Text and Contexts in Afro-American Criticism

E. Quita Craig. Black Drama of the Federal Theatre Era : Beyond the Formal Horizons. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1980. 239 + x pp. Addison Gayle. Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980. 342 + xvi pp. Robert O'Meally. The Craft of Ralph Ellison. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. 212 + ix pp. Carolyn Wedin Sylvander. James Baldwin. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1980. 181 + ix pp. In a 1950 essay, Blyden Jackson suggested to Phylon readers that Afro- American literature had come of age and that what remained was the critical task of examining its contents, elucidating its meaning and placing it within a literary tradition. Since that time, a battle has raged over how to accomplish that task, principally over whether established critical canons properly illumi- nate black literature. Most stridently as a revolt against all established critical canons in the sixties and early seventies, more recently as a controversy over current methods, the debate continues. The debate is not confined to Afro- American literature; in that field, however, it acquires a certain urgency, for the soil is fresh and comparatively untilled, the task immediate and vital.