Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xiv, 152 pages; 21 cm

Summary

1. In ways that are highly individual, says Harris, yet still within a shared oral tradition, Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan skillfully use storytelling techniques to define their audiences, reach out and draw them in, and fill them with anticipation. Considering how such dynamics come into play in Hurston's Mules and Men, Naylor's Mama Day, and Kenan's Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, Harris shows how the "power of the porch" resides in readers as well, who, in giving themselves over to a story, confer it on the writer. Against this background of give and take, anticipation and fulfillment, Harris considers Zora Neale Hurston's special challenges as a black woman writer in the thirties, and how her various roles as an anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist intermingle in her work. In Gloria Naylor's writing, Harris finds particularly satisfying themes and characters. A New York native, Naylor came to a knowledge of the South through her parents and during her stay on the Sea Islands she wrote Mama Day. A southerner by birth, Randall Kenan is particularly adept in getting his readers to accept aspects of African American culture that their rational minds might have wanted to reject. Although Kenan is set apart from Hurston and Naylor by his alliances with a new generation of writers intent upon broaching certain taboo subjects (in his case gay life in small southern towns), Kenan's Tims Creek is as rife with the otherworldly and the fantastic as Hurston's New Orleans and Naylor's Willow Springs.

Series statement

1. Mercer University Lamar memorial lectures ; no. 39

Uniform title

1. Mercer University Lamar memorial lectures ; no. 39.

Subject

1. Hurston, Zora Neale > Criticism and interpretation
2. Naylor, Gloria > Criticism and interpretation
3. Kenan, Randall > Criticism and interpretation
4. Hurston, Zora Neale
5. Kenan, Randall
6. Naylor, Gloria
7. Hurston, Zora Neale 1891-1960
8. Kenan, Randall 1963-2020
9. Naylor, Gloria 1950-2016
10. Naylor, Gloria, (1950- ...) > Critique et interprétation
11. Kenan, Randall > Critique et interprétation
12. Hurston, Zora Neale, (1891-1960) > Critique et interprétation
13. Naylor, Gloria
14. Kenan, Randall
15. Hurston, Zora Neale
16. 1900-1999
17. American fiction > African American authors > History and criticism
18. Literature and folklore > Southern States > History > 20th century
19. American fiction > Southern States > History and criticism
20. African Americans > Intellectual life > 20th century
21. African American oral tradition > Southern States
22. African Americans > Southern States > Folklore
23. Narration (Rhetoric) > History > 20th century
24. African Americans in literature
25. Storytelling in literature
26. Literature and folklore > Southern States
27. Oral tradition > Southern States
28. Narration (Rhetoric)
29. Black or African American > folklore
30. Oral tradition
31. African American oral tradition
32. African Americans
33. African Americans in literature
34. African Americans > Intellectual life
35. American fiction
36. American fiction > African American authors
37. Literature
38. Literature and folklore
39. Storytelling in literature
40. Mündliche Erzählung
41. Mündliche Überlieferung
42. Prosa
43. Schwarze
44. Epik
45. Roman américain > Écrivains noirs américains > Histoire et critique
46. Littérature et folklore > États-Unis (sud) > Histoire > 20e siècle
47. Noirs américains > États-Unis (sud) > Folklore
48. Southern States > In literature
49. Southern States
50. USA > Südstaaten
51. Schwärze
52. États-Unis (sud) dans la littérature

Genre/Form

1. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Folklore
3. History

Contents

1. Performing personae and Southern hospitality : Zora Neale Hurston in Mules and Men -- The eye as voice and ear : African Southern orality and folklore in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day -- Southern voices, Southern tales : Randall Kenan's "Clarence and the Dead."

Owning institution

1. Princeton University Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-147) and index.