Annie Allen

Epic has long been regarded as the exclusive domain of the male literary genius and as an incarnation of patriarchal values. This provocative collection of essays challenges such a hegemonic stereotype by demonstrating the ways in which women writers have successfully adapted the masculine epic tradition to suit their own aesthetic needs and to express their own heroic literary, social, and historical visions. Bringing the female epic out of the shadows, the contributors rethink generic boundaries to illuminate this heretofore hidden literary practice. The essays range from Mary Tighe to Rebecca West from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Gwendolyn Brooks, and from Frances Burney to Virginia Woolf. Bernard Schweizer's introduction, titled 'Muses with Pens,' connects the trajectory of ideas and influences in the individual essays to demonstrate how each participates in reclaiming for women writers a place in the development of a female epic tradition. The volume will be an invaluable resource for scholars working on issues related to genre, canon formation, and the evolution of female literary authority.

Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the major American poets of this century and the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (1950). Yet far less critical attention has focused on her work than on that of her peers. In this comprehensive biocritical study, Melhem -- herself a poet and critic -- traces the development of Brooks's poetry over four decades, from such early works as A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, and The Bean Eaters, to the more recent In the Mecca, Riot, and To Disembark. In addition to analyzing the poetic devices used, Melhem examines the biographical, historical, and literary contexts of Brooks's poetry: her upbringing and education, her political involvement in the struggle for civil rights, her efforts on behalf of young black poets, her role as a teacher, and her influence on black letters. Among the many sources examined are such revealing documents as Brooks's correspondence with her editor of twenty years and with other writers and critics. From Melhem's illuminating study emerges a picture of the poet as prophet. Brooks's work, she shows, is consciously charged with the quest for emancipation and leadership, for black unity and pride. At the same time, Brooks is seen as one of the preeminent American poets of this century, influencing both African American letters and American literature generally. This important book is an indispensable guide to the work of a consummate poet.

Featuring original contributions by scholars in the field of women's studies, this invaluable reference illuminates the lives and works of Maya Angelou, Kate Chopin, Joan Didion, Anne Tyler, Susan Sontag, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O'Connor, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and others.

This volume comprises a genealogical index to historical county records of Williamson County.

Along the Streets of Bronzeville examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Poverty stricken, segregated, and bursting at the seams with migrants, Bronzeville was the community that provided inspiration, training, and work for an entire generation of diversely talented African American authors and artists who came of age during the years between the two world wars. In this significant recovery project, Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach investigates the institutions and streetscapes of Black Chicago that fueled an entire literary and artistic movement. She argues that African American authors and artists--such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, painter Archibald Motley, and many others--viewed and presented black reality from a specific geographic vantage point: the view along the streets of Bronzeville. Schlabach explores how the particular rhythms and scenes of daily life in Bronzeville locations, such as the State Street "Stroll" district or the bustling intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway, figured into the creative works and experiences of the artists and writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance. She also covers in detail the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group, two institutions of art and literature that engendered a unique aesthetic consciousness and political ideology for which the Black Chicago Renaissance would garner much fame. Life in Bronzeville also involved economic hardship and social injustice, themes that resonated throughout the flourishing arts scene. Schlabach explores Bronzeville's harsh living conditions, exemplified in the cramped one-bedroom kitchenette apartments that housed many of the migrants drawn to the city's promises of opportunity and freedom. Many struggled with the precariousness of urban life, and Schlabach shows how the once vibrant neighborhood eventually succumbed to the pressures of segregation and economic disparity. Providing a virtual tour South Side African American urban life at street level, Along the Streets of Bronzeville charts the complex interplay and intersection of race, geography, and cultural criticism during the Black Chicago Renaissance's rise and fall.

A loosely connected series of poems about Annie Allen, a Black girl growing up in Chicago. The first part, "Notes from the Childhood and Girlhood," provides glimpses into Annie's birth, her mother, and her responses to racism, killing, and death. "The Anniad," a mock heroic poem, describes Annie's dreams of a lover who goes to war, returns, marries and leaves her, and finally comes home to die. The last section, "The Womanhood," gives a broader view of Annie's outlook on the world and the things she wants to change in it.

This examination of the lives and poetic works of Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich and Gwendolyn Brooks focuses on the historical struggles between women writers and feminists. It traces the conflict that has taken place through the generations.