Toomer, Jean - John F. Callahan (essay date 2001)

John F. Callahan (essay date 2001)

SOURCE: “‘By de Singin' uh de Song’: The Search for Reciprocal Voice in Cane,” in In the African-American Grain: Call-and-Response in Twentieth-Century Black Fiction, University of Illinois Press, First Paperback Edition, 2001, pp. 62-114.

[In the following essay, Callahan addresses Toomer's use of American vernacular and song in Cane, particularly his use of spirituals and folk songs.]

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In The Conjure Woman Charles W. Chesnutt adapted African-American call-and-response to a radically different cultural situation. Uncle Julius performs for a white audience, and his stories challenge his listeners' values and in small, important ways exert a salutary, subversive influence on their lives. Chesnutt's critical distance allows Uncle Julius to manipulate the color line between black dialect and standard English. Nevertheless, neither Chesnutt's black storyteller nor his...

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