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THEMES FOR AFRICAN
AMERICAN LITERATURE
CALL
AND RESPONSE: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY
THE
BLACK HERO / HEROINE AND THE HEROIC QUEST
QUEST
FOR FREEDOM AND LITERACY
SPEAKING
AND SIGNIFYING: TELLING THE STORY
MASKING
CALL AND RESPONSE: THE INDIVIDUAL AND
THE COMMUNITY
Ritualized action, using pattern in poetry, integral and supportive relationship of community and individual. THE BLACK HERO / HEROINE AND THE HEROIC QUEST A heroic community or family leader, someone who may be a trickster. Motifs include: The articulate hero Journey into the soul of a race Freedom quest and classic quest Hero as custodian of culture QUEST FOR FREEDOM AND LITERACY Literacy as written experience, learning to read and write (before and after 1865), and general concern for education and cultural transference. SPEAKING AND SIGNIFYING: TELLING THE STORY Narrative strategies and issues of audience Voice Dialect, storytelling, point of view, framing Addressing a mixed audience Slave narrative as narrative strategy Question of the trustworthy narrator MASKING Metaphor Wearing the mask Nostalgia, antebellum mask Coding spirituals—masking the freedom quest in spirituals Dialect as mask “Dual consciousness” and "passing" Usefulness of masking Reality of the mask TERMINOLOGY
(you are responsible for dates, context, and examples in your
definitions of these terms.)General Literary Terms: Metaphor Archetype Quest Narrative strategies Voice Hero / Heroine Some Terms Relevant to African American Literature Call and Response Masking Signifying Double consciousness Dialect Black Aesthetics Neo-Slave narrative The Griot The Talking Book Historical and Literary History Terms Slave Codes Middle Passage Miscegenation Mulatto Spiritual Garveyism “Uplift” Jim Crow Harlem Renaissance The Talented Tenth Blues and Jazz Styles Primitivism Negritude Black Arts Movement Black Consciousness / Black Pride Pan Africanism |