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Article: Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic.
- Article from:
- College Literature
- Article date:
- June 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 West Chester University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the last twenty-five years, a number of critics have produced extremely perceptive book-length studies of African-American fiction. Although the Harlem Renaissance clearly anticipates the thesis that black literature is firmly grounded in the folk culture and vernacular practices of the black community, this thesis, particularly as it is played out in fiction, has been rigorously demonstrated more recently. This grounding of a literary text in folk culture foregrounds literary production as verbal practice and sharpens the focus on the language of the text.
A conflict between ideological readings and formal appreciations of the literary text has persisted through ...