Long Black Song

Essays in Black American Literature and Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID9595758
AuthorsHobart Jarrett, Hobart S Jarrett, Houston A Baker
Year1974
Volume46
Issue3
Pages395
Publication date1974-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Literature (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9831 • E-ISSN: 1527-2117
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2924423
OpenAlexW2120204383
LanguageEN
Citations received19

Houston Baker maintains that black American culture, grounded in a unique historical experience, is distinct from any other, and that it has produced a body of literature that is equally and demonstrably unique in its sources, values, and modes of expression. He argues that black American literature is rooted in black folklore- animal tales, trickster slave tales, religious tales, folk songs, spirituals, and ballads- and that a knowledge of this tradition is essential to the understanding of any individual black author or work. To deomonstrate the continuity of this tradition, Baker examines themes that appear in folklore and persist throughout contemporary black literature. Freedom and Apocalypse, for example, traces the idea that black Americans are a chosen people who will, by some violent means, overthrow the white man's tyranny.The essays culminate in an examination of the life and work of Richard Wright. Baker's treatment of Wright as a black American artist who recorded the black man's shift from an agrarian to an urban setting places Wright and the tradition of black literature and culture in a fresh perspective

Aesthetics · Art · Black culture · Black music · Literature · Movement (music) · Sociology · American and British Literature Analysis · Gender Studies · History