African-American Literature

Question 1

African- American literature characteristics

Answer 1

• Oral and performative way of conveying
• Themes: religion, work songs, folk tales, animal cycles, hero cycles
• Mix of African and European elements:
  - African: orality, tales on animal figures, rhythm., communal storytelling, antiphonal structure, call-response, glossolalia and West African animist pantheon
  -European: English language, Christianity and its iconography, political aspirations

Question 2

African-American literature early slave narratives characteristics (4) and works

Answer 2

-Not openly political
-“Spiritual plot”
-Little sense of community
-Often border on “success stories”

“Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Britton Hammon, a Negro Man”
“The Narrative of the Lord’s Wonderful DEalings with John Marrant, A Black”
“Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equinao, or Gustavus Vassa”

Question 3

African-American later narratives post-1800 characteristics (11) and works

Answer 3

• Influenced by the Independence of Haiti
• Political in character
• Abolitionist politics
• Sense of black community
• Reading and writing: instrumental to gaining awareness of slavery and to achieving freedom
• Originally oral
• Influenced by Puritan confessional forms, bizantine-adventure novels, European picaresque novel, sentimental literature
• Framing material
• Chronological order
• Simple, direct language
• Frequent reference to arguments against slavery.

“The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass Written By HImself”
“The Narrative of William Wells Brown”
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”

Question 4

Early Black Fiction 1850s (5 authors)

Answer 4

Frederick Douglass “The Heroic Slave”
William Wells Brown “Clotel, or the President’s Daughter”
Martin R. Delaney “Blake, or the Huts of America”
Harriet Wilson “Our Nig”
Julia C. Collins “The Curse of Caste, or the Slave Bride”