1st Edition

An Analysis of Zora Heale Hurston's Characteristics of Negro Expression

By Mercedes Aguirre, Benjamin Lempert Copyright 2017
    106 Pages
    by Macat Library

    106 Pages
    by Macat Library

    A critical analysis of African-American novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston' 1934 essay Characteristics of Negro Expression: A crushing evaluation of the many racial prejudices of 1930s America, including a common presumption that African American art was unoriginal – merely poorly copying white culture.

    Hurston’s approach and premises may seem in many ways dated to modern readers, but the essay still shows an incisive mind carefully evaluating arguments and cutting them down to size. African-American art of the time did not – Hurston influentially argued – play by the same rules as white art, so it could not meaningfully be discussed by ‘white’ notions of aesthetic value.

    Where white European tradition views art as something fixed, Hurston saw African-American art works as a distinctive form of mimicry, reshaping and altering the original object until it became something new and novel. In this way, she contended, African-American creative expression is a process that generates its own form of originality – turning borrowed material into something original and unique. By carefully evaluating the relevance of previous arguments, Hurston showed African American artistic expression in an entirely new light.

    Ways In to the Text 

    Who was Zora Heale Hurston? 

    What does Characteristics of Negro Expression Say? 

    Why does Characteristics of Negro Expression Matter?  

    Section 1: Influences  

    Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context 

    Module 2: Academic Context  Module 3: The Problem 

    Module 4: The Author's Contribution 

    Section 2: Ideas  Module 5: Main Ideas 

    Module 6: Secondary Ideas 

    Module 7: Achievement 

    Module 8: Place in the Author's Work 

    Section 3: Impact 

    Module 9: The First Responses 

    Module 10: The Evolving Debate 

    Module 11: Impact and Influence Today 

    Module 12: Where Next? 

    Glossary of Terms 

    People Mentioned in the Text 

    Works Cited

    Biography

    Dr Mercedes Aguirre holds a PhD in American literature from University College, London. She is currently Curator of North American Published Collections at the British Library.

     

    Dr Ben Lempert holds a PhD in rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley for his research on form and voice in post-war American jazz and poetry. He has held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford and his research interests focus on the idea of "race" as it plays out in poetry, music, and fiction. Dr Lempert currently teaches college courses on literature, film, music, and writing.