Title: Moorings & metaphors
First published: 1992
Description: Moorings and Metaphors is one of the first studies to examine the ways that cultural tradition is reflected in the language and figures of black women's writing. In a discussion that includes the works of Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ntozake Shange, Buchi Emecheta, Octavia Butler, Efua Sutherland, and Gayl Jones, and with a particular focus on Toni Morrison's Beloved and Flora Nwapa's Efuru, Holloway follows the narrative structures, language, and figurative metaphors of West African goddesses and African-American ancestors as they weave through the pages of these writers' fiction. She explores what she would call the cultural and gendered essence of contemporary literature that has grown out of the African diaspora. Proceeding from a consideration of the imaginative textual languages of contemporary African-American and West African writers, Holloway asserts the intertextuality of black women's literature across two continents. She argues the subtext of culture as the source of metaphor and language, analyzes narrative structures and linguistic processes, and develops a combined theoretical/critical apparatus and vocabulary for interpreting these writers' works. The cultural sources and spiritual considerations that inhere in these textual languages are discussed within the framework Holloway employs of patterns of revision, (re)membrance, and recursion--all of which are vehicles for expressive modes inscribed at the narrative level. Her critical reading of contemporary black women's writing in the United States and West Africa is unique, radical, and sure to be controversial.
Subjects: History, In literature, Metaphor, Women and literature, Myth in literature, American and West African (English), Intellectual life, History and criticism, American literature, Sex role in literature, Women, Black, in literature, West African (English) and American, African American women in literature, Women authors, Literature, Comparative, African American authors, Comparative literature, West African literature (English), Women, American, LITERARY CRITICISM, General, Littérature africaine de langue anglaise, Schriftstellerin, Auteurs noirs américains, Subsaharan Africa, University of South Alabama, Littérature américaine, Métaphore, Noires, Schwarze, Literature, Américaine et ouest-africaine(anglaise), Littérature comparée, Écrits de femmes ouest-africains (anglais), Ouest-africaine (anglaise) et américaine, Noires dans la littérature, Mythe dans la littérature, Écrits de femmes américains, Rôle selon le sexe dans la littérature, Noires américaines dans la littérature, Women writers, Literarischer Stil, Littérature ouest-africaine (anglaise), Frauenliteratur, Ethnische Identität, Dans la littérature, Femmes écrivains noires américaines, Histoire, Femmes écrivains, Histoire et critique, Femmes et littérature, American literature, african american authors, history and criticism, African literature, history and criticism, American literature, women authors, American literature, history and criticism, 20th century, Afro-American authors
Places: English-speaking countries, United States, West Africa
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS153.N5 H65 1992