English Language and Literature Commons^™

Bosom Buddies And Lonely Hearts, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

In Ossie Davis' Purlie Victorius, Ol' Cap'n nostalgically reminisces about the good old days when he enjoyed what he recollects as close loving relationships with Blacks. He recalls to Gitlow "how you and me growed up together. Had the same mammy - my mammy was your mother." And Gitlow responds, "Yessir! Bosom buddies." Despite the satire and irony with which Ossie Davis consciously invests this scene, it suggest to me another irony - one which Davis certainly did not intend - and that is that one of the images of the Black woman which has frequently been shared by …

Literary Nationalism And Ambivalence In Washington Irving's The Life And Voyages Of Christopher Columbus, John D. Hazlett

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Comedy: The Uncertain Terrain Of John Hawkes, Peter Johnson

English Faculty Publications

This dissertation examines the nature and function of

John Hawkes' comic method. Although most critics acknowledge

that Hawkes writes comedy, very few of them

agree on the moral nature of this comedy. Chapter I

examines these differing responses to Hawkes' work and

offers an alternative way of evaluating his humor, based

on his own and other critics' comments on comedy. This

chapter also suggests that our responses to Hawkes' humor

occur on an uncertain terrain where two or more, sometimes

opposite, reactions to a text clash, forcing us into continuous

moments of indecision.

Chapter II deals with Hawkes' first novel, …

Conversion, Revisionism, And Revision In Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return, John D. Hazlett

English Faculty Publications

Malcolm Cowley's first edition of 'Exile's Return: A Narrative of Ideas' (1934) was an autobiographical narrative which traced Cowley and his friends on their ideological odyssey from bohemianism to Marxism. Cowley's 'Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s' (1951) was written because Cowley, like other writers of his generation, was embarrassed by his decade of Marxist enthusiasm and, coupled with a national mood increasingly hostile to Communism, he now perceived his view of history in the first book as a literary flaw. However, once that view was judged inaccurate, it was easy for Cowley to convince himself that "self" …

Now Goe Seeke Thy Peace In Warre’: Jonson’S Stoic Consolatio, Gregory M. Sadlek

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Zora Neale Hurston, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Some new information is occasionally being ferreted out that may help to cast additional light on some of these issues, but quite clearly Zora Neale Hurston will remain something of an enigma - too complex a figure to reach any easy conclusions about, except perhaps that she defies simple characterization. People responded to her (and still do) very emotionally: her detractors despise her bitterly; her defenders love her passionately. All agree that she was eccentric, colorful, entertaining, humorous, and unforgettable.

Perhaps the most crucial question to pose about her is why one of the most important figures in the Harlem …

To Wait Or To Act? Troilus, Ii, 954, Gregory M. Sadlek

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mariann Russell: Melvin B. Tolson's Harlem Gallery: A Literary Analysis, Grace Farrell

English Faculty Publications

Book Review by Grace Farrell Lee.

Russell, Mariann. Melvin B. Tolson's Harlem gallery: a literary analysis. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980.

The Sexualization Of Racism In Richard Wright's 'The Man Who Killed A Shadow', Earle V. Bryant

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Henry James's Major Phase: Making Room For The Reader, Carl D. Malmgren

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Making Sense Of It, Steven Zemelman, Elaine Chaika

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Jamaica Novel Has Ring Of Truth. The Harder They Come By Michael Thelwell (Book Review), Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

In a recent interview, Michael Thelwell told of being present at a Caribbean Day celebration in New York attended by countless people with "a nostalgia for their country" and of his resultant resolve to give Jamaicans and their children something to read about themselves. In "The Harder They Come," Thelwell has more than achieved his goal, for the novel does not merely offer a bit of nostalgia for homesick Jamaicans; it is also a thrilling introduction to a culture and a people for the outsider.

Timon Of Athens: The Iconography Of False Friendship, Clifford Davidson

English Faculty Publications

The realization that iconographic tableaux appear at central points in the drama of Shakespeare no longer seems to involve a radical critical perspective. Thus a recent study is able to show convincingly that the playwright presented audiences with a Hamlet who upon his first appearance on stage illustrated what the Renaissance would certainly have recognized as the melancholic contemplative personality. As I have noted in a previous article, the hero of Macbeth when he sees the bloody dagger before him is in fact perceiving the image which most clearly denotes tragedy itself; in the emblem books, the dagger is indeed …

British Reviews Of Shikasta, Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph] British reviewers had mixed reactions to Shikasta, the first novel in Doris Lessing's new series, "Canopus in Argos: Archives." Favorable and critical comments balanced one another, often within the same review. Furthermore, reactions tended to be extreme: either it was a magnificent novel (Times 11/15/79) or reading it was "a shameful waste of precious and irreplaceable time." (Sun Telegraph 11/18/79); or it was simultaneously great and boring. In general, British reviews of Shikasta were more perceptive than those of the second novel in Lessing's new series, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five. Because …

British Reviews Of Marriages, Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) British reviews of Doris Lessing's second novel in her "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five, were more favorable than those of the first novel, Shikasta. However, compared with comments about Shikasta, both negative and positive remarks about Marriages were less perceptive and more often blatantly inaccurate, perhaps because a novel dealing with male-fem ale relationships draws forth in reviewers and other readers the multitude of misconceptions and prejudices that abound on this topic. Moreover, although reviewers obviously enjoyed reading Marriages more than they did Shikasta, their praise …

"Aunt Sue's Stories": The Use Of Folklore In The Teaching Of Literature, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

This poem by Langston Hughes, one of America's most prolific poets, suggests the appeal of folklore to the young. Aunt Sue's stories inspire the response that every teacher of literature aspires to elicit from his students. I would like to suggest that the most natural thing in the world for the teacher is to capitalize on this appeal of folklore to help develop an interest in and an appreciation for recorded literature. Folklore can do much to help the student bridge the gap between his own world and what seems to many to be the alien world of Shakespeare. Our …

Madness And Sexual Politics In The Feminist Novel: Studies On Brontë, Woolf, Lessing, And Atwood, By Barbara Hill Rigney. The University Of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1978 (Book Review), Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph] Barbara Hill Rigney's aim in Madness and Sexual Politics in the Feminist Novel is "to reconcile feminism and psychology in the areas of literary criticism" and "to find examples in the major works of four representative feminist writers of the relationship between madness and the female condition." (p. 3). Rigney analyzes four novels, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Doris Lessing's The Four-Gated City, and Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, and finds that "all depict insanity in relation to sexual politics and state that madness, to a greater or lesser degree, is connected to …

Following In Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks: Autobiographical Notes By The Author Of Shuckin' And Jivin', Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

As I began to peruse collections and studies of black folklore, I found that although considerable work had been done from which I was l earning a great deal, there were some aspects of black folklore with which I was personally familiar (from my childhood in Charles City, Virginia, my college days in Petersburg, and my adult life in Richmond) that I had observed as influence in numerous literary works, particularly on temporary works, that were not included in the material was finding, or were not presented in anything even vaguely resembling the versions I knew and saw represented in …

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 …

Grammars And Teaching, Elaine Chaika

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Habits And Ben Jonson's Humours, Robert Shenk

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Psychomachia By Marcus Aurelius Prudentius, Translated From Latin With An Introduction, Peter Johnson

English Faculty Publications

This Masters thesis is an introduction to and prose translation of Prudentius’s Psychomachia. In the introduction, besides discussing personification allegory, I suggest that the synthesis of classical and Christian elements in the Psychomachia is a response to the historical phenomena of the times. The conflict between the Christian and pagan elements is important because it mirrors the action of the poem itself, in which the soul tries to cope with the presence of two battling opposite forces: the Virtues and the Vices. This internalized soul conflict is a personalized representation of 4^th Century Church history, during which intellectuals …

Hermione Lee's The Novels Of Virginia Woolf [Book Review], Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Staging The York Creation, And Fall Of Lucifer, Clifford Davidson

English Faculty Publications

The Creation, and Fall of Lucifer by the York Realist was intended to provide a spectacular opening for the Corpus Christi cycle, of which the city of York felt very proud in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Since the York Realist appears to have been particularly sensitive to the conditions of production, this opening play provides a useful focus for attention to the staging used in the York cycle. The internal evidence of the Realist's Creation, and Fall of Lucifer demonstrates that he was not writing a mere literary exercise, but kept in mind the specifics of stage production.

Seeing And Blindness: A Conversation With Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Farrell

English Faculty Publications

Text of a conversation between Grace Farrell Lee and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

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 …