The Music in African American Fiction [Hardcover]

Originally published in 1995, The Music of African American Fiction is a historical analysis of the tradition of representing music in African American fiction. The book examines the impact of evolving musical styles and innovative musicians on black culture as is manifested in the literature. The analysis begins with the slave narratives and the emergence of the first black fiction of the antebellum years and moves through the Reconstruction. This is followed by analyses of definitive fictional representations of African American music from the turn-of-the-century through Harlem Renaissance, the Depression and World War II eras through the 1960s and the Black Arts Movement. The representation of black music shapes a lineage that extends from the initial chronicles written in response to sub-human bondage to the declarations of an autonomous black aesthetic and dramatically influences the evolution of an African American literary tradition.

Introduction  Acknowledgements  Part I: They Sang a Song of Triumph  1. Go Sound the Jubilee : Slave Narratives  2. Uplifting the Race   Part II: Depths to Which Mere Sound Had No Business to Go   3. The Most Treasured Heritage of the American Negro   4. Their Joy Runs, Bang! Into Ecstasy   Part III: The Only True History of the Times   5. Not Many People Ever Really Hear It   6. The Brother Does Not [Does] Sing  Part IV: The Length of the Music Was the Only Form   7. There Must be Some People Who Lived for Music   8. The Sound Baked Inside Their Heads   Coda: What Good is a Liturgy Without a Text?   Selected Bibliography  Selected Discography  Index

Originally published in 1995,lã—