In this provocative study of eight novels, Karen E. Beardslee asserts that American writers often engage with folk traditions as a necessary part of their characters journeys to wholeness. Focusing not only on African American, Native American, and Hispanic American cultures but also on women s culture, Beardslee traces the connections between folk legacies and the search for selfhood in both nineteenth- and twentieth-century works. Within each chapter, a novel by a contemporary author and one from an earlier period are brought together: Whitney Otto s How to Make an American Quilt and Harriet Beecher Stowe s The Minister s Wooing; David Bradley s The Chaneysville Incident and Charles Chesnutt s The Conjure Woman; Leslie Marmon Silko s Ceremony and Zitkala-Sa s American Indian Stories; and Roberta Fernandez s Intaglio and Maria Cristina Mena s The Birth of the God of War. These pairings are not based on matters of intertextuality or influence but are chosen according to the folk groups to which the novels characters belong. This strategy enables Beardslee to trace the particular legacies that inform the work of the twentieth-century authors. As Beardslee notes, contemporary texts and the critical commentary on them have focused, until fairly recently, on the search for self in male (usually white) characters. Such works have also positioned that search outside the character s family or community and have usually emphasized its futility. With the growing shift toward multiculturalism in fiction, however, folk traditions have come to play an increasingly crucial role in characters journeys to self-awareness as well as in the success of those journeys. Thoroughly researched and cogently argued, this book makes a significant contribution to the study of both folklore and literature as it explores the relationship between knowing one s cultural heritage and achieving a sense of self that is whole instead of fragmented, connected instead of drifting. The Author: Karen E. Beardslee teaches in the Department of Language and Literature at Burlington County College in Pemberton, New Jersey. Her articles have appeared in MELUS, The Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature, and the Zora Neale Hurston Forum. "

Folklore has been described as the unwritten literature of a culture: its songs, stories, sayings, games, rituals, beliefs, and ways of life. Encyclopedia of American Folklore helps readers explore topics, terms, themes, figures, and issues related to this popular subject. This comprehensive reference guide addresses the needs of multiple audiences, including high school, college, and public libraries, archive and museum collections, storytellers, and independent researchers. Its content and organization correspond to the ways educators integrate folklore within literacy and wider learning objectives for language arts and cultural studies at the secondary level. This well-rounded resource connects United States folk forms with their cultural origin, historical context, and social function. Appendixes include a bibliography, a category index, and a discussion of starting points for researching American folklore. References and bibliographic material throughout the text highlight recently published and commonly available materials for further study. Coverage includes: Folk heroes and legendary figures, including Paul Bunyan and Yankee Doodle Fables, fairy tales, and myths often featured in American folklore, including "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Princess and the Pea" American authors who have added to or modified folklore traditions, including Washington Irving Historical events that gave rise to folklore, including the civil rights movement and the Revolutionary War Terms in folklore studies, such as fieldwork and the folklife movement Holidays and observances, such as Christmas and Kwanzaa Topics related to folklore in everyday life, such as sports folklore and courtship/dating folklore Folklore related to cultural groups, such as Appalachian folklore and African-American folklore and more.

As the official publication of the Division on Black American Literature and Culture of the Modern Language Association of America, African American review promotes an exchange among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who hold diverse perspectives of African American literature and culture.

Its journey to independence, etched in the annals of the 20th century, reflects the aspirations of a people who dared to dream of sovereignty and freedom. This exploration begins by tracing the roots of Eritrea's identity, delving into the historical echoes that resonated with calls for...

Contains articles which focus on a broad spectrum of significant figures in fiction, philosophy, and criticism such as Austen, Carlyle, Dickens,Thackeray, the Brontes, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whitman, Twain, and Henry James.

The American short story has always been characterized by exciting aesthetic innovations and an immense range of topics. This handbook offers students and researchers a comprehensive introduction to the multifaceted genre with a special focus on recent developments due to the rise of new media. Part I provides systematic overviews of significant contexts ranging from historical-political backgrounds, short story theories developed by writers, print and digital culture, to current theoretical approaches and canon formation. Part II consists of 35 paired readings of representative short stories by eminent authors, charting major steps in the evolution of the American short story from its beginnings as an art form in the early nineteenth century up to the digital age. The handbook examines historically, methodologically, and theoretically the coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature. It offers fresh and original readings relevant to studying the American short story and shows how the genre performs American culture.

The cultural and literary legacy of medieval Iceland, with its roots in Norse heathen religion, heroic literature, and Viking Age history, is the focus of this volume. Its chapters examine the history and reception of a particular text or topic within this remarkable tradition. They treat a number of topics, including the legendary dragon-slayer Sigurd, the many personas of the mysterious god Odin, aspects of the ancient mythology of gods and giants, the early settlement of Iceland, the defiant Viking warriors known as the "Sworn Brothers", the entrepreneurial role of cloth production in medieval Scandinavia, the codicology and book history of key literary works, the many references to medieval Nordic lore in modern fiction and poetry, and the cultural position of islands such as Iceland in relation to the ebb and flow of religions, institutions and empires. Reconsidering these areas of Old Norse-Icelandic literary culture reveals the striking resilience and adaptability of its traditions, through a startling variety of transformations.

A History of Catalan Folk Literature is the fruit of a collaborative effort between fifteen researchers from various universities and research centres who have joined forces to create a broader study of Catalan folk literature that addresses the Catalan linguistic and cultural territories in their entirety. Since the thirteenth century, Catalan culture has created a rich and abundant literary legacy, and since the mid-nineteenth century this has been complemented by a tradition of folklore studies that remains very much alive today. Within this comparatively recent discipline, folk literature has played a particularly important role. The book presents the evolution of Catalan folk literature studies in each of the areas that make up the Catalan linguistic and cultural territories referred to above. The period considered stretches from the mid-nineteenth century, when the beginnings of a scientific interest in folklore emerged across Europe, to the present day.