Reading Africa Into American Literature: Epics, Fables, and Gothic Tales

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University Press of Kentucky, 2002 - Literary Criticism - 270 pages
The literature often considered the most American is rooted not only in European and Western culture but also in African and American Creole cultures. Keith Cartwright places the literary texts of such noted authors as George Washington Cable, W.E.B. DuBois, Alex Haley, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Joel Chandler Harris, Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, and many others in the context of the history, spiritual traditions, folklore, music, linguistics, and politics out of which they were written. Cartwright grounds his study of American writings in texts from the Senegambian.

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Contents

Towards a Hippikat Poetics
1
From Sunjata to The Souls of Black Folk
25
Toomer Hurston and Ellison
48
Malcolm X Kunta Kinte and Milkman Dead
68
African Roots GeecheeGombo Tales
93
Joel Chandler Harriss Other Fellow
114
Milk Bonds and the Maumer Tongue
130
Senegambian Muslims Scriptural Mercy and Plantation Slavery
157
Babo and Bras Coupé Malign Machinations Gothic Plots
181
On Boomeranging Trumps Rememory and the Novel as Medium
203
Notes
231
Works Cited
241
Index
259
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