Native American Renaissance

Kenneth Lincoln

ISBN 10: 0520054571 / ISBN 13: 9780520054578

Editore: De Gruyter, 1985

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Neuware - From Black Elk to Leslie Silko: a lyrical celebration - not a critical survey - of modern Indian writers. Prof. Lincoln (English and American Indian Studies, UCLA) is less interested in analyzing the work of N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, or Paula Gunn Allen than in evoking its power, praising it, and putting in the context of contemporary Indian struggles for autonomy and identity. But this approach makes sense: as Lincoln points out, Indian literature is 'a written renewal of oral traditions translated into Western literary forms,' and hence flies past the usual nets of academic criticism. It is tribal (encompassing not just blood or clan connections, but the living body of nature), ancestral, spiritual. Indian storytelling seeks not so much to create a distinctive, stylized world 'as to inflect the truth of the old ways still with us.' That inflection, of course, has always been a highly problematic process. How much of Black Elk's vision derives from his white interpreter, John G. Neihardt How does one articulate the vision of one's tribe if, like Momaday (a Kiowa) and most of his generation, one cannot speak its language What tribe do the mixed bloods, like Welch (Blackfoot/Gros Ventre) or Wendy Rose (Hopi/Miwok), belong to What about the half-bloods or urban Indians (80,000 in L.A. alone) Lincoln wisely avoids generic answers, though he does trace some pan-Indian features in the several dozen 'word senders' he discusses: a sacramental sense of their art (speech as reality-transforming ritual), a spare simplicity, and a dogged stoicism holding back despair. Lincoln quotes his subjects at length (especially useful in the case of anonymous or little known poets) and projects them against a solid anthropological background (essential for the reader who has never heard of the Swampy Cree or a shipapuni before). A lively, generous, and well-informed - though necessarily provisional - study. (Kirkus Reviews).

Codice articolo 9780520054578

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Native American Renaissance
• Editore: De Gruyter
• Data di pubblicazione: 1985
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0520054571
• ISBN 13: 9780520054578
• Rilegatura: Taschenbuch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 217 L x 140 A x 23 P (millimetri) 217 millimetri di larghezza per 140 millimetri di altezza per 23 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 452 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

"Native American Renaissance is the most important discussion of contemporary American Indian poetry and fiction produced to date. It offers intelligent and balanced insight into the contexts and work of a number of contemporary American Indian writers. Its careful discussion provides dear and sometimes breathtaking illumination into this literature that is at once tribal and modern, western and traditional, a literature that is the oldest and newest literature in America."

--Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna), University of California, Berkeley

 

"This is a pioneering volume. Lincoln presents the writing of today's most gifted Native American authors, against an ethnographic background which should enable a growing number of readers to share his enthusiasm. Lincoln has lived with American Indians, knows them, and is respected by them; all this enhances his book."

--William Bright, Editor, Language

 

"This is the most informed and insightful assessment of the best of modern Native American literature. Lincoln is sensitive to the tribal roots of this literature, so he is able to go beyond mere criticism to cultural contextualization. I found this study quite powerful in its scope, probing depth, imaginative sweep, and sensitivity of writing. Debate on the subject may well gather around Native American Renaissance for the rest of the decade."

--Alfonso Ortiz (San Juan), University of New Mexico

Informazioni sull'autore

Kenneth Lincoln is Professor Emeritus, Humanities, University of California, Los Angeles.