Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

"Learn It To The Younguns": Passing On Folk Wisdom, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

This is the book I had been planning to write for the past fifteen years, it was inevitable that if I kept procrastinating, someone would more expeditiously respond to the obvious void. Finally H. Nigel Thomas has provided the kind of exploration and explication of the use, influence, and impact of Black folklore on literature that I perceived was so much needed. Despite the numerous published commentaries on the influence of Afro-American folklore on individual works and specific authors, and the occasional consideration of its influence on a particular genre or a limited period (such as Keith Byerman's focus on …

Tatape Pekkappɨh Sun Killer (Cottontail And The Sun), Jon P. Dayley

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

COMMENTS: The following Shoshone tale, Tatape Pekkappɨh "Sun Killer," also known as "Cottontail and the Sun, " was told to me in 1968 at Fort Hall, Idaho, by Mrs. Myrtle Nevada. I recorded the tale on tape and later transcribed, translated, and linguistically analyzed it with the aid of Mrs. Nevada's niece, Mrs. Lillian Vallely. Mrs. Nevada was a well-known storyteller and had been telling tales like this for many years. She was in her late seventies in 1968, and unfortunately, like most of the other great Shoshone natɨkwinnawappinnɨɨ "storytellers," she has since passed away. The tale was told in …

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 …

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 …

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.

"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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Sentimentalism In Dreiser's Heroines, Carrie And Jennie, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Theodore Dreiser is usually hailed as a pioneer of American realism who freed American literature from Victorian restraints, from nineteenth century idealism and optimism, and from the ever-present moralizing of domestic sentimentalism. It is interesting to note, however, that this shockingly modern trailblazer not only stands at the dawn of a new era in literature, but also at the twilight of the old, for in Dreiser is a mixture of both the new realism and naturalism and the old sentimentalism that had dominated American literature from its inception.

The Practicability Of Latin In The Secondary School, Samuel Nisbet

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of The Twentieth Century British And American Criticism Of Sir Walter Scott's Major Narrative Poems, Roseanna Burke

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote De La Mancha, Dorothy Flammer

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This book is being edited at the suggestion of colleagues who feel a great need for a Spanish reader with the the following qualifications:

1. A good connected story from Spanish Literature
2. Subject matter suitable for adolescents
3. Sufficiently simple for use in Beginning Spanish

This is an edited version of Part One, and consequently is simplified and cut. Many authorities prefer to wait until students get to college so that they may be introduced to the great masterpiece in its original. In as much as the average high school student does not take more than two years of Spanish, this system …

A Study Of The Vocabularies In Recently Written First And Second Year High School Latin Texts To Determine The Probable Influence Of The Latin Word List Of The College Entrance Examination Board, Cecil R. Erwin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of The Professional Success Of Members And Non-Members Of The Men's Societies In The Indiana State Teachers College, W. Edward Fisher

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.