The Significant Monkey: The Theory of African-American Literary Criticism ( The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism ) is a literary study on the theory of literature of the American scientist Henry Louis Gates Jr. , first published in 1988. The book traces the folk origins of the African American cultural practice of “meaning” and uses the concept of Signifyin (g) , which allows to analyze the relationship between the texts of prominent African American writers, in particular Richard Wright , Ralph Ellison , Zora Hurston and Ishmael Reed .
Meaning Monkey: The Theory of African-American Literary Criticism | |
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The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism | |
Genre | Literature Theory Non-chip |
Author | Henry Louis Gates Jr. |
Original language | English |
Date of first publication | 1988 |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Main issues
Significance is closely related to the practices of unintelligible speech, Aesopian language and various kinds of tricks, such as those used by the character of African-American folklore - " meaning monkey ". At the same time, Gates himself admits that “it is difficult to come to a consensus, giving a clear definition of meaning ” [1] . Bernard W. Bell defines it as “an intricate, indirect form of incitement or insult using curses” [2] . Roger D. Abrahams writes that “to signify” is “to hint, incite, ask, or boast by means of deceptive words or gestures” [3] . Meaning is also a homonym of the concept of signature (meaning) proposed by the semiotics Ferdinand de Saussure , in which a language sign consists of a signifier , that is, an acoustic image and signified , that is, the concept [4] . Gates plays up with the Sossyur concept and incorporates the language concept of the signifier and the signified into the “folk” concept of signification ( signifyin (g) ).
Gates defines two basic types of literary denotation: oppositional (or motivated) and united (or unmotivated). Unmotivated signifying takes the form of repetition and alteration of another text, “encoding admiration and respect” and demonstrating “not the absence of deep intent, but the absence of negative criticism”. But Gates more carefully stops at oppositional or motivated meanings and how it “functions as a metaphor for artistic revision, intertextuality in the African American literary tradition”. Therefore, “Gates writes mostly about African-American works based entirely on the monkey tradition of African-American narratology . Of particular interest are precisely those books whose authors intertextually transfer this principle to other material, including “Western”, creating cultural-hybrid collages, resorting to the “ pastish ” technique, parodying their established literary and folklore forms, like this occurs, for example, in the works of Ishmael Reed, in particular, in his novel “Mambo Jumbo” (1972) ” [5] .
Gates repeatedly refers to the metaphor of the so-called “signifying or signifying monkey” in other articles and books (for example, Images in Black: Words, Signs and Racial Identity, 1987) [6] , defining this image as “ironic inversion of the racist stereotype a Negro, similar to a monkey, one who exists on the outskirts of discourse, constantly playing trails, figures of speech, always embodying the ambivalence of language. The “signifying” or “signifying” monkey becomes a figure of speech to designate repetition and at the same time, rethinking, or turning over the meaning ” [7] . The monkey discourse in the description of Gates is “false”, and the meaning is intended not to reveal, but to further confuse the meaning, using false moves, hints, ambiguity and ambiguity. Hence the complex system of clues, euphemisms , subtext, figurative meaning [5] .
In the “signifying monkey,” Gates sees the key to defining and interpreting the entire African-American literary canon. According to his theory, the whole African American tradition is built on the path of "meaning." The meaning paths is the so-called “slave's trope”, which is the inverted “master's trope”. Meaning, therefore, is a combination of African heritage with the experience that slaves acquired in the Americas. Afro-Americans developed their own semantic system: the language (English) remained the same, but it turned out to be turned inside out. The direct meaning was replaced by the portable, the text by the subtext. Thus, Gates initially perceives black discourse (black discourse) as something to be deciphered, with many meanings [8] .
Perception
After the publication in 1988 of the book "Significant Monkey" received both widespread approval and notoriety. Well-known literary critic Houston A. Baker wrote that the work was "an important step in the study of African-American literature" [9] , and Andrew Delbanco noted that this book is "among the most significant attempts to reassess African-American critical thinking since the 1960s " [10] . In addition, the book received the American Book Award in 1989.
However, Gates’s book caused such a strong response that it was on the verge of “talking more about it than reading, criticizing it more than trying to understand” [11] . Critics negatively attributed to the book noted Gates’s extremely “afrocentric” point of view [11] and that he viewed the tradition of signifying as an a priori, and then only picks up evidence in its favor, thereby admitting the logical error of the vicious circle [12] . Nevertheless, after the publication of The Meaning Monkey, with respect to Gates, there was a reputation for being one of the two most prominent (along with Houston Baker) researchers of African American literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries [13] .
Links
Notes
- ↑ Gates, Henry Louis. African American Literary Criticism, 1773 to 2000. ed. Hazel Arnett Ervin. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999. 261.
- ↑ Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its Traditions. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. 22.
- ↑ Abrahams, Roger D. African American Literary Criticism, 1773 to 2000. ed. Hazel Arnett Ervin. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999. 260.
- ↑ Saussure, Ferdinand de. “Course In General Linguistics” Structuralism, Linguistics, Narratology. eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 66
- ↑ 1 2 M. Tlostanova. The Problem of Multiculturalism and US Literature in the Late XX Century M .: IMLI RAN, Heritage, 2000. p. 207–208.
- ↑ Brooks, VW On Creating a Usable Past. // Van Wyck Brooks: The Early Years. London 1968, pp. 219–226.
- ↑ Brown, RM Dolley. A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War. Bantam Books, 1994.
- ↑ Gusarova I.V. Literary tradition in the works of African American writers of the last quarter of the 20th century. Abstract of Diss. ... Cand. filol. n M., 2003.
- ↑ Baker, Houston A. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 111.
- ↑ Delbanco, Andrew. "Talking Texts." Black Literature Criticism Supplemented. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Jerry Moore. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 142.
- ↑ 1 2 Lubiano, Wahneema. "Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and African-American Literary Discourse. »Black Literature Criticism Supplement, eds. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Jerry Moore. Detroit: Gale 1999. 147.
- ↑ Myers, DG "Signifying Nothing". New Criterion 8 (1990): 63.
- ↑ Mason, Theodore O. "African American Theory and Criticism: 2. 1977 to 1990." Johns Hopkins Guide To Literary Theory and Criticism. (2005): 2. Johns Hopkins Guide To The Literary Theory and Criticism. University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL. 11 October 2007.