Vocabulary

Below are some of the terms, historical periods, and figures we will be referring to in the first portion of our semester. We will refer to these terms and figures regularly as we consider some of the key literary works in African American Literature:

The Vernacular Tradition

Eye Dialect: Literary text written to mimic the language of the folk.

Vernacular: “belonging to, developed in, and spoken or used by the people of a particular place, region, or country: native; indigenous” (qtd. in Gates 6)

The Folk: Demographic characterized by rural living and conventional values.

Performativity: Used to describe a method of communication: performative as opposed to literary.
Oral Tradition: Tradition among folk cultures of transmitting narrative orally as opposed to writing.
Conjure: Folk magic and healing practices that have evolved from West African religious traditions. So called in the Delta, Carolinas, and Middle South.
Hoodoo: Conjure as evolved in New Orleans in the 19th Century. Distinguished from "Voodoo."
Voodoo: Erroneous translation of "Vodu": system of magic and religious practice that evolved from the Yoruba tradition to the Caribbean.
Marie Leveau (Laveau): Legendary 'voodoo' priestess from New Orleans. (19th Century)
Hush Arbor: Natural clearings where 19th-century slaves gathered for religious purposes.
Ring Shout: Formation of worshipers in a circle, or 'ring' where participants engaged in call-and-response religious worship.
Field Holler: Songs sung by slaves in the field; characterized by call-and-response pattern.
Lining Song: Songs sung by linemen working on railroad track.
Playing the Dozens: Oral practice of swapping insults.
Signifying: Subtle, covert references to something, or someone else.
Diaspora: The dispersion of peoples from their original homeland: the African diaspora; the Jewish diaspora, etc.

Slave Narratives

Middle Passage: the sea journey undertaken by slave ships from West Africa to the West Indies.
Triangle Trade: refers to the trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that involved shipping goods from Britain to West Africa to be exchanged for slaves, these slaves being shipped to the West Indies and exchanged for sugar, rum, and other commodities, which were in turn shipped back to Britain.
Amanuensis: A third party who writes from the perspective of another, as in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Effectively, a 'ghost writer.'
Authenticating Letter: A letter that appears in the preceding pages of a slave narrative, written by a third party to assert the authenticity of the narrative.
Abolition: 19th Century movement among Northerners to abolish slavery. Key figures include William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, John Brown, Denmark Vesey, and Olaudah Equiano
Conversion Narrative: Episode of a slave narrative in which the protagonist describes his or her conversion to Christianity.
Episodic: A literary work divided into sections, or "episodes," such as Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom.
Miscegenation: the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types.
Mulatto: a person of mixed white and black ancestry, esp. a person with one white and one black parent.
Quadroon: a person whose parents are a mulatto and a white person and who is therefore one-quarter black by descent.
Octoroon: a person whose parents are a quadroon and a white person and who is therefore one-eighth black by descent.
Reconstruction: The period following the American Civil War that lasted approximately from 1863-1877.