The Slave's NarrativeCharles T. Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr. These autobiographies of Afro-American ex-slaves comprise the largest body of literature produced by slaves in human history. The book consists of three sections: selected reviews of slave narratives, dating from 1750 to 1861; essays examining how such narratives serve as historical material; and essays exploring the narratives as literary artifacts. |
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Page v
... human slavery does there exist another litera- ture of this ironic sort , consisting of the imaginative reconstruction of hu- man bondage narrated by hundreds of former chattel slaves ? One dares not imagine the broad implications that ...
... human slavery does there exist another litera- ture of this ironic sort , consisting of the imaginative reconstruction of hu- man bondage narrated by hundreds of former chattel slaves ? One dares not imagine the broad implications that ...
Page vi
... human beings enslaved in antebellum Amer- ica . Even though in this genre even the extreme examples have more in common with one another than they do with other forms of narration , still , the slave narrative does share resemblances to ...
... human beings enslaved in antebellum Amer- ica . Even though in this genre even the extreme examples have more in common with one another than they do with other forms of narration , still , the slave narrative does share resemblances to ...
Page xii
... human being . The written and dictated testimonies of the enslavement of black hu- man beings are what we mean by the phrase , " the slave's narrative . " Rather arbitrarily , we have defined as a slave narrative only those written ...
... human being . The written and dictated testimonies of the enslavement of black hu- man beings are what we mean by the phrase , " the slave's narrative . " Rather arbitrarily , we have defined as a slave narrative only those written ...
Page xiii
... human community through the action of first - person narration . As Fred- erick Douglass in 1855 succinctly put the matter , the free human being " cannot see things in the same light with the slave , because he does not , and cannot ...
... human community through the action of first - person narration . As Fred- erick Douglass in 1855 succinctly put the matter , the free human being " cannot see things in the same light with the slave , because he does not , and cannot ...
Page xxii
... human bondage . For although hun- dreds of Afro - American authors after 1865 published memoirs and auto- biographies representing their pre - 1865 years of bondage , after 1865 the generic expectations of these autobiographies altered ...
... human bondage . For although hun- dreds of Afro - American authors after 1865 published memoirs and auto- biographies representing their pre - 1865 years of bondage , after 1865 the generic expectations of these autobiographies altered ...
Contents
3 | |
2 The Slave Narratives as History | 35 |
Illustrations | 146 |
3 The Slave Narratives as Literature | 147 |
Bibliography | 319 |
Index | 331 |
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Common terms and phrases
abolitionist African Afro-American American Slave antebellum Anti-Slavery audience authenticating autobiography Bibb's Blassingame bondage Boston Canada Carolina character Charles Chesnutt Christian collection conventional Cugoano culture edition editor enslaved Equiano escape essay ex-slaves experience fact fiction former slaves Frederick Douglass freedom fugitive slave genre Harriet Beecher Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Jacobs Henry Bibb Henry Box Henry Box Brown historians human Ibid Incidents Jacobs James James W.C. Pennington John Josiah Henson Julius labor language letters literary literature lived Lobb London Manzano master ment mode narrator nature Negro novel oral plantation preface present published question race Rawick reader relations reveal scholars sense sentence Skundus slave community slave narratives slavery Solomon Northup South speech story Stowe's strategy style tale tell testimony tion tive tradition truth Uncle Tom Uncle Tom's Cabin voice William Wells Brown words writing written wrote York
Popular passages
Page 166 - I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well...
Page xxiv - Again, let a man only consider what a difference there is between the life of men in the most civilized province of Europe, and in the wildest and most barbarous districts of New India; he will feel it be great enough to justify the saying that "man is a god to man," not only in regard of aid and benefit, but also by a comparison of condition.
Page 186 - Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries ? either a vine, figs ? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
Page xiii - I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.
Page 76 - Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.
Page 297 - winner take nothing" that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.