The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary CriticismOUP USA, 2014 - 318 páginas Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey, whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system of interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. His critical approach relies heavily on the Signifying Monkey—perhaps the most popular figure in African-American folklore—and signification and Signifyin(g). Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the 'Talking Book', a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. Gates uses this critical framework to examine several major works of African-American literature—including Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo—revealing how these works signify on the black tradition and on each other. The second volume in an enterprising trilogy on African-American literature, The Signifying Monkey—which expands the arguments of Figures in Black—makes an important contribution to literary theory, African-American literature, folklore, and literary history. |
Contenido
A Theory of the Tradition | 1 |
Reading the Tradition | 137 |
Skipping Gates and Breaching Walls | 279 |
Notes | 285 |
307 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vista previa limitada - 1989 |
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism Henry Louis Gates Vista previa limitada - 1989 |
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Vista previa limitada - 2014 |
Términos y frases comunes
African American African American literature Afro-American ain’t Anglo-African babalawo black vernacular Brown’s called canon Celie Celie’s chain chapter Color Purple criticism critique Cugoano culture defines dialect divination double-voiced Equiano essay Esu-Elegbara Esu’s Eyes Were Watching fiction figure formal free indirect discourse function Gronniosaw Ibid indeterminacy interpretation Ishmael Reed Jackson Janie Janie’s jazz Jea’s Jes Grew jigue Jody language Legba letters linguistic Lion literal literary tradition literature Marrant master Mawu meaning metaphor Mitchell-Kernan mode Mumbo Jumbo myth narration Negro novel one’s oral orisha parody play poems poetry present Ralph Ellison Reed Reed’s relation relationship repetition representation represents revision rhetorical strategy ritual Shug Signifyin(g Signifying Monkey slave narratives Soyinka speak speakerly speech standard English story structure Talking Book Tea Cake tells text’s theory things tion tree trickster trope voice Walker Western words Wright writing York Yoruba Zora Neale Hurston