echoes is the result of collaboration between Mr. Felix White, Sr. and myself. Mr. White, who resides in Winnebago, Nebraska, is knowledgeable in many areas of traditional Winnebago culture including language, history, legends and law. During the spring of 1973, he recounted to me a number of Winnebago legends of which I made recordings. I have incorporated these legends into a fictional account of a present-day Winnebago grandfather using the stories to instruct his grandchildren in traditional ways of viewing situations they encounter in their daily lives. Almost all of the views of the grandfather in the …

James Baldwin, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

James Baldwin is one of America's best known and most controversial writers. If there is some figurative truth in his declarations "Nobody Knows My Name" and "No Name in the Street," on a realistic level practically everyone knows his name, from people on the street to scholars in the most prestigious universities-and they all respond to him. Those responses are as diverse and as antithetical as the respondents. Indeed, there is little unanimity in the criticism of James Baldwin: some view him as a prophet preaching love and salvation, others as a soothsayer forecasting death and destruction; some see him …

[Introduction To] Shuckin' And Jivin': Folklore From Contemporary Black Americans, Daryl Cumber Dance

Bookshelf

An exciting new collection of Black American folklore, running the gamut from anecdotes concerning life among the slaves to obviously contemporary jokes. In their frank expression of racial attitudes and unexpurgated wit, these tales represent a radical departure from earlier collections.

Tuning In The Boiler Room And The Cotton Patch: New Directions In The Study Of Afro-American Folklore, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

One of the first problems in the study of folklore is, of course, the collection of materials. In almost every area of Black folklore, the collecting was initiated by whites. As I have noted elsewhere, "Black folk forms seem to thrive quietly and abashedly in the Black community as items of private enjoyment and public shame until they are ' discovered ' by whites who legitimize them for the American public-Black and white. Such has been the case with the general folk tales (the animal tales, the etiological myths, the Slave John tales, etc.), the spirituals, and the blues. The …

Wit And Humor In The Slave Narratives, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

This passage suggests something of the nature of Black humor and the function it has served, not only in the slave narratives, but in the folk tales and throughout the history of recorded literature from William Wells Brown to Amiri Baraka. The life revealed in all of these sources is shown to often be alternately degrading and courageous, tragic and absurdly comic, hopeless and yet enduring; indeed that life could hardly ever be termed merely amusing. And the Black character, though he may be seen to laugh, can hardly be deemed carefree, unbothered, satisfied, even truly happy. Indeed the paradox …

In The Beginning: A New View Of Black American Etiological Tales, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

A substantial number of Black folktales may be designated as etiological "myths" in that they tend to focus on the world as it evolved and to frequently portray the role of God in explaining why the Negro is, to quote from one tale, "so messed up," why he is black, why he has big, ugly feet and hands, why his hair is kinky, and why he must remain a poor laborer in a rich society. The causes of all of these "inferior" traits of the Negro appear to be certain alleged defects in his character-his tardiness, his ignorance, his disobedience …

Daddy May Bring Home Some Bread, But He Don't Cut No Ice: The Economic Plight Of The Father Figure In Black American Literature, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

This tale is a forceful and eloquent commentary on the American economic system which conspires to make it impossible for the Black man to acquire anything more than a mere biscuit, no matter how he plays the economic game. If he plays according to the rules, the rules are changed rather than reward him with his just due. If he fails to play according to the rules, others are rewarded for their efforts and he is punished for his failure. He's damned if he does, and he's damned if he doesn't. Everyone knows enough about the history of this country …

Katherine Anne Porter : A Change In Her Mexican Perspective, Mario Paris-Fernandez

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Katherine Anne Porter regards Mexico as her "familiar country." lndeed, Mexico in the art of this gifted American writer is more important than generally believed for, as William Nance says, "Mexico entered into her earliest work as both motivating force and subject matter."

Miss Porter has traveled extensively in Mexico and lived there on several occasions. Her highly developed artistic sensibility has allowed her to gain more than a mere familiarity with the country, its inhabitants, and its history. Naturally, her deep knowledge of the culture is reflected in her artistic production, part of which is devoted exclusively to Mexico. …

You Can't Go Home Again: James Baldwin And The South, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

James Baldwin, like innumerable other Black artists, has found that in his efforts to express the plight of the Black man in America, he has been forced to deal over and over again with that inescapable dilemma of the Black American - the lack of a sense of a positive self-identity. Time after time in his writings he has shown an awareness of the fact that identity contains, as Erik Erikson so accurately indicates, "a complementarity of past and future both in the individual and in society." Baldwin wrote in "Many Thousands Gone," "We cannot escape our origins, however hard …

Contemporary Militant Black Humor, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Witnessing the continued plight of their black brothers in America, noting the continued strength of racism in this country, and discouraged by the slowness and ineffectiveness of integration, they have become frustrated and completely disillusioned with the promise of American democracy. If Paul Laurence Dunbar might be said to reflect in some of his works the accommodationist views of the leading black spokesman of his times, Booker T. Washington; and if Langston Hughes might generally be viewed as advocating the thoughtful, rational methods of Martin Luther King and the N.A.A.C.P. with their disciplined social protest and their optimistic faith in …

African Literature For Use, Jan Wortendyke

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

The Negro In Three Junior Novels, Linda Lea Donahue

Graduate Research Papers

To review current fiction to determine suitability of using it in school as one way of presenting the culture and life styles of the Negro American with the hope of promoting better interracial understanding.

The Concept Of God In The Poetry Of The American Negro, Sister Mary Helena Jones Ssf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in 1943, traces the evolving concept of God in the poetry of the American Negro from the era of slavery through the early 1940s. Sister Mary Helena Jones examines the poets' treatment of the divine attributes of God, including His Power, Love, Justice, Goodness, Immutability, and Mercy, and His relation to man as Saviour, Friend, Master, Shepherd, and King, arguing that this faith, once central to Black religious and poetic expression, has weakened over …

A Critical Analysis Of Negro Character In The American Novel Of The South 1935-1940, Alice Veronica Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I have observed in reading novels by both white and Negro authors that only certain types of Negroes have been portrayed. The question kept rising in my mind, Why? Usually it is the highly colorful, sensational, immoral type that is shown to the exclusion of the self-respecting, decent living, ordinary, everyday Negro.

The Development Of Race Pride In American Negro Poetry, Sister Mary Boniface Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study of the development of race pride in the poetry of American Negro seeks to trace the though of the Negro from his entry into America to the present, including the important periods of history which affected this development and his reaction to them.

Philosophic Trend Of American Negro Poetry, George Stevens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, submitted to Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Master of Arts degree in 1939, traces the philosophic trend in American Negro poetry from 1761 to the contemporary period, examining the shift from an idealistic, religiously grounded poetic sensibility toward a naturalistic worldview. Drawing on primary poetry collections, anthologies, and critical studies of Black American literature, the thesis divides its analysis into three literary-historical periods: the Early Period (1761-1865), the Pre-Renaissance Period (1866-1899), and the Renaissance Period (1900 to the time of writing).

The thesis argues that poetry of the Early Period, beginning with Jupiter Hammon, …

Twentieth Century Negro Poets, Sheila Higgins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

According to Matthew Arnold an open mind is one of the chief essentials for true literary criticism. One is impressed by the truthfulness of this statement when he seeks to evaluate Negro poetry.

The term, Negro poetry, has several interpretations. In its most general sense, the one in which it is used in this paper, it means poetry written by Negroes on any subject. In a more restricted sense it refers to poetry that contains allusions, rhythms, sentiments and idioms more or less peculiar to the Negro. In its narrowest meaning it refers to poetry of racial protest and self-exhortation. …

A Criticism Of Paul Lawrence Dunbar And His Works, Ethel M. Baptiste

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, presented at Xavier University in June 1930 in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, offers a critical study of the life and poetic works of Paul Laurence Dunbar. The thesis opens with a biographical account of Dunbar's impoverished childhood in Dayton, Ohio, his early literary talent, his work as an elevator operator while writing verse, and the publication of his first volume, "Oak and Ivy," in 1893, before turning to a close examination of his poetic output.

The thesis organizes its analysis by literary form, examining Dunbar's lyrics, sonnets, odes, dirges, ballads, and …

The Negro In Literature, A. W. Arnaud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces the development of the Negro in American literature from its origins in the spirituals through the flowering of the "New Negro" Renaissance of the early twentieth century. Arnaud opens by defining literature as the artistic record of a people's inner life and argues that Negro literary expression developed first through song, tracing the movement from oral spirituals through the early poetry of the enslaved and freed population toward increasingly sophisticated literary forms.

The thesis presents Paul Laurence Dunbar as the foremost early exponent of Negro poetry, examining his biography and his work in both classic English verse …

Fictional Advertisement, An Illustration From "Tom Clifton...." By Warren Lee Goss, 1892: "Gang Of 25 Sea Island Cotton And Rice Negroes", Warren Lee Goss

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This item was originally created and disseminated as an illustration in the novel Tom Clifton, or, Western boys in Grant and Sherman's army, '61-'65, by Warren Lee Goss, published in 1892. The advertisement appeared on an unnumbered page in chapter 7.

This is a fictional advertisement for a sale of 25 enslaved people in Charleston, S.C. at Ryan's Mart on Chalmers Street, September 25, 1852.

New-England Or A Briefe Enarration Of The Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish And Fowles Of That Country. With A Description Of The Natures, Orders, Habits, And Religion Of The Natives; In Latine And English Verse, William Morrell, Andrew Gaudio , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This text, a Latin poem in dactylic hexameter with an accompanying English translation in heroic verse stands as the earliest surviving work of poetry about New England and the second oldest poem whose origins can be traced directly to the British American colonies. Only two copies of the original 1625 edition are known to survive; one is held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the other is housed at the British Museum. The Latin portion comprises 309 lines and praises the geographic features, flora and fauna of New England, and spends a majority of its verses describing …