A Son's Return: Selected Essays of Sterling A. Brown

摘要: A Son's Return: Selected Essays of Sterling A. Brown. Ed. Mark Sanders. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. xxii + 314 pp. $15.95 paper. In the Foreword to this collection essays, Sanders offers a basic introduction life and work Brown, from his insistence on claiming part in "New Negro Movement" rather than "Harlem Renaissance" 1938-40 Gunnar Myrdal study America. Brown's consuming interest African American music dialect, writes, was directed toward correcting "middle-class exclusivity" Movement introducing "a new vital self-awareness" into literature. ends by naming Brown "raconteur taken with near-limitless possibilities language offers," an apt appraisal man who is now being called "Dean Poets." The title essay, "A Return," proves Sanders's point well. It text speech delivered at Williams College 1973 when teaching Howard. "rambling" audience Williams, he likens himself both Euro- African-American writers offer no quarter even scholars whom respects or college where earned undergraduate degree: I am best liar Howard University, Twain tradition. can outlie Ralph Bunche, great ... J. Saunders Redding stated that one quality folklore they had dirty stories except dozens. And want know what fraternity houses did not go into. same speech, speaks racial segregation during time but laughs--in Although credits him how read write, least someone must have wondered whether controversial critic poet praising blaming school. Later contends: "My standards are white. My black. human." Throughout these insists art should be judged its quality, genesis another race culture, culture which each artist springs acknowledged as wellhead creativity. lived--and wrote--by believed. essays following Return" grouped general topic: "African Americans Politics"; "American Literature"; Music Folk Culture"; "Reviews." Many major included: "Negro Character Seen White Authors" (1933); "The Race Problem Reflected Literature" (1939); "Count Us In" (1945); New Literature (1925-1955)" (1955). four folk knowledgeable, balanced, seminal works value dangers ideological partisanship. discussion origin spirituals, warns again we consider any cultural product it stands would for political purposes: "Extremists set up controversy between Africanism, complete originality, white camp-meeting derivation, unoriginality. This oversimplication does injustice careful scholarship some men sides." returns theme: We all take give culture; all, then, equal fact if yet public recognition power. make excellent companion volume course twentieth-century widely; spoke plainly; knew literature, whatever source. thought been nearly forgotten; valued them only combined "integrity artistry," wrote Evelyn Scott's Wave. …