A Historical Guide to Ralph Ellison (Historical Guides to American Authors)

Ralph Ellison has been a controversial figure, both lionized and vilified, since he seemed to burst onto the national literary scene in 1952 with the publication of Invisible Man . In this volume Steven C. Tracy has gathered a broad range of critics who look not only at Ellison's seminal novel but also at the fiction and nonfiction work that both preceded and followed it, focusing on important historical and cultural influences that help contextualize Ellison's thematic concerns and artistic aesthetic. These essays, all previously unpublished, explore how Ellison's various apprenticeships—in politics as a Black radical; in music as an admirer and practitioner of European, American, and African-American music; and in literature as heir to his realist, naturalist, and modernist forebears—affected his mature literary productions, including his own careful molding of his literary reputation. They present us with a man negotiating the difficult sociopolitical, intellectual, and artistic terrain facing African Americans as America was increasingly forced to confront its own failures with regard to the promise of the American dream to its diverse populations. These wide-ranging historical essays, along with a brief biography and an illustrated chronology, provide a concise yet authoritative discussion of a twentieth-century American writer whose continued presence on the stage of American and world literature and culture is now assured. Contents......Page 12 Abbreviations......Page 14 Introduction......Page 18 Ralph Ellison, 1913–1994: A Brief Biography......Page 34 ELLISON IN HIS TIME......Page 72 “Creative and Cultural Lag”: The Radical Education of Ralph Ellison......Page 74 A Delicate Ear, a Retentive Memory, and the Power to Weld the Fragments......Page 100 “Something Warmly, Infuriatingly Feminine”: Gender, Sexuality, and the Work of Ralph Ellison......Page 130 The Integrated Literary Tradition......Page 158 Ralph Ellison’s Politics of Integration......Page 186 Illustrated Chronology......Page 222 Bibliographical Essay: Probing the Lower Frequencies: Fifty Years of Ellison Criticism......Page 248 Contributors......Page 276 A......Page 280 C......Page 281 D......Page 282 E......Page 283 F......Page 284 H......Page 285 J......Page 286 M......Page 287 O......Page 288 S......Page 289 T......Page 290 Z......Page 291 Introduction / Steven C. Tracy Ralph Ellison : a brief biography / Maryemma Graham and Jeffery Dwayne Mack Creative and cultural lag : the radical education of Ralph Ellison / William Maxwell A delicate ear, a retentive memory, and the power to weld the fragments / Steven C. Tracy Something warmly, infuriatingly feminine : gender, sexuality, and the works of Ralph Ellison / James Smethurst The integrated literary tradition / Alan Nadel Ralph Ellison's politics of integration / Lawrence Jackson. The essays in this collection treat the whole of Ralph Ellison's body of work, including his famous novel "Invisible Man". The volume confronts Ellison the man of ideas, essayist and short story writer, as well as the material in his posthumously published novel "Juneteenth."