Author: Henry Louis Gates

Cites

• Ishmael Reed (1)
  • IN: Black Literature & Literary Theory (1984) American fiction, African fiction (English), American
    EPIGRAPH: Son, these niggers writing. Proganing our sacred words. Taking them from us and beating them on the anvil of Boogie-Woogie, putting their black hands on them so that they shine like burnished amulets. Taking our words, son, these filthy niggers and using them like they were their god-given pussy. Why...why 1 of them dared to interpret, critically mind you, the great Herman Melville's Moby Dick!
    FROM: Mumbo Jumbo, (1972), Novel, US
• John Ashbery (1)
  • IN: Black Literature & Literary Theory (1984) American fiction, African fiction (English), American
    EPIGRAPH: The canons are falling One by one
    FROM: The Tomb of Stuart Merrill, (1975), Poem, US
• Frederick Douglass (1)
  • IN: Black Literature & Literary Theory (1984) American fiction, African fiction (English), American
    EPIGRAPH: [The Slaves] would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out - if not in the word, in the sound; - and as frequently in the one that as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone... This they would sing, as a chorus to words which to many would seem inmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves... I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see or hear.
    FROM: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, (1845), Book, US
• W.E.B. Dubois (1)
  • IN: Black Literature & Literary Theory (1984) American fiction, African fiction (English), American
    EPIGRAPH: It is one thing for a race to produce artistic material; it is quite another thing for it to produce the ability to interpret and criticise this material.
    FROM: NULL, (1925), NULL, US