New Essays on Go Tell It on the Mountain [Paperback]

A collection of critical essays on James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.Seen by most as focusing exclusively on the African American fundamentalist church, the work has gained much critical acclaim since its publication in 1953. This collection posits that issues of homosexuality, the construction and quest for identity and anthropological conceptions of community offer more illuminating approaches.Seen by most as focusing exclusively on the African American fundamentalist church, the work has gained much critical acclaim since its publication in 1953. This collection posits that issues of homosexuality, the construction and quest for identity and anthropological conceptions of community offer more illuminating approaches.James Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, has gained a wide readership and much critical acclaim since its publication in 1953. While most critics have seen it as focusing exclusively on the African-American fundamentalist church and its effect on characters brought up within its tradition, these scholars posit that issues of homosexuality, the social construction of identity, anthropological conceptions of community, and the quest for an artistic identity provide more elucidating approaches to the novel.1. Introduction Trudier Harris; 2. A glimpse of the hidden God: dialectical visions in Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain Michael F. Lynch; 3. The South in Go Tell It on the Mountain: Baldwin's personal confrontation Horace Porter; 4. Wrestling with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name: John, Elisha, and the Master Bryan R. Washington; 5. Ambivalent narratives, fragmented selves: performative identities and the mutability of roles in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain Vivian M. May; 6. Baldwin, communitas, and the black masculinist tradition Keith Clark.