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GATES, HENRY LOUIS, JR. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self
Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press. 1989, 3rd printing. (ISBN: 0195060741) Trade Paperback , 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. xxxii, 311 pp. illus. bib. notes, index; 21 cm. Tight, clean copy. "Awarded Honorable Mention from the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize Committee of the American Studies Association, Figures in Black takes a provocative new look at how we analyze and define black literature. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. attacks the notion that the dominant mode of Afro-American literature is, or should be, a kind of social realism, evaluated primarily as a reflection of the 'Black Experience.' Instead, Gates insists that critics turn to the language of the text and bring to their work the close, methodical analysis of language made possible by modern literary theory. But his goal in this volume is not merely to 'apply' contemporary theory to black texts. Indeed, as he ranges from 18th-century poet Phillis Wheatley to modern writers Ishmael Reed and Alice Walker, he attempts to redefine literary criticism itself, moving it away from a Eurocentric notion of a hierarchical canon--mostly white, Western, and male--to foster a truly comparative and pluralisic notion of literature. In doing so, he provides critics with a powerful tool for the analysis of black art and, more important, reveals for all readers the brilliance and depth of the Afro-American tradition." - Publisher. Fine.
Offered for US$ 13.00 by: Left Coast Books - Book number: 019309