Within the Circle

Angelyn Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English at Georgetown University.

"Within the Circle is essential reading for anyone interested in American literature, twentieth-century cultural criticism, or the African American intellectual canon. It belongs on every bookshelf and, more important, as required reading within the American literature classroom. Angelyn Mitchell has done us all an invaluable service. It is a landmark achievement."-Cathy N. Davidson "As Within the Circle chronicles the development of twentieth-century African American literary criticism and theory, it illustrates the impressive breadth and highlights the critical issues of the tradition. Mitchell’s fine editorial judgment in the selection and her thorough insights in her introductory comments complete a task that scholars of African American literature have been eagerly awaiting. This anthology is a precious addition to African American literary scholarship."-Karla Holloway

• Acknowledgments xiIntroduction: Voices Within the Circle: A Historical Overview of African American Literary Criticism 1I. The Harlem Renaissance The New Negro / Alain Locke 21The Negro in American Literature / William Stanley Braithwaite 32The Gift of Laughter / Jessie Fauset 45The Negro-Art Hokum / George S. Schuyler 51The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain / Langston Hughes 55Criteria of Negro Art / W.E.B. DuBois 60Our Literary Audience / Sterling A. Brown 69Characteristics of Negro Expression / Zora Neale Hurston 79II. Humanistic/Ethical Criticism and the Protest Tradition Blueprint for Negro Writing / Richard Wright 97American Negro Literature / J. Saunders Redding 107What White Publishers Won't Print / Zora Neale Hurston 117New Poets / Margaret Walker 122Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity / Ralph Ellison 134Everybody's Protest Novel / James Baldwin 149Integration and Race Literature / Arthur P. Davis 156III. The Black Arts Movement The Myth of a "Negro Literature" / LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) 165Ethnic Impact in American Literature: Reflections on a Course / George E. Kent 172The Black Arts Movement / Larry Neal 184Towards a Black Aesthetic / Hoyt W. Fuller 199Cultural Strangulation: Black Literature and the White Aesthetic / Addison Gayle, Jr. 207Toward a Definition: Black Poetry of the Sixties (After LeRoi Jones) / Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti) 213Tripping with Black Writing / Sarah Webster Fabio 224IV. Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and the African-American Critic Preface to Blackness: Text and Pretext / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 245I Rose and Found My Voice: Narration, Authentication, and Authored Control in Four Slave Narratives / Robert B. Stepto 256Generational Shifts and the Recent Criticism of Afro-American Literature / Houston A. Baker, Jr. 282Literary Production: A Silence in Afro-American Critical Practice / W. Lawrence Hogue 329The Race for Theory / Barbara Christian 348Appropriate Gestures: Theory and Afro-American Literary Criticism / Michael Awkward 360Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature / Toni Morrison 368V. Gender, Theory, and African-American Feminist Criticism In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens / Alice walker 401Toward a Black Feminist Criticism / Barbara Smith 410New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism / Deborah E. McDowell 428"The Darkened Eye Restored": Notes Toward a Literary History of Black Women / Mary Helen Washington 442Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book / Hortense J. Spillers 454Gender and Afro-Americanist Literary Theory and Criticism / Valerie Smith 482But What Do We Think We're Doing Anyway: The State of Black Feminist Criticism(s) or My Version of a Little Bit of History / Barbara Christian 499Some Implications for Related Reading 523Acknowledgment of Copyrights 526About the Critics 528Index of Selected Names 531