An Analysis of Zora Heale Hurston's Characteristics of Negro Expression

ISBN-13: 9781912128112 / Angielski

Mercedes Aguirre;Benjamin Lempert

Opis

A critical analysis of African-American novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston' 1934 essay Characteristics of Negro Expression: A crushing evaluation of the many racial prejudices of 1930s America, including a common presumption that African American art was unoriginal - merely poorly copying white culture. Hurston's approach and premises may seem in many ways dated to modern readers, but the essay still shows an incisive mind carefully evaluating arguments and cutting them down to size. African-American art of the time did not - Hurston influentially argued - play by the same rules as white art, so it could not meaningfully be discussed by 'white' notions of aesthetic value. Where white European tradition views art as something fixed, Hurston saw African-American art works as a distinctive form of mimicry, reshaping and altering the original object until it became something new and novel. In this way, she contended, African-American creative expression is a process that generates its own form of originality - turning borrowed material into something original and unique. By carefully evaluating the relevance of previous arguments, Hurston showed African American artistic expression in an entirely new light.

Spis treści

Ways In to the Text  Who was Zora Heale Hurston?  What does Characteristics of Negro Expression Say?  Why does Characteristics of Negro Expression Matter?  Section 1: Influences  Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context  Module 2: Academic Context  Module 3: The Problem  Module 4: The Author's Contribution  Section 2: Ideas  Module 5: Main Ideas  Module 6: Secondary Ideas  Module 7: Achievement  Module 8: Place in the Author's Work  Section 3: Impact  Module 9: The First Responses  Module 10: The Evolving Debate  Module 11: Impact and Influence Today  Module 12: Where Next?  Glossary of Terms  People Mentioned in the Text  Works Cited