Robert Penn Warren

Afro American writers of the 20th century

Mirzatillayev Farrukh, 1908-group

African American Literature

African American Literature

• The first writings by blacks in America was

autobiographical and became known as the Slave

Narrative

• Three themes developed in early African American

writings around the issue of slavery

accommodation, protest, and escape

Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa)

• Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa)

(c. 1745-c. 1797)

Eqiano was the first black in America to write an autobiography.

In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah

Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Equiano gives an account of his native land (he was an Ibo from Niger)

and the horrors of his captivity and enslavement in the West

Indies.

Jupiter Hammon (c. 1720-c. 1800) Poet Jupiter

• Jupiter Hammon (c. 1720-c. 1800) Poet Jupiter

Hammon, a slave on Long Island, New York, is

remembered for his religious poems as well as for

An Address to the Negroes of the State of New

York (1787), in which he advocated freeing

children of slaves instead of condemning them to

hereditary slavery. His poem "An Evening Thought"

was the first poem published by a black male in

America.

Lucy Terry (1730-1821)

• Lucy Terry (1730-1821)
• Thought to be the author of the oldest piece of

African-American literature, Bars Fight a poem

written in 1746, about an Indian raid on settlers

in Massachusetts. It was not published until

1855.

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897)

• Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897)
• Her slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a

Slave Girl (1861) is the most comprehensive

biography of an African American woman prior to

the Civil War. In it she recounts her life in

slavery in the context of family relationships

reshaping the slave narrative genre to include

womens experiences.

The artistic and socio-cultural awakening of

The artistic and socio-cultural awakening of

African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s

It was centered around the vibrant African

American community in Harlem, New York, but had

far-reaching influence in art, music, literature

and social thought.

The interplay of art and race, and the aesthetic

criteria for evaluating black writing are some of

the intellectual legacies of the Harlem

Renaissance.

Thank you