Description
Book SynopsisThis textbook has been designed to confront a central issue in the study of 19th-century Afro-American literature - the question of how to analyse and evaluate the autobiographical tradition of ex-slaves.
Trade Review`An imnpressive collection.' New York Times Book Review
`This important collection of essays provides the most complete and cogent analysis of the slave narratives to date, and it demonstrates, again, that the narratives had and continue to have many uses ... The essays make a strong case for opening the historical and literary canon to include the slave narratives and testify to their enduring significance.' Library Journal
`The Slave's Narrative is the most sophisticated and comprehensive book we have yet on the central issue facing students of 19th Century Afro-American literature: the question of how to analyse and evaluate the autobiographical tradition of ex-slaves. ...it is unlikely that any single collection of essays could do greater justice than The Slave's Tale has to the breadth, vitality, and untapped potential of this topic and the discourse it has generated.'William L. Andrews, University of Wisconsin, (BALF Spring/Summer 1986)
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Language of Slavery, xi 1. Written by Themselves, Views and Reviews, 1750-1861 The Life of Job Ben Solomon, 4 - Anonymous The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African; Written by Himself, 5 The Life and Adventures of a Fugitive Slave, 6 - Anonymous Narrative of James Williams, 8 - Anonymous The Narrative of Juan Manzano, 15 - Anonymous Narratives of Fugitive Slaves, 19 - Ephraim Peabody Life of Henry Bibb, 28 - Anonymous The Life and Bondage of Frederick Douglass, 30 - Anonymous Kidnapped and Ransomed, 31 - - Anonymous Linda: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, 32 - Anonymous 2. The Slave Narratives as History On Dialect Usage, 37 - Sterling A. Brown The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, 40 - Paul D. Escott History from Slave Sources, 48 - C. Vann Woodward Charles Chesnutt and the WPA Narratives: The Oral and the Literate Roots of Afro-American Literature, 59 - John Edgar Wideman Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems, 78 - John W. Blassingame Plantation Factories and the Slave Work Ethic, 98 - Gerald Jaynes The Making of a Fugitive Slave Narrative: Josiah Henson and Uncle Tom -- A Case Study, 112 - Robin W. Winks 3. The Slave Narratives as Literature "I Was Born": Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature, 148 - James Olney Three West African Writers of the 1870s, 175 - Paul Edwards Crushed Geraniums: Juan Francisco Manzano and the Language of Slavery, 199 - Susan Willis I Rose and Found My Voice: Narration, Authentication, and Authorial Control in Four Slave Narratives, 225 - Robert Burns Stepto Autobiographical Acts and the Voice of the Southern Slave, 242 - Houston A. Baker, Jr. Text and Contexts of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, 262 - Jean Fagan Yellin The Slave Narrators and the Picaresque Mode: Archetypes for Modern Black Personae, 283 - Charles H. Nichols Singing Swords: The Literary Legacy of Slavery, 298 - Melvin Dixon Bibliography, 319 Index, 331
