The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism

critical work by Gates

Learn about this topic in these articles:

In Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
…the “Racial” Self (1987) and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). Signifyin’ is the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative. Gates argued that the pervasiveness and centrality of signifyin’ in African and African American literature…
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