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From behind the veil: a study of Afro-American narrative
This pioneering study of Afro-American narrative is far more critical, historical, and textual than biographical, chronological, and atextual. Robert Stepto asserts that Afro-American culture has its store of canonical stories or pregeneric myths, the primary one being the quest for freedom and literacy. This second edition includes a new preface and an afterward entitled "Distrust of the Reader in Afro-American Narratives."
- GenresLiterary CriticismRace
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Robert B. Stepto
11 books13 followersRobert B. Stepto is Professor of English, African American Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 21, 2016
Major Field Prep: 53/133
Stepto begins by defining the “pregeneric myth” for AfAm literature as the “quest for freedom and literacy” and claims that the tradition is founded on this shared pregeneric myth opposed to identity categories such as race of a chronology of writers. The first section, “The Call,” begins with the slave narratives and usefully delineates four distinct types of narrative within the form: eclectic, integrative, generic, and authenticating. The generic and authenticating become the forms in which BTW and Du Bois structure their seminal texts Up From Slavery and The Souls of Black Folk. BTW’s text is nearly a “resume” as it compiles multiple forms of authenticating documents and evidence that serve to authenticate both BTW and his myth of racial uplift. Conversely, Du Bois prioritizes the narrator and narrative as the main rhetorical tool of authentication. These forms are again revoiced by later authors covered in the second part, “The Response.” James Weldon Johnson’s Ex-Coloured Man, Wright’s Black Boy, and Ellison’s Invisible Man are the primary texts covered. While Stepto makes many interesting observations about the texts, his research question of how or how well these texts adhere to the pregeneric trope of the quest for literacy and freedom inhibits his close readings and seems to draw unsubstantiated claims. His position that many of the texts “failed” in their intent itself fails to consider that these writers (particularly the short section on Hurston’s Their Eyes) perhaps had different intentions, innovations, and strategies than preconceived by Stepto’s framework. Henry Louis Gates will deftly reinterpret Stepto’s frame and method in The Signifying Monkey.
Stepto begins by defining the “pregeneric myth” for AfAm literature as the “quest for freedom and literacy” and claims that the tradition is founded on this shared pregeneric myth opposed to identity categories such as race of a chronology of writers. The first section, “The Call,” begins with the slave narratives and usefully delineates four distinct types of narrative within the form: eclectic, integrative, generic, and authenticating. The generic and authenticating become the forms in which BTW and Du Bois structure their seminal texts Up From Slavery and The Souls of Black Folk. BTW’s text is nearly a “resume” as it compiles multiple forms of authenticating documents and evidence that serve to authenticate both BTW and his myth of racial uplift. Conversely, Du Bois prioritizes the narrator and narrative as the main rhetorical tool of authentication. These forms are again revoiced by later authors covered in the second part, “The Response.” James Weldon Johnson’s Ex-Coloured Man, Wright’s Black Boy, and Ellison’s Invisible Man are the primary texts covered. While Stepto makes many interesting observations about the texts, his research question of how or how well these texts adhere to the pregeneric trope of the quest for literacy and freedom inhibits his close readings and seems to draw unsubstantiated claims. His position that many of the texts “failed” in their intent itself fails to consider that these writers (particularly the short section on Hurston’s Their Eyes) perhaps had different intentions, innovations, and strategies than preconceived by Stepto’s framework. Henry Louis Gates will deftly reinterpret Stepto’s frame and method in The Signifying Monkey.
April 11, 2016
Read the bits most relevant for my paper. Good selection of authors and helpful framework for understanding the genre.
June 30, 2014
Touchstone.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews