Neither black nor white yet both : thematic explorations of interracial literature / Werner Sollors.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sollors, Werner.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race in literature.

Miscegenation (Racist theory) in literature.

Multiracial people in literature.

Passing (Identity) in literature.

Comparative literature.

Physical Description:

xvii, 574 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.

Summary:

Why can a "white" woman give birth to a "black" baby, while a "black" woman can never give birth to a "white" baby in the United States? What makes racial "passing" so different from social mobility? Why are interracial and incestuous relations often confused or conflated in literature, making "miscegenation" appear as if it were incest? Werner Sollors examines these questions and others in Neither Black Nor White Yet Both, a new and fully researched investigation of literary works that, in the past, have been read more for a black-white contrast of "either-or" than for an interracial realm of "neither, nor, both, and in-between". From the etymological origins of the term "race" to the cultural sources of the "Tragic Mulatto", and from the calculus of color to the retellings of an original plot, Sollors examines the theming of what we know about race. The book analyzes recurrent motifs in scientific and legal works as well as in fiction, drama, and poetry, considering such authors as Heliodorus, John Stedman, Buffon, Thomas Jefferson, Heinrich von Kleist, Victor Hugo, Aleksandr Sergeevic Puskin, Hans Christian Andersen, Lydia Marie Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Wells Brown, Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Cirilo Villaverde, Aluisio Azevedo, Pauline Hopkins, Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, William Faulkner, and Boris Vian. The discussions are accompanied by many illustrations, inviting comparisons between literature and the visual arts.

Contents:

Introduction: Black

White

Both

Neither

In-Between 3

1. Origins; or, Paradise Dawning 31

2. Natus AEthiopus/Natus Albus 48

3. The Curse of Ham; or, From "Generation" to "Race" 78

4. The Calculus of Color 112

5. The Bluish Tinge in the Halfmoon; or, Fingernails as a Racial Sign 142

6. Code Noir and Literature 162

7. Retellings: Mercenaries and Abolitionists 188

8. Excursus on the "Tragic Mulatto"; or, The Fate of a Stereotype 220

9. Passing; or, Sacrificing a Parvenu 246

10. Incest and Miscegenation 285

Endings 336

Appendix A A Chronology of Interracial Literature 361

Appendix B Prohibitions of Interracial Marriage and Cohabitation 395.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 523-560) and index.

ISBN:

019505282X

OCLC:

34319179