Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry [Hardcover]

In this insightful and provocative volume, Rameyreveals spirituals and slave songs to be a crucial element in American literature. This book shows slave songs'intrinsic value as lyric poetry, sheds light on their roots and originality, anddraws new conclusions on anart form long considereda touchstone of cultural imagination.Slave Songs as Lyric Poetry The Theology of the Lyric Tradition in the Spirituals Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry The Cognitive Work of the Slave Songs Slave Songs and the American Poetry Canon The Spirituals as Song

A final quintet of publications attests to interest in the lasting effects of 19th-century culture and ideas. Lauri Ramey, Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry (Palgrave), presents a valuable study of the formal and thematic characteristics of slave songs, most of which were collected and published in the latter half of the century. Ramey explains how they have been marginalized in the disciplinary study of folklore, religion, and music while also making a strong case for reading them as poetry, as literary texts worthy of inclusion in the canon. In a series of thematically and topically arranged chapters, she demonstrates their influence on Paul Laurence Dunbar and on a wide array of later poets. - American Literary Scholarship The corpus of slave songs is enormous, and their impact on African American literature has long been acknowledged. But little has been written about the connection between these songs and American literature. Slave songs are usually marginalized in, or omitted altogether from, literary anthologies and studies of verse. Even classic, if now dated, works examining the songs - including Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (CH, Jul'77) and Dena Epstein's Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (CH, Sep'78) - fail to discuss the poetic aspects of the songs. Ramey (CSU, Los Angeles) attempts to fill this glaring void with this erudite yet readable volume. The lC'