LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Sample Student Research Project 2006

Gordon Lewis

Research Journal

The Literature of Black Minority Writers Influenced by Romantic Elements

            Barbara Christian in her essay, “The Race for Theory,” makes the statement that “Black writing has generally been ignored in this country” (2260).  She, and other critics, discuss the variety of factors that contribute to this fact, from the obvious control of the means of production and distribution, to the more subtle areas of the views that the dominant culture has held towards the intellectual qualifications of the Black minority.  An example of this elitist attitude was displayed in a review in 1973 by the feminist critic Sara Blackburn in the New York Time Book Review of Toni Morrison’s Sula where Blackburn opines, “Toni Morrison is far too talented to remain only a marvelous recorder of the black side of provincial American life” (Smith 2305).  While this review was written in 1973, earlier in our history the writings of Black authors were either ignored, or even if given recognition during a particular time period, were not maintained, with few exceptions, as part of the canon of American literature. 

            However, as part of the emphasis in the twentieth century on the development of a canon of Black literature, an effort has been made to locate and restore Black writers to their appropriate place in the history of American Literature.  This effort is reflected in this course on American Romanticism where a number of Black writers are included on the list of studied authors.  In this essay, I am looking at some of the Black writers in our history with particular attention to how the objectives of this course on Romanticism are reflected in this minority literature.  Frequently, in my readings I encountered critical comments by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University Professor of English, W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities, Department Chair of Afro-American Studies and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research (“Henry Louis Gates”).  Among numerous noteworthy accomplishments in the effort to develop a canon of Black literature, Gates located and republished the novel by Harriet E. Wilson, Our Nig: or Sketches in the Life of a Free Black (Nelson 483).

            Gates has identified Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1784 as the black author who established both the black American literary tradition and the black woman’s literary tradition (Baym 367).  Wheatley was born in Africa and was sold into slavery around the age of seven to John Wheatley, a Boston tailor, who purchased Phillis as servant for his wife, Susannah.  The slave Phillis was provided the best education that included English poets, Latin writers, and she was a student of the Bible and classical texts, especially the works of Virgil and Ovid (Choucair 463).  The Wheatley family was prominent in New England and traveled in a circle of influential and well educated friends and later when Phillis Wheatley first published her poetry, the governor of Massachusetts and John Hancock were among eighteen prominent citizens who testified to her authorship of the work (Baym 366).  In 1773 when Phillis was around twenty years old, her first book of poetry was published in London, and this book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, became the first book of poetry published by an American Negro author (Choucair 464).  

            Although Wheatley’s poetry preceded the American Romantic period, her writings incorporate romantic elements.  One of her poems in the Norton text, “Thoughts on the Works of Providence,” has numerous references to nature such as “the face of nature is renewed,”  “the sons of vegetation rise and spread their leafy banners to the skies,” and “Almighty providence we trace in trees, and plants, and all the flowery race.” In addition, the poem is imbued

with transcendent images from the beginning stanza, “on wings enraptured, rise to praise the monarch of the earth and skies,” and “full of thee, my soul in rapture soars” (370-372).  Throughout her poetry are both references to nature and to immortality and religious imagery.  Her phrases and vocabulary include “blissful wonders of the skies, seraphic pinions, landscape, heavenly transport, gentle muse, and celestial choir” as examples of her uplifting language that evokes images of other worldly heavenly peace to which we will transcend.   Wheatley’s time period is closer to the Romantic period in England, and indeed, she was feted in London and welcomed there by both Benjamin Franklin and the lord mayor of London.  However, in a refrain that occurs far too often with Black writers, Phillis Wheatley died in poverty in 1784 although her poetry was rediscovered in the 1830s by the abolitionists and more recently as part of the effort to establish a canon of black literature.

            In chronology, the next text is The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (London 1789).  This text is widely acknowledged as the first slave narrative.  Equiano’s master was an English captain, Michael Henry Pascal, who was located in Virginia, and Equiano was employed in service on merchant ships where he met two white sailors, Richard Baker and Daniel Queen, who taught him to read and write (Morris 147).  Later in 1766, Equiano was permitted to purchase his freedom.  After he was manumitted he remained in service as a seaman, but settled in London.  Although his exposure to slavery in America was not the type of plantation slavery that we are most familiar with, his narrative does provide insights into the slave trade and into his life in Africa, where he noted that his own father owned slaves (Morris 148). 

His writing includes elements of Romanticism in that the cycle of desire and loss recurs over and over, nostalgia for the sanctity of his home and elements of the sublime are interwoven throughout his narrative.  For example, shortly after he and his sister were kidnapped, they were separated, and by accident as he passed through ownership of several masters on his way to the coast, he was briefly reunited with his sister.  The description of this reunion in the Norton text has elements of the sublime.

“As soon as she saw me, she gave a loud shriek and ran into my arms-I was quite overpowered: neither of us could speak; . . . Our meeting affected all who saw us; . . . thus for a while we forgot our misfortunes, in the joy of being together; but even this small comfort was soon to have an end; . . . while the thoughts of your sufferings have damped my prosperity, they have mingled with adversity and increased its bitterness” (354).

 

From overwhelming joy to adversity and bitterness, this is a recurring theme in the narrative and an example of the sublime.  An example of the desire and loss cycle in the narrative is that after moving from one slave master to another, Equiano finally ends up with a family that treat him as a member of the family and as a playmate for their own son.  He indicates that after two months, he begins to accept his situation and forget his misfortunes when at this moment of his greatest happiness, he reaches his lowest point when he is moved from this family environment to the slave ships where he finally realizes that he has no hope of ever returning to his native county, and wishes for death (355-357).  This section of the narrative also embraces the extremes of the sublime.   Equiano’s narrative provides a strong image of the horrors of the slave trade and he remained active in the abolitionist movement during his lifetime.  However, like Wheatley, Equiano’s work was lost until the latter part of the twentieth century when the search for early black authors rediscovered his writings.

            Although there are other slave narratives, many of them ‘as told to’ type biographies as the slaves themselves were not able to read and write, and a captivity narrative of the slave Briton Hammon included in our text, the next slave narrative that was to have a major impact on American literature was Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  This is a quest narrative of Jacobs desire to escape a life of repression, slavery and attempted sexual exploitation to freedom.  Jacobs had an atypical life as a child in that she did not know she was a slave until the death of her mother when she was sent to live with her mother’s mistress at the age of six (Novak 275).   Her father, although a slave, lived as a skilled carpenter and paid his owner out of his earnings and her maternal grandmother was a freed slave who had purchased her freedom with earnings from a bakery.  However, her life changed when at age twelve, her mistress died and Jacobs was left to her niece, a minor child, whose father, Dr. James Norcom, sexually harassed her.  Her narrative is the telling of her quest for freedom and the accompanying cycle of desire and loss.  She is happy as a child, and then loses her mother.  She is happy with her mistress, and then loses her mistress.  Her idealism is shown when she falls in love with the following lament in the Norton text, “Why does the slave ever love?  Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away . . . . I loved, and I indulged the hope that the dark clouds around me would turn out a bright lining” (Jacobs 816).   This section includes elements of the sublime as well as desire and loss.  The sublime is completed in her acknowledgement that her owner, the doctor, would never permit her to marry.  “With me the lamp of hope had gone out.  The dream of my girlhood was over.  I felt lonely and desolate” (819).  To escape the lecherous Doctor, Jacobs begins an affair, at the age of sixteen, with a neighbor, Samuel Sawyer, in the hope that eventually he will purchase any children they have and her children will be free.  Finally, Jacobs hides in an attic for seven years at the home of her maternal grandmother with the only pleasure being that she was able to view her children through two knot holes she had dug in the side of the attic (827).  Eventually, Jacobs escapes to freedom and completes her quest for freedom. Her journey is finally complete when an abolitionist friend purchases her freedom from her master and Sawyer purchases and frees the children.  Jacobs’ narrative was published in 1861 after editing by the writer Lydia Maria Child (Novak 276).  What makes the narrative so significant was the inclusion of the issue of sexual abuse which was not discussed in polite society at the time but was an inherent part of slavery (Ibid).  Jacobs remained active in slavery and reconstruction issues until her death in 1897, but as with the other writers mentioned above, she and her text dropped into obscurity until the 1980s when feminist and black women critics revived interest in Jacobs and her text and it is now widely recognized as significant in the history of American literature (Novak 278).  As discussed above, the numerous elements of Romanticism utilized in her text would also place the text in the mainstream of Romantic literature.

            The slave narrative that has had the greatest impact on American literature is the autobiography The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1881, 1893 along with earlier versions in 1845 and 1855.  Douglas has been identified has the father of the American Civil Rights movement (Chander 108).  Douglass’s narrative with its central themes of his quest for freedom, a journey from repression to self expression, his rebellion against authority, desire and loss, and idealism are all motifs of the Romantic ideology.  Douglass received reading lessons from his mistress until discovered by the master, who forbade the lessons.  However, Douglass, having been introduced to literacy, pursued it on his own by soliciting the assistance of young white boys until he was able to both read and write.  He barely knew his mother and did not know his father, although it was rumored that his father was his mother’s master. 

            Douglass addresses this abuse of slave women in his autobiography and notes that there are so many mixed blood slaves that a new class of people, different from the slaves brought from Africa, is apparent throughout the south (Douglass 943).   While still a youth, Douglass begins to bemoan his status and the fact that he will never be free.  The quest for his freedom begins.  His increasing ability to read provides him with opportunities to learn about the debate going on in the country concerning abolition (948).  Douglass was sent by his master, where he had worked as a house servant, to the master’s brother Thomas Auld, where he experienced the worst aspects of slavery as a plantation slave and frequently went hungry (951).  Because Douglass was lacking in deference, Thomas Auld let him to Edward Covey who had a reputation for breaking young slaves where he was so frequently whipped that he experienced total loss, what he described as the “bitterest dregs of slavery” (956).  He goes on to state that “Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me.  I was broken in body, soul and spirit.”  Finally, his rebellion takes another tack and he refuses to follow the direction of his overseer, Mr. Covey, and fought him to a standstill.  From this low point in his travail of slavery, he was transferred to a Mr. Freeland, where he was again well treated.  He used his time with Mr. Freeland, whom he identifies as the best master he ever had, to form a Sabbath school that he used to teach literacy to other black slaves (965).  This is again an example of the sublime from the most horrific experiences as a slave with Covey to the best experiences as a slave with Freeland. 

Finally, he is able to rebuild his desire for freedom and develops a plan to escape, only to again experience loss as his plans are discovered and he and his accomplices are arrested and jailed. Following his time in jail, he was returned to his earlier owner, Hugh Auld, where he was let as a workman in a shipyard and learned a trade as a caulker and earned enough extra over the wages that went to the Auld’s to develop a plan of escape to the North (Chander 111).  Once free in New York (1838), he married his fiancée, a free black woman, and moved to Boston and changed his surname to Douglass.  In 1841, he related his experiences as a slave at a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery convention and this speech began his career as an abolitionist lecturer (Chander 111).  During a lecture tour in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Douglas earned enough to start a newspaper, The North Star, in Rochester, New York (Chander 112).  This paper was later renamed the Frederick Douglass’s Paper,  and in this paper Douglass published the first work of prose fiction in African American literature, his novella entitled, The Heroic Slave, based on a historical uprising on the slave ship Creole.

In most respects, Douglass achieved his dreams.  He had transcended the abyss of slavery and not only became free, was a newspaper publisher and the leader orator of his time.  He became politically influential and was one of many who pressured Lincoln to free the slaves.  As a token of Lincoln’s esteem, Lincoln’s widow gave Douglass Lincoln’s walking stick (Chander 113).  Later Douglass received several government appointments from Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Harrison.  Douglass has retained his stature as a major writer in the canon of American literature.

Shortly after the publication of Douglass’s novella that was published in his newspaper, the first novel by a black woman in the United States, Our Nig; or Sketches in the Life of a Free Black (1859, 1983) by Harriet E. Wilson, was published.  At the time of its publication, the novel received little attention, but was rediscovered and republished by Gates in 1983 and is now heralded as the beginning of “the African American women’s tradition in fiction” (Nelson 483).  This autobiographical novel incorporates the themes of American Romanticism including a quest, desire and loss, idealism and transcendence.  The novel opens as follows:

LONELY MAG SMITH! See her as she walks with downcast eyes and heavy heart. . . . Early deprived of parental guardianship, far removed from relatives, she was left to guide her tiny boat over life's surges alone and inexperienced. As she merged into womanhood, unprotected, uncherished, uncared for, there fell on her ear the music of love, awakening an intensity of emotion long dormant. It whispered of an elevation before unaspired to; of ease and plenty her simple heart had never dreamed of as hers. She knew the voice of her charmer, so ravishing, sounded far above her. It seemed like an angel's, alluring her upward and onward. She thought she could ascend to him and become an equal. She surrendered to him a priceless gem, which he proudly garnered as a trophy, with those of other victims, and left her to her fate. The world seemed full of hateful deceivers . . . . Her offspring came unwelcomed, and before its nativity numbered weeks, it passed from earth, ascending to a purer and better life.

"God be thanked," ejaculated Mag, as she saw its breathing cease; "no one can taunt her with my ruin" (Wilson).

In this brief excerpt the Romantic elements of the journey, desire and loss, transcendence and her idealism can all be felt as well as the sublime as she moves from the allure of her seduction to the death of her infant.  Wilson’s novel incorporates many of the elements of the woman’s romance novel of the time.  Historically, the major shift in focus of the Wilson novel was that it was a narrative based on her experiences as a free servant in the North and demonstrated that the North was just as racist as the South (Nelson 484).  Whether the setting had an impact on the commercial success of the novel at the time of its publication is just a matter for speculation, but after the republication of the novel, several critics have examined her work.  The Nelson essay contains a bibliography of seventeen citations referencing Wilson’s Our Nig, and I am confident that this list is not exhaustive.  Thus in spite of its unceremonious reception at the time of its publication, it seems apparent that the novel will remain an important part of the canon of Black literature in America.

Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932), unlike some of his contemporaries, received recognition at the time of his writing for both his short stories and his first novel, The House behind the Cedars (1900) (Bone 36).  His first short story, “The Goophered Grapevine,” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1887 and is reprinted in our text.  There were other Black authors writing during the second half of the nineteenth century such as William Wells Brown whose novel Clotel, published in London in 1853,  is considered to be the first novel by an American Negro, but these writers did not receive the recognition both then and now as Chesnutt did.  Professor Craig White, in lectures at the University of Houston, Clear Lake Campus, has identified Chesnutt as the most important Black author between the civil war and the Harlem Renaissance. 

Chesnutt, like other writers of his time, utilizes the elements of American Romanticism.  In the novel, The House behind the Cedars, the elements of nature are seen in the following sentence.

“By the time night had spread its mantle over the earth, he had reached the gate by which he had seen the girl of his morning walk enter the cedar- bordered garden” (Chesnutt). 

The entire story is one of desire and loss.  Rena, the heroine, decides to follow her brother, who has passed for white, in order to move up to a higher social level in society.  On the eve of her wedding to a white man of society, she experiences loss when her true identity is discovered.  In a Chapter appropriately entitled “The Bottom Falls Out,” her quest to transgress the color line is ended and she is devastated (Chesnutt).

Chesnutt’s work received critical praise at the time of his writing, but his popularity dwindled and most of his work was out of print by the 20s, but, as with other African American authors, there was renewed interest in his materials in the latter part of the century as part of the Afro American Studies curriculum (Guzzio 76).  In particular, Chesnutt is recognized for his importance in establishing the African American short story.  He is now established as an important writer in the canon of Afro American literature (Guzzio 77).

In addition to Gates, the author who is most responsible for the establishment of a canon of Black literature in the twentieth century is W. E. B. Du Bois.  Du Bois received his BA from Fisk College and followed that with study at Harvard where he earned a second BA and a Master’s.  Following post graduate education at the University of Berlin, he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895.  In 1909 Du Bois became one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the first editor of its magazine, The Crisis, which became one of the most, if not the most, influential voices for black intellectuals during the twenty five years of his editorship (Hynes).  Under his leadership, some of the most important voices in Black literature were first introduced to American readers as he provided a forum for writers like Langston Hughes who later came to dominate black literature (“The Crisis”).

Du Bois was a giant in American Letters and his influences are wide ranging and impact on many of the most important movements of the first half of the twentieth century.  Of the many arenas of his career, I choose to mention one as particularly significant.  Du Bois, among many others, was one of the intellectual leaders of a movement that came to be called the Harlem Renaissance, a name given to a period from the end of World War I to the middle of the Depression (Reuben).  Although black literature existed prior to this time, the Harlem Renaissance identifies the era in which the concept of a separate genre called black literature came into being.  The collection of intellectuals and their writing at the beginning of the century established the field that Gates and others have inherited.  Alain Locke writes of the significance of Harlem at this juncture as “the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro life” (Locke, “Harlem” 2).  Locke uses the term “the New Negro,” to identify what he sees as a new identity for blacks in America (Locke, “Enter”).

In an incident in Du Bois’ childhood reported in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and reprinted in our text, on a day when children when exchanging cards in school, a white girl refused Du Bois’ card because he was an African American (1705).  This incident made Du Bois understand the face of prejudice in this country and he spent the rest of his life addressing the injustice of racism.

W. E. B. Du Bois produced twenty-three books and hundreds of articles, essays, editorials and reviews.  In The Souls of Black Folk, that many consider to be his most important work, Du Bois sharply criticizes Booker T. Washington, the most influential Black leader and founder of the Tuskegee Institute as being too accommodating the white majority and limiting Blacks to second tier economic opportunities (1711).  He establishes his position that Blacks should have the right to vote, civic equality, and the education of youth according to ability.  Two other lines of The Souls are often referenced.  Both appear on page 1705 in the text where Du Bois writes of, “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”  The second line frequently referenced appears in the next sentence:  “One ever feels his two-ness,-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.  The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife . . . .”

I am not familiar enough with all of Du Bois’ writing to identify the romantic elements in his texts.  However, Du Bois’ entire life was a quest, a journey to obtain recognition and equality for his people and he certainly helped establish many authors whose works reflect the themes of Romanticism.  Du Bois’ goal was that a day would come when the art and literature of the black artist would be reviewed and acclaimed by a judgment that is free and unfettered by racial stereotypes.  In much of the world, his goal has become a reality, but it is not yet universal.  The entire subject is still in its early life (Du Bois).

The breath of this subject is so wide that it cannot be adequately addressed in a short essay, so a point comes where it is appropriate to end and I thought that one of the last authors and publications in the Harlem Renaissance era, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, published in 1937, would be an appropriate last work to consider.  Hurston is celebrated for her portrayal of dialect.  The Romantic theme is centered on the quest of the heroine Janie for both personal fulfillment and romantic love and her search for her identity as an African American.  During her lifetime, Hurston was criticized because her work was not involved in political criticism.  She died in poverty, but now her most famous novel is one of the most read novels by a Black artist in colleges across the nation.  Today she is celebrated for her contributions to the canon of Black literature. 

Gates and others involved in the development of a canon of Black literature advocate the development of principles specific to black literary traditions.  He believes that this approach is appropriate because black writers have a black literary inheritance to which they respond.  Gates is careful to note that race is not an essence of the text, but what is unique about black literature is the language of black texts and this is what needs to be considered.  This approach is not as simple as it sounds because identifying a unique form of language that is black is a difficult task.  The range of texts from the slave narrative of Harriet Jacobs to Toni Morrison is huge and numerous texts are not written in the black vernacular. 

Gates argues that black authors draw from the same tradition (Gates 293).  He strengthens his position using the opinions of other great voices such as Ralph Ellison to support  his position that Afro-American literature is a new narrative of themes that have been collectively represented as the ‘black experience’ (Gates 295).  I believe that the work of Gates and his colleagues to establish a canon of black literature will lead to more creditability for the authors who are identified as part of this canon. 

 

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, ed.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th ed.  New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.

Bone, Robert A.  The Negro Novel in America.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958.

Chander, Harish.  “Frederick Douglas.” African American Authors, 1745-1945. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 108-120.

Chesnutt, Charles Waddell.  The House Behind the Cedars: [Electronic Edition]. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina University Library, 2004.  19 Nov 2006 <http://docsouth.unc.edu/chesnutthouse/cheshouse.html>

Choucair, Mona M.  “Phillis Wheatley.” African American Authors, 1745-1945. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 463-468.

Christian, Barbara.  “The Race for Theory.”  Cultural Critique (Spring 1987). Minneapolis:  University of Minnesota Press.  Rpt In The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed Vincent B. Leitch. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2001.  2257-2266.

“The Crisis.”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  6 June 2006.  28 Oct 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crisis>

 

Douglass, Frederick.  “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself.”  Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.  Rpt. In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2003.  942-973.

Du Bois, W. E. B.  “From the Souls of Black Folk.” Rpt. In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2003.

Equiano, Olaudah.  “From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African, Written by Himself.”  Rpt. In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2003. 351-361.

Gates, Henry Louis Jr.  “The blackness of blackness: a critiques of the Sign and the Signifying Monkey.”  Black Literature and Literary Theory. Ed. Henry  Louis Gates, Jr. New York:  Routledge, 1984.  285-321.

Guzzio, Tracie Church. “Charles Waddell Chesnutt.”  African American Authors, 1745-1945. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 73-79.

“Henry Louis Gates.”  Free Resources.  Thomson Gale. 1 Nov 2006 <http://www.Gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/gate_h.htm>

Jacobs, Harriet.  “From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Rpt. In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2003. 813-834.

Locke, Alain.  “Enter the New Negro.”  The Survey Graphic Harlem Number VI.6 (March 1925). Rpt. In University of Virginia Library’s Electronic Text Center. 3 Nov 1996. 28 Oct 2006 <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/LocEnteT.html>

Locke, Alain.  “Harlem.”  The Survey Graphic Harlem Number VI.6 (March 1925). Rpt. In University of Virginia Library’s Electronic Text Center. 3 Nov 1996. 28 Oct 2006 <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/ LocEnteT.html>

Nelson, Emmanuel S. “Harriet E. Wilson.” African American Authors, 1745-1945. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 483-487.

Novak, Terry.  “Harriet Ann Jacobs.” African American Authors, 1745-1945. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 275-279.

Morris, Gilbert N.M.O.  “Olaudah Equiano. African American Authors, 1745-1945.             Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. 147-154.

Reuben, Paul P.  “Chapter 9: Harlem Renaissance – An Introduction.”  PAL: Perspectives in American Literature – A Research and Reference Guide. 30 June 2005.  28 Oct 2006 <http://www.csustan.edu.english/reuben/pal/Chap9/9intro.html>

Smith, Barbara.  “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism.”  The Truth That Never Hurts.  Barbara Smith. Rutgers University Press, 1998. Rpt. In The Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism.  Ed Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.  2302-2315.

Wilson, Harriet E.  Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black [a machine-readable transcription] Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. 19 Nov 2006.  < http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=WilOurn.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&t ag=public&part=1&division=div1>