Black Male Fiction And The Legacy Of Caliban; Author: Coleman, James W.; Hardback; Book

Author: Coleman, James W.
Hardback; Book
224 pages
Published: September 2001
The University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081312204X

With The Tempest's Caliban, Shakespeare created an archetype used to depict black men as slaves, savages, and threats to civilization. As contemporary black male fiction writers have tried to free their subjects from this legacy to tell a story of liberation, they often unconsciously retell the story, making their heroes into Calibans, rather than subverting the paradigm.Black Male Fiction and the Legacy of Caliban analyzes the modern and post-modern novels of the black male writers John Edgar Wideman, Clarence Major, Charles Johnson, William Melvin Kelley, Trey Ellis, David Bradley, and Wesley Brown. Coleman traces the Caliban legacy to early literary influences, primarily Ralph Ellison, and then deftly demonstrates its contemporary manifestations.In The Tempest, Shakespeare created Caliban as an archetype used to depict black men as slaves, savages, and threats to civilization. This study traces the Caliban legacy in modern and post-modern novels, exploring the work of black male writers such as John Edgar Wideman and Clarence Major.