The Character of the Word - (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contempo) by Karla Holloway (Hardcover)

About the Book

With the publication of this text, Karla Holloway becomes the first to produce a book-length analysis of Hurston's use of language in her four major novels. . . . Holloway supports all of her contentions by combining studies of African and Afro-American culture with Euramerican critical theories of semiology and structuralism. The result is a fascinating study of the shifting language of the narrators in each of Hurston's novels, and how these shifts relate to the emotional states of the characters and to the novelist herself. Choice

In The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston, Karla F.C. Holloway breaks new ground by placing Hurston's life and writings in a context at once literary and political. In a political sense, Hurston envisioned herself as the embodiment of her African heritage and felt that her writing was its message. From a literary perspective, Hurston's work had a tremendous influence on her daughters: writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Writing from the perspective of a black feminist, Holloway defines the milieu in which Hurston came of age and emphasizes the influence of this community upon her writing.

Book Synopsis

With the publication of this text, Karla Holloway becomes the first to produce a book-length analysis of Hurston's use of language in her four major novels. . . . Holloway supports all of her contentions by combining studies of African and Afro-American culture with Euramerican critical theories of semiology and structuralism. The result is a fascinating study of the shifting language of the narrators in each of Hurston's novels, and how these shifts relate to the emotional states of the characters and to the novelist herself. Choice

In The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston, Karla F.C. Holloway breaks new ground by placing Hurston's life and writings in a context at once literary and political. In a political sense, Hurston envisioned herself as the embodiment of her African heritage and felt that her writing was its message. From a literary perspective, Hurston's work had a tremendous influence on her daughters: writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Writing from the perspective of a black feminist, Holloway defines the milieu in which Hurston came of age and emphasizes the influence of this community upon her writing.

Review Quotes

?With the publication of this text, Karla Holloway becomes the first to produce a book-length analysis of Hurston's use of language in her four major novels. Holloway traces Hurston's deft use of two linguistic codes (Afro-American vernacular and standard American English) to two factors in her life: (1) her initial schooling at two black institutions of higher learning and (2) her training and interest in sociolinguistics under the tutelage of the anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University. These two experiences, Holloway argues, were definitive in nurturing the two voices of Hurston--public and private, subject and object, dialect and standard.' Holloway supports all of her contentions by combining studies of African and Afro-American culture with Euramerican critical theories of semiology and structuralism. The result is a fascinating study of the shifting language of the narrators in each of Hurston's novels, and how these shifts relate to the emotional states of the characters and to the novelist herself. . . . Recommended for all libraries with holdings in Afro-American and women's literatures.?-Choice

"With the publication of this text, Karla Holloway becomes the first to produce a book-length analysis of Hurston's use of language in her four major novels. Holloway traces Hurston's deft use of two linguistic codes (Afro-American vernacular and standard American English) to two factors in her life: (1) her initial schooling at two black institutions of higher learning and (2) her training and interest in sociolinguistics under the tutelage of the anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University. These two experiences, Holloway argues, were definitive in nurturing the two voices of Hurston--public and private, subject and object, dialect and standard.' Holloway supports all of her contentions by combining studies of African and Afro-American culture with Euramerican critical theories of semiology and structuralism. The result is a fascinating study of the shifting language of the narrators in each of Hurston's novels, and how these shifts relate to the emotional states of the characters and to the novelist herself. . . . Recommended for all libraries with holdings in Afro-American and women's literatures."-Choice

About the Author

KARLA F.C. HOLLOWAY, is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and African American Literature and Director of African and Afro-American Studies at Duke University.