Manchild in the Compromised Land
Intertextuality and Arna Bontemps's Lonesome Boy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11271985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nancy Kang (University of Baltimore, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 114-139 |
| Publication date | 2014-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mlu044 |
| OpenAlex | W2023510180 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
This essay establishes an intertextual genealogy between two works of children's literature by Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps—Lonesome Boy (1955) and Bubber Goes to Heaven (1932; published 1998)—and eighteenth-century clergyman John Marrant's rousing memoir Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black (1785). After establishing critical contexts, the discussion juxtaposes these texts in order to underscore startlingly similar themes, concerns, and motifs, among them the role of music, the symbolism of trees, and the coming-of-age of an alienated or otherwise unique child artist. The objective is to reassert the importance of these texts in view of excavating a collaborative, double-voiced tradition between Bontemps and earlier narratives such as Marrant's.
Art · Art history · Harlem Renaissance · Heaven · Intertextuality · Literature · Memoir · Narrative · Order (exchange) · Performance art · The Renaissance · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |