The Signifying Monkey : A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism

A scholarly primer by the intellectual and author Henry Louis Gates, Jr. collects three decades of his writings in a range of fields, in a volume that also offers insight into his achievements as a historian, theorist, and cultural critic. pt. I Genealogies: Family matters (The New Yorker) -- My Yiddishe mama (The Wall Street Journal) -- Native sons of liberty (The New York Times Week in Review) -- In the kitchen (Colored People) -- Walk the last mile (Colored People) -- The last mill picnic (Colored People) -- In our lifetime (The Root). -- pt. II Excavation: Introduction, Our nig or, sketches from the life of a free black by Harriet E. Wilson -- Introduction, The bondswoman's narrative : a novel by Hannah Crafts -- In her own write, series introduction, The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers -- Introduction, African American lives, with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham -- Introduction to the first edition, Africana : the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience, second edition, with Kwame Anthony Appiah -- Prefatory notes on the African slave trade, In search of our roots. -- pt. III Canons: The master's pieces : on canon formation and the African-American tradition, Loose canons -- Introduction, "Tell me, sir ... What is 'black' literature?," Loose canons -- Preface to the second edition, The Norton anthology of African American literature, with Nellie Y. McKay -- Canon confidential : a Sam Slade caper (The New York Times Book Review). -- pt. IV "Race," writing, and reading: Being, the will, and the semantics of death : Wole Soyinka's Death and the king's horseman -- Introduction, Writing "race" and the difference it makes (Critical Inquiry) -- Preface, The image of the black in Western art, with David Bindman -- The signifying monkey and the language of signifyin(g) : rhetorical difference and the orders of meaning (The signifying monkey) -- Reading "Race," writing, and difference (PMLA) -- Jean Toomer's conflicted racial identity, with Rudolph P. Byrd (The Chronicle of Higher Education). -- pt. V Reading people: Both sides now : W.E.B. Du Bois (The New York Times) -- The prince who refused the kingdom : John Hope Franklin (Du Bois Review) -- King of cats : Albert Murray (The New Yorker) -- White like me : Anatole Broyard (The New Yorker) -- Bliss Broyard (In search of our roots) -- Elizabeth Alexander (Faces of America) -- Oprah Winfrey (In search of our roots). -- pt. VI Reading places: Africa, to me (Wonders of the African world) -- Black London (The New Yorker) -- Harlem on our minds (Critical Inquiry) -- Introduction (Black in Latin America) -- Brazil : "May Exú give me the power of speech" (Black in Latin America). -- pt. VII Culture and politics : 2 Live Crew, decoded (The New York Times) -- "Authenticity," or the lesson of Little Tree (The New York Times Book Review) -- The chitlin circuit (The New Yorker) -- Changing places (The New York Times) -- Forty acres and a gap in wealth (The New York Times) -- Ending the slavery blame-game (The New York Times) -- Is he a racist? James Watson's errant, perilous theories (The Washington Post) -- pt. VIII Interviews : An interview with Josephine Baker and James Baldwin (The Southern Review) -- The future of Africa : an interview with Wole Soyinka (The Root) -- A conversation with Condoleezza Rice : on leadership (Du Bois Review) -- A conversation with William Julius Wilson on the election of Barack Obama (Du Bois Review) -- A conversation with Isabel Wilkerson : on America's great migration (Du Bois Review). Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system for interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. His critical approach relies heavily on the Signifying Monkey--perhaps the most popular figure in African-American folklore--and signification and Signifyin(g). Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the "Talking Book," a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. Gates uses this critical framework to examine several major works of African-American literature--including Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God , Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man , and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo --revealing how these works signify on the black tradition and on each other. The second volume in an enterprising trilogy on African-American literature, The Signifying Monkey --which expands the arguments of Figures in Black --makes an important contribution to literary theory, African-American literature, folklore, and literary history.

The Signifying Monkey is the first book of literary criticism to trace the roots of contemporary Black literature to Afro-American folklore and to the traditions of African languages. As the author examines the ancient poetry of the Ifa Oracle (found in Nigeria, Benin, Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti), he uncovers the origins of a sacred system of divination, brought to America by black slaves who felt it to be the very heart-beat of their souls. Gates demonstrates how a heroic and popular character called the Signifying Monkey emerged from this divination and came to pervade Afro-American culture. In providing masterful readings of literary works by Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, and Ishmael Reed-and in defining how the works of these authors signify upon each other-the author delivers a powerful and ground-breaking work of critical theory. Many previously unpublished tales about the Monkey, as well as those already published, are collected in a detailed appendix.

This groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular tradition and black literature.

Pronde's the critical framework to examine several major works including, Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Invisible man by Ralph Ellison, and Mumbo jumbo by Ishmael Reed