Shaping an African American Literary Canon

The publication of these two massive anthologies—each is over 2,000 pages long—is a milestone in the history of African American Studies and testifies to the significance and strength of the African American tradition of literature.

Many of us long have been aware of the Norton anthology project, initiated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was in the works for a decade and was eagerly, even impatiently, awaited by those who recognized the importance of the venture. I first learned of the Riverside project, however, when I received an advertising flier about the book early in 1997. Though there inevitably is a good deal of overlap in terms of authors and works, it would be wrong to see the existence of these two anthologies as a case of redundancy. (Indeed, these are not the only African American literature anthologies currently available, but they are, by a longshot, the most formidable.) Certain ongoing skirmishes notwithstanding, by now there is widespread agreement on the merits of many of the works chosen or proposed for inclusion in the African American literary canon, but there is not the same sort of consensus regarding the inner dynamics of that canon, the logics of its unfolding, its possible unifying principles. We have here two lengthy takes on the very important and surely controversial topic of what we might term the shape (and the shaping forces) of the canon.

For those who wish to keep score, the Norton anthology contains the work of 120 writers, of whom 52 are women. The Riverside anthology features over 150 authors, including more than 70 women. There will be (there already have been) complaints about the exclusion or inclusion of particular authors or works, a controversy of tastes, temperaments and allegiances that no anthology or anthology-makers can hope to avoid. (I’ll toss a few cowries of my own into this debate later in this review.) But this is a battleground for critics and partisans. Strictly from a pedagogical perspective, there’s little to detain us, since the two collections are, on the whole, so extremely rich. In any event, time constraints in courses in which these texts are likely to be utilized unavoidably require a good deal of selectivity, and many teachers will want to supplement any sweeping anthology with additional materials of their own choosing, so debates over what’s in and what’s out in the end have more to do with the politics of canon formation than they have to do with the practical business of conducting a course.

The Norton anthology is organized rather straightforwardly into seven periods: The Vernacular Tradition; The Literature of Slavery and Freedom: 1746–1865; Literature of the Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance: 1865–1919; Harlem Renaissance: 1919–1940; Realism, Naturalism, Modernism: 1940–1960; The Black Arts Movement: 1960–1970; Literature Since 1970.

The Riverside anthology is divided into six major periods of “African American History and Culture”: 1619–1808, 1808–1865, 1865–1915, 1915–1945, 1945–1960, 1960 to the Present. In keeping with the volume’s title, the internal organization of each of these divisions reflects the call and response patterns that the editors see as characterizing, not just black performance modes, but the evolution of African American tradition itself. For example, the second period has the heading, “Tell Ole Pharaoh, Let My People Go,” and is structured around a “Southern Folk Call for Resistance” and a “Northern Literary Response: Rights for Blacks, Rights for Women,” while the last section, dealing with literature since 1960, is called “Cross Road Blues,” and is structured around a “Folk Call for Social Revolution and Political Strategy” and a “Call for Critical Debate,” answered by “Voices of the New Black Renaissance, Women’s Voice’s of Self-Definition, Voices...