3. AFRO-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
• Literature it produced in United
States by writers of African
descents such as Philis Wheatley.
• Literature is dominated by
autobiographical naratives and
reached the peak by slave
narratives.
• The role of African Americans,
their culture, racism, slavery and
social equality.
• Explores the issues of freedom
and equality of blacks.
4. • Harlem renaissance (1920’s)
1. Name given to social,
cultural and artistic
expressions.
2. Also known as "New Negro
Movement" by Alan Locke" .
3. Includes of new African
American cultural expression
and is considered as revival
of African American art.
4. Blacks got confidence to
question the white aesthetic
standard and enjoy the
critical favors and financial
rewards
6. 1. Langston Hughes (1st February 1902 to 22nd May
1967) an American poet, novelist and playwright with
African American themes
2. " The Wear Blue" in 1926 and “Not Without Laughter"
in 1930 made him won gold medal for literature
3. Didn't differentiated between personal experience
and common experience of blacks.
4. Wanted to tell stories of his people and their culture
and their love for music, laughter and language itself
and
5. Left behind large body of poetic work such as a
dream and the dream deferred
7. THEMES: DREAMS
• Dreams are not something that dwell's on clouds, but it
crawl on Earth.
• Unfulfilled dreams haunt us like ghosts.
14. CRITICAL
ANALYSIS
• Personification :The attribution of a personal nature
or human characteristics to something non-human
• Metaphor: The comparison of one thing to another
without the use of like or as
• Hold fast to dreams (personified)
• For if dreams die(personified)
• Life is a broken –winged bird(metaphor)
• That cannot fly(personified)
• Hold fast to dreams
• For when dreams go (personified)
• Life is a barren field(metaphor)
• Frozen with snow(personification)
• Rhyme
22. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
• Alliteration :it is the repetition of a consonant
sound
• What happens to a dream deferred
• Does it dry up
• Syrupy sweet
• Simile :a figure of speech comparing two unlike
things that is often introduced by like or as
• Grotesque
• Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun
• Fester like a sore
• Does it stink like a rotten meat
23. LETS WRAP IT UP!
• Same theme but two different questions:
• Dream: What happens when dream dies?
• Harlem{dream deferred}: What happens
when dreams are let go?