Originally published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s Cane remains an innovative literary work—part drama, party poetry, part fiction. This revised Norton Critical Edition builds upon the First Edition (1988), which was edited by the late Darwin T. Turner, a pioneering scholar in the field of African American studies. The Second Edition begins with the editors’ introduction, a major work of scholarship that places Toomer within the context of American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. The introduction provides groundbreaking biographical information on Toomer and examines his complex, contradictory racial position as well as his own pioneering views on race. Illustrative materials include government documents containing contradictory information on Toomer’s race, several photographs of Toomer, and a map of Sparta, Georgia—the inspiration for the first and third parts of Cane. The edition reprints the 1923 foreword to Cane by Toomer’s friend Waldo Frank, which helped introduce Toomer to a small but influential readership. Revised and expanded explanatory annotations are also included. “Backgrounds and Sources” collects a wealth of autobiographical writing that illuminates important phases in Jean Toomer’s intellectual life, including a central chapter from The Wayward and the Seeking and Toomer’s essay on teaching the philosophy of Russian psychologist and mystic Georges I. Gurdjieff, “Why I Entered the Gurdjieff Work.” The volume also reprints thirty of Toomer’s letters from 1919–30, the height of his literary career, to correspondents including Waldo Frank, Sherwood Anderson, Claude McKay, Horace Liveright, Georgia O’Keeffe, and James Weldon Johnson. An unusually rich “Criticism” section demonstrates deep and abiding interest in Cane. Five contemporary reviews—including those by Robert Littell and W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke—suggest its initial reception. From the wealth of scholarly commentary on Cane, the editors have chosen twenty-one major interpretations spanning eight decades including those by Langston Hughes, Robert Bone, Darwin T. Turner, Charles T. Davis, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, Barbara Foley, Mark Whalan, and Nellie Y. McKay. A Chronology, new to the Second Edition, and an updated Selected Bibliography are also included.
Les mer
A masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance and a canonical work in both the American and the African American literary traditions, Cane is now available in a revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition.
Introduction* Rudolph P. Byrd and Henry Louis Gates Jr.: "Song of the Son": The Emergence and Passing of Jean ToomerJean Toomer's Racial Self-Identification: A Note on the Supporting Materials*Draft Registration, June 5, 1917*1930 Census *Detail of 1930 Census*1931 Marriage Certificate*Draft Registration, April 24, 1942 The Text of CaneWaldo Frank * Foreword to the 1923 Edition of CaneMap of Sparta, Georgia Backgrounds and Sources Background TextsJean Toomer * The Cane Years* Why I Entered the Gurdjieff Work Correspondence To Alain Locke, November 11, 1919 To Georgia Douglas Johnson, December 1919 To Georgia Douglas Johnson, January 7, 1920 To Georgia Douglas Johnson, February 20, 1920 To Alain Locke, December 24, 1920 To Alain Locke, January 26, 1921 To Alain Locke, November 8, 1921 To Alain Locke, November 1921 To Waldo Frank, March 24, 1922 Waldo Frank to Jean Toomer, April 25, 1922 To Waldo Frank, April 26, 1922 To Waldo Frank, August 21, 1922 To John McClure, July 22, 1922 To Claude McKay, July 23, 1922 To the Editors of The Liberator, August 19, 1922 To Alain Locke, October 1, 1922 To Gorham B. Munson, October 31, 1922To Sherwood Anderson, December 18, 1922 To Sherwood Anderson, December 29, 1922 To Waldo Frank, December 1922 To Waldo Frank, December 12, 1922 To Alain Locke, January 2, 1923 To Waldo Frank, early January 1923To Waldo Frank, early to mid January 1923To Waldo Frank, early January 1923To Horace Liveright, January 11, 1923 To Horace Liveright, February 27, 1923 To Horace Liveright, March 9, 1923 To Horace Liveright, September 5, 1923 To Countee Cullen, October 1, 1923 To Georgia O'Keeffe, January 13, 1924 To James Weldon Johnson, July 11, 1930 Criticism Contemporary ReviewsMontgomery Gregory * A Review of CaneRobert Littell * A Review of CaneW. E .B. Du Bois and Alain Locke * The Younger Literary MovementGorham B. Munson * The Significance of Jean ToomerPaul Rosenfeld * Jean Toomer Critical Interpretations Sterling A. Brown * Jean ToomerLangston Hughes * Gurdjieff in Harlem Robert Bone * [Jean Toomer's Cane]Darwin T. Turner * The Failure of a PlaywrightArna Bontemps * Introduction to the 1969 Edition of Cane John M. Reilly * The Search for Black Redemption: Jean Toomer's CaneBernard Bell * A Key to the Poems in CaneCatherine L. Innes * The Unity of Jean Toomer's CaneCharles T. Davis * Jean Toomer and the South: Region and Race as Elements within a Literary Imagination Alice Walker * The Divided Life of Jean ToomerDavid Bradley * Looking Behind CaneCharles Scruggs * Textuality and Vision in Jean Toomer's CaneGayl Jones * Blues Ballad: Jean Toomer's "Karintha" George B. Hutchinson * Jean Toomer and the "New Negroes" of WashingtonBarbara Foley * Jean Toomer's Washington and the Politics of Class: From "Blue Veins" to Seventh-street Rebels Megan Abbott * "Dorris Dances . . . John Dreams": Free Indirect Discourse and Female Subjectivity in CaneWerner Sollors * Jean Toomer's Cane: Modernism and Race in Interwar AmericaMark Whalan * Jean Toomer and the Avant-Garde Gino Michael Pellegrini * Jean Toomer's Cane: "Mixed-Blood" Impossibilities Jennifer D. Williams * Jean Toomer's Cane and the Erotics of Mourning Nellie Y. McKay * Jean Toomer, the Artist-An Unfulfilled American Life: An Afterword Jean Toomer: A ChronologySelected Bibliography
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780393931686
Publisert
2011-01-03
Utgave
2. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Ww Norton & Co
Vekt
545 gr
Høyde
213 mm
Bredde
132 mm
Dybde
30 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
560

Forfatter

Biographical note

Jean Toomer (1894–1967) was born in Washington, D.C., the son of educated blacks of Creole stock. Literature was his first love and he regularly contributed avant garde poetry and short stories to such magazines as Dial, Broom, Secession, Double Dealer, and Little Review. After a literary apprenticeship in New York, Toomer taught school in rural Georgia. His experiences there led to the writing of Cane. Rudolph P. Byrd (Ph.D. Yale University) is the Goodrich C. White Professor of American Studies in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts and the Department of African American Studies and the founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies at Emory University. He is the author and editor of ten books, including Jean Toomer’s Years with Gurdjieff; Essentials by Jean Toomer with Charles Johnson; Charles Johnson’s Novels: Writing the American Palimpsest; The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson; and with Alice Walker The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker. Among Professor Byrd’s awards and fellowships are an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at Harvard University; Visiting Scholar at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center; and the Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory University. He is a founding officer of the Alice Walker Literary Society. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Ph.D.Cambridge), is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and American Research, Harvard University. He is the author of Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513–2008; Black in Latin America; Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora; Faces of America; Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self; The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Criticism; Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars; Colored People: A Memoir; The Future of Race with Cornel West; Wonders of the African World; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man; and The Trials of Phillis Wheatley. His is also the writer, producer, and narrator of PBS documentaries Finding Your Roots; Black in Latin America; Faces of America; African American Lives 1 and 2; Looking for Lincoln; America Beyond the Color Line; and Wonders of the African World. He is the editor of African American National Biography with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and The Dictionary of African Biography with Anthony Appiah; Encyclopedia Africana with Anthony Appiah; and The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, as well as editor-in-chief of TheRoot.com.