journal article
"Structure Would Equal Meaning": Blues and Jazz Aesthetics in the Fiction of Nella LarsenTulsa Studies in Women's Literature
Vol. 28, No. 2, U.S. WOMEN WRITING RACE (Fall 2009)
, pp. 267-289 (23 pages)
Published By: University of Tulsa
//www.jstor.org/stable/40783420
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Abstract
By illuminating the jazz and blues aesthetic of her prose, this essay contends that Nella Larsen took to heart Langston Hughes's prescription for an African American literature derived from black musical forms. It argues that Larsen's Passing and Quicksand draw their structures from blues and jazz music and that these novels employ the black oral tradition in order to convey the machinations of their characters' minds as well as to achieve a voice that is both singular and plural, private and public. While critics have overlooked the musical aesthetic of her fiction, Larsen has been at the forefront of debates surrounding the relationship between black women's writing and music. What opponents in this debate share is a tendency to read Larsen's writing against female blues singers. Beginning with a reading of Passing's blues aesthetic, the essay demonstrates that there is more common ground between Larsen and her musical contemporaries than has been previously thought. It goes on to discuss how Quicksand offers responses to the calls of the blues singers while employing jazz as an overall structuring voice. With both texts, Larsen participates in the debate about the criteria for black art that took place during the Harlem Renaissance.
Journal Information
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature is a scholarly journal devoted to the study of the relations between women and writing of every period and in all languages. Publishing articles, notes, archival research, and reviews, Tulsa Studies seeks path-breaking literary, historicist, and theoretical work by both established and emerging scholars.
Publisher Information
The James Joyce Quarterly, along with its sister journal, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, is published by the University of Tulsa, a private university founded in 1894.
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Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature © 2009 University of Tulsa
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