Slavery and the Literary Imagination

• Author(s): Deborah E. McDowell, Arnold Rampersad,
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Pages: 172
• ISBN_10: 0801837561
  ISBN_13: 9780801837562
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Literary Criticism / American / General , Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory , Science / History , Social Science / Slavery ,

Description:... Seven noted scholars examine slave narratives and the topic of slavery in American literature, from Frederick Douglass's "Narrative" (1845) to Sherley Anne Williams's "Dessa Rose" (1984). Arnold Rampersad reads W. E. B. DuBois's classic work "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903) as a response to Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery" (1901). Hazel V. Carby examines novels of slavery and novels of sharecropping and questions the critical tendency to conflate the two, thereby also conflating the nineteenth century with the twentieth, the rural with the urban. Although works by Afro-American writers are the primary focus, the authors also examine antislavery novels by white women. In a concluding chapter, Deborah E. McDowell's reading of "Dessa Rose" reveals how slavery and freedom continue to command the attention of contemporary authors. -- From publisher's description.