Adam Gussow
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226310978
- eISBN:
- 9780226311005
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226311005.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, this book offers a new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard ...
More
Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, this book offers a new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, the book will transform the understanding of the blues and its enduring power.Less
Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, this book offers a new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, the book will transform the understanding of the blues and its enduring power.
