Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Casebook

by Cheryl A. Wall

Overview

The rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, first published in 1937 but subsequently out-of-print for decades, marks one of the most dramatic chapters in African-American literature and Women's Studies. Its popularity owes much to the lyricism of the prose, the pitch-perfect rendition of black vernacular English, and the memorable characters—most notably, Janie Crawford. Collecting the most widely cited and influential essays published on Hurston's classic novel over the last quarter century, this Casebook presents contesting viewpoints by Hazel Carby, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Barbara Johnson, Carla Kaplan, Daphne Lamothe, Mary Helen Washington, and Sherley Anne Williams. The volume also includes a statement Hurston submitted to a reference book on twentieth-century authors in 1942. As it records the major debates the novel has sparked on issues of language and identity, feminism and racial politics, A Casebook charts new directions for future critics and affirms the classic status of the novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195121735
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2000
Series:	Casebooks in Criticism
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Cheryl A. Wall is Professor of English at Rutgers University, where she teaches African-American and American Literature.

Editorial Reviews

"This collection of previously published essays concerning Zora Neale Hurston's most widely read and widely taught novel will be useful to both students and scholars. Taken as a whole, this volume provides an excellent introduction to Hurston studies, and also demonstrates that, though the author's reputation and the critics' methodologies change through time, readers continue to turn to Hurston's work for greater understanding of the relationships between narrative and cultural politics, between individuals and communities, and between the desire for love and exploration and the experience of frustration and loss."—Missippi Quarterly

"Hurston would be pleased by the amount of thought in heir Eyes Were Watching God, a casebook edited by Cheryl A. Wall."—American Studies International, October 2001

From the Publisher