We Wear the Mask: African Americans Write American Literature, 1760-1870Columbia University Press, 1997 - 249 pages Uncovers the strategies early African American writers used both to create an African American identity and to make their visions and stories accessible to white readers. Beginning with Phillis Wheatley and John Marrant, who created popular literature by using formulas like that of the Puritan narrative, and ending with the subversive work of Harriet Jacobs and Elizabeth Keckley, Zafar argues that black writers tried every literary strategy--from mimicry and masking to invisibility--as a means of promoting empathy and as a way of transcending the attitudes of mainstream America. By the end of Reconstruction, black authors had paved the way for a distinctive African American literature. |
Table des matières
Wheatley Joel Barlow and Ann Eliza Bleecker | 15 |
African Americans | 41 |
The Narratives | 67 |
It is natural to believe in great men | 89 |
The Blackwoman in the Attic | 117 |
Elizabeth | 151 |
American Literature | 185 |
Notes | 191 |
Bibliography | 223 |
| 243 | |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
We Wear the Mask: African Americans Write American Literature, 1760-1870 Rafia Zafar Aucun aperçu disponible - 1997 |
We Wear the Mask: African Americans Write American Literature, 1760-1870 Rafia Zafar Aucun aperçu disponible - 1997 |
Expressions et termes fréquents
abolitionist African American literary African American literature African American writers African descent Afro-American Andrews Ann Eliza Bleecker antebellum appeared authors autobiography Barlow believed Bellmont Bibb's black American black female black women black writers bondage captivity narratives century chapter child Christian Clotel colonial Critical culture death discussion early African American edition Eliza Potter Elizabeth Keckley enslaved escape Essays European fiction Frado Franklin Frederick Douglass free black freedom friends genre Hammon Harriet Jacobs Henry Bibb Incidents Indian Jacobs's John Marrant Keckley's Lincoln male Mary Todd Mary Todd Lincoln master mother narrators Negro nineteenth-century noted Olaudah Equiano Phillis Wheatley poem poet poetry Protestant published Puritan race racial remarks Reprint rhetorical Richard Rowlandson self-made sexual Slave Girl slave narratives slavery social society story Stowe Stowe's strategies tell tion tradition Uncle Tom's Cabin University Press veil Wheatley's William Wells Brown woman writing written York young