Title Dancing on the color line : African American tricksters in nineteenth-century American literature / Gretchen Martin

Published Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2015]

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Description 1 online resource Contents Introduction -- Swallow Barn's signifying son : trickster wit and subversive hero -- Come back to the cabin ag'in, tom honey! -- Melville's signifying monkey "starts some shit." Summary "The extensive influence of the creative traditions derived from slave culture, particularly black folklore, in the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century black authors, such as Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison, has become a hallmark of African American scholarship. Yet similar inquiries regarding white authors adopting black aesthetic techniques have been largely overlooked. Gretchen Martin examines representative nineteenth-century works to explore the influence of black-authored (or narrated) works on well-known white-authored texts, particularly the impact of black oral culture evident by subversive trickster figures in John Pendleton Kennedy's Swallow Barn, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, Joel Chandler Harris's short stories, as well as Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson. As Martin indicates, such white authors show themselves to be savvy observers of the many trickster traditions and indeed a wide range of texts suggest stylistic and aesthetic influences representative of the artistry, subversive wisdom, and subtle humor in these black figures of ridicule, resistance, and repudiation. The black characters created by these white authors are often dismissed as little more than limited, demeaning stereotypes of the minstrel tradition, yet by teasing out important distinctions between the wisdom and humor signified by trickery rather than minstrelsy, Martin probes an overlooked aspect of the nineteenth-century American literary canon and reveals the extensive influence of black aesthetics on some of the most highly regarded work by white American authors"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher Subject American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism African Americans in literature. African American arts -- Influence Tricksters in literature. African Americans -- Folklore -- History SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Folklore & Mythology. African American arts -- Influence African Americans African Americans in literature American literature Tricksters in literature Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Folklore History Form Electronic book LC no. 2015027386 ISBN 9781496804167 1496804163

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