Black literature in white America

Author / Creator

Ostendorf, Berndt, author

Available as

Physical

Summary

Examining the resonance and ambiguities of black culture, Ostendorf rejects the idea that black literature warrants criticism merely in formalistic and structural terms. He argues that if there is ...

Examining the resonance and ambiguities of black culture, Ostendorf rejects the idea that black literature warrants criticism merely in formalistic and structural terms. He argues that if there is a 'high style' of black literature, there is also a 'low' or colloquial style, rooted in the folk seculars of the 1830s, that has evolved through the blues poetry of Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown into the "orature" of Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni and Etheridge Knight. Drawing on linguistics, sociology, psychology and anthropology, he observes the displacement of black folk forms first as minstrelsy and later as European transformations, which are reclaimed and restored by black Americans. Discussing the whites' psychological need for minstrelsy, he traces the popularity of race, class, and caste from 1830 to the television programs Good Times and The Jeffersons.

Show More