The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865

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University of Virginia Press, 2001 - History - 374 pages

From the earliest texts of the colonial period to works contemporary with Emancipation, African American literature has been a dialogue across color lines, and a medium through which black writers have been able to exert considerable authority on both sides of that racial demarcation.

Dickson D. Bruce argues that contrary to prevailing perceptions of African American voices as silenced and excluded from American history, those voices were loud and clear. Within the context of the wider culture, these writers offered powerful, widely read, and widely appreciated commentaries on American ideals and ambitions. The Origins of African American Literature provides strong evidence to demonstrate just how much writers engaged in a surprising number of dialogues with society as a whole.

Along with an extensive discussion of major authors and texts, including Phillis Wheatley's poetry, Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Martin Delany's Blake, Bruce explores less-prominent works and writers as well, thereby grounding African American writing in its changing historical settings. The Origins of African American Literature is an invaluable revelation of the emergence and sources of the specifically African American literary tradition and the forces that helped shape it.

 

Contents

Background to an African American Literature 16801760
1
The Age of Revolution 17601800
39
Literary Identity in the New Nation 18001816
92
The Era of Colonization 18161828
135
The Liberator and the Shaping of African American Tradition 18291832
175
Literary Expression in the Age of Abolitionism 18331849
211
African American Voices in the American Crisis 18501861
257
The War for Emancipation and Beyond
301
Notes
315
Works Cited
335
Index
361
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About the author (2001)

Dickson D. Bruce Jr. is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of several books, including And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800-1845, winner of the Southern Anthropological Society's James Mooney Award.