Abstract: The theory of American black culture rose in the early 20th century and developed rapidly, becoming one of the most important literary schools in the United States. Judging from its development clues, the theory of African American literary criticism has experienced a gradual maturity stage from radicalism to reflection, from advocating African cultural centralism and black nationalism to paying attention to the same problems of human beings, from theoretical construction, deconstruction to reconstruction. American black literature theory has deepened people's understanding and knowledge of marginal discourse and minority discourse.

Keywords: black cultural theory/black aesthetics/black feminist criticism/cultural studies

Upper guide bearing

Since the 20th century, famous black writers and outstanding black literary works have emerged in American literary circles. On this basis, the theory of black literary criticism has also developed, and gradually moved from the periphery to the center, becoming one of the most important literary criticism schools in the United States today.

First, the persistence and alienation of "dual consciousness"

The real formation and initial scale of African-American literary criticism was marked by the appearance of a series of African-American literary criticism publications in the early 20th century. New york's black political and cultural organizations and their publications, such as Crisis by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Opportunity by the National League of Cities, Messenger and Black World, are all devoted to the development of black literature and art. These publications have played an important role in expanding the influence of black literary works and promoting the development of black literary criticism. In 1900, the American Journal of Colored People, Pauline Hopkins specially opened a forum to publicize the values of black literature. She believes that a truly excellent novel should be "a historical record of the growth and development of several generations" (note: edited by Winston Napier). African-American Literary Theory, new york University Press, 2000, p. 1, p. 5, p.1. ).

Du bois further developed Hopkins' functionalist aesthetics. He believes that "black artists must create, praise and realize beauty", but at the same time he emphasizes that "in the process of creating beauty, black artists must realize that beauty cannot exist in isolation, and it is linked with truth, goodness and justice". Therefore, du bois thinks that "the black art itself must be propaganda" (Note: Yuan Ji: On African Centrism Literary Criticism, Journal of Social Sciences of Jilin University, No.5, 2000). )。 Du bois used the concept of "double consciousness" to explain the black experience, and thought that the cultural identity of African-Americans was manifested as two conflicting proofs of being both black and American. "The history of African-Americans is such a history of struggle-the status of people who are eager to gain self-awareness, eager to integrate their double selves into a better and more authentic self ... In the torrent of white aestheticism, he will not bleach his black soul" (Noe: du bois: Black Soul, quoted from Liu Jie: The Tradition of African-American Literature, Yilin,No. 1999, No. )。 Due to the dual cultural identity of African-Americans in the British colonies in North America, only when they have attitudes towards the dual cultural heritage of Africa and Europe, their oral and written heritage, and the tension between them, can we make a meaningful evaluation of the tradition of African-American literature.

In the mid-1920s, black literary criticism, as a literary trend of thought and cultural form, was upgraded from resisting racism to promoting black culture and racial color in harlem renaissance. The symbol of this movement was 1925, the publication of Alan Locke's anthology "A New Generation of Blacks". Different from du bois, Locke believes that literature should be used to rebuild the social identity of black Americans, and the mission of black literature and art lies in reinterpreting and shaping the self-image of black people. Locke believes that black literature is closely related not only to other African cultural movements, but also to other ethnic or cultural nationalism and new achievements in art, culture and politics in the world. "This declaratory theory, which emphasizes the new art, new style and new pursuit of new blacks, attaches importance to skills, attaches importance to free creation and ignores the political mission of works, reflects the main ideological trend of black politics and literature at that time and has a great influence on black writers in harlem renaissance period." (Note: Wang Jiaxiang: a new member of Norton anthology family, World Literature No.2, 1998. )

At the same time, langston hughes also questioned du bois's concept of "double consciousness". In his view, "double consciousness" is a literary interpretation method based on class analysis, and black artists should not confuse African blacks and Americans in the so-called "double consciousness", thus losing their complete self-image; What needs to be emphasized is the integrity of black culture. Only on this basis can we create pure and authentic black literary works. Hughes emphasized the importance of jazz as an integral part of art because it is rooted in the daily life of black people. He pointed out that "black art creation should absorb nutrients from black folk culture and express the fun and rhythm of black life like jazz". Hughes also repeatedly stressed that "blacks must have their own aesthetic standards, and should not accept or imitate the aesthetic standards of whites" (Note: langston hughes, Black Artists and the Mountain of Race, Black Expression, new york: Wey Bright Talley, 1970, p. 262).

In 1927' s Blueprint for Black Creation, richard wright pointed out that black literary creation should shift from expressing the ideals and frustrations of middle-class blacks to expressing the anger and dissatisfaction of lower-class citizens. For a time, Wright-style protest literature appeared in large numbers, and "protest" became an important standard of black literary criticism. Due to various complicated historical reasons, writing behavior has always been a political behavior for black writers, so their literature is basically "rebellious".

Protest literature has been popular in black literature for more than ten years, and it was a spent force by the end of 1940s. When commenting on Wright's novel Uncle Tom's Child, zora neale hurston praised Wright's talent as a novelist on the one hand, and thought that Wright's creation tended to portray the black literary image as a mouthpiece of racial hatred, and his works of art became a chronicle of crime and violence. Like Heston's point of view, james baldwin also realized the limitations of Wright's naturalistic protest literature. In the article "Everyone's Protest Novel" written by 1949, he said: "The failure of the protest novel lies in its denial of life, denial of people, denial of beauty, denial of people's fear and strength, and its insistence that only the category of people is real and insurmountable." (Note: Wang Jiaxiang: a new member of Norton anthology family, World Literature No.2, 1998. Baldwin hopes that black literature should not only pay attention to racial and ethnic issues, but also go beyond them.

Second, black aesthetics and cultural nationalism discourse

The black literary movement, which began at 1964, is a new renaissance in the history of black Americans, and it is a concrete embodiment of the black power movement in the United States, and its scale and influence surpassed that of harlem renaissance in the 1920s. This movement aims to change the situation and status of black Americans, and black literary artists aim to change the image of black people in literature and art and reflect the new spirit of black people in the 1960s. Because the readers in the minds of black writers are mainly black, they are more interested in exploring the culture, history and group traditions of the race. Correspondingly, the black literary criticism in this period also advocated that "the concept of black literature and art can be properly expounded and evaluated by abandoning the unified criticism standard derived from white culture" (Note: Cheng Xilin's A New Rising Theoretical Criticism: American Black Aesthetics, Foreign Literature, No.6, 1993. )。 They emphasize the uniqueness of black literature and art, namely "black"; Emphasize the soul and tradition of black culture, seek the autonomy of black culture, and try to establish a unique mode of black literary creation and criticism, thus establishing a black aesthetics. As the central category of black aesthetics, "black essence", that is, black racial consciousness, has become the ontology to measure black American literature. Black aesthetic critics insist that any literary criticism reflects a specific cultural standard and is not universal, so it is very important to emphasize "black" in black aesthetic standards.

Black aesthetics provides the possibility of establishing an independent and coherent discourse of black literary criticism, which attempts to explore the roots, themes, structures, terms and symbols of black American culture. Amiri amiri baraka believes that the ideal of nationalism is the key to restore the African culture once lost during the European colonial period. He put forward the slogan "black is beauty" and called on black writers to express this aesthetic principle through literature and art, so as to re-evaluate the significance of black literature from the social and political value. They gave spiritual and cultural guidance to blacks through magazines such as Liberator, Black Poetry Monthly and Black Digest (1970 was renamed Black World), and made them realize the hegemonic tendency of European aesthetic values in the field of cultural knowledge and its negative influence on American black culture.

A remarkable feature of black literary criticism in this period lies in the diversity of critical theories and methods: from early Jones' phenomenological theory to Neil's mythological criticism, from Fuller's social criticism to Henderson's historical aesthetic practice, from Gail's moral criticism to late Jones' cultural criticism, and so on. 1967, Clarence Major published Black Label. Since then, black aesthetics has become a remarkable thing through the efforts of many black critics, such as Hoyt W Fuller, Larry Neil, Stephen Henderson and Addison Gayle Jr. From 65438 to 0968, Fuller published Towards Black Aesthetics, which clearly linked black aesthetics with the black rights movement. In order to gain unity and strength within the black society, blacks must find and respect their unique cultural roots and need a "mysterious black nature" that is not affected by white racist cultural values. From 65438 to 0968, Neil published his famous paper "Black Literature Movement", commenting on the attempts of black artists to break away from the mainstream artistic model of white people and develop a creative model based on African cultural traditions, trying to incorporate the emerging black aesthetics into a ritualized artistic theory. In his view, the real source of black art is community music and oral folk stories, and new art must turn to these sources in order to become an inseparable part of contemporary black life (Note: Cheng Xilin's A New Rise of Theoretical Criticism: American Black Aesthetics, Foreign Literature, No.6, 1993. )。

Henderson and Gail are two masters of black aesthetics. Henderson does not believe that there is a universal form of "beauty", and all forms of beauty are unique in culture. In European and American aesthetics and American black aesthetics, what constitutes the form of beauty is not necessarily the same. To evaluate the poetry of the black literary movement requires a special black aesthetics rooted in the "soul" of black experience and history, so "the ultimate standard of criticism and judgment must be found in the source of creation, that is, in the black society itself" (Note: Stephen Henderson: Understanding Black New Poetry, William Morrow Press, new york, 1973, p. 66. )。 197 1 year, Gail edited the landmark collection "Black Aesthetics", which was one of the most important collections during the black power movement. Gail elaborated the composition of black aesthetics in detail in his book Black Aesthetics, and further concretized his own black aesthetics in 1974, discussing the significance, components and necessity of black aesthetics. Gail emphasized that throughout the history of black aesthetics, it is not difficult for readers to see that the creation under the banner of black aesthetics must adopt some understandable material way to improve the fate of black Americans.

Black aesthetics emphasizes the uniqueness and functionality of black literature, reflects the aesthetic values of black people and shows strong theoretical vitality for a period of time. However, the black literature movement and its cultural nationalism seem to pay too much attention to the display of ideology and political purposes, and its challenging stance and emphasis on African culture-centered values are slightly isolated because they cannot be accepted by mainstream American society. Houston A. Baker, Jr. believes that this ideological-centered movement lacks a methodological basis for a serious analysis of black culture. "our position is nationalist ... our results are sometimes not optimistic. We are familiar with terms such as' black aesthetics',' black power' and' national era'. If these words are limited, then our vision will be limited "(Note: Hurston A. Baker, Jr., The Journey: Issues in black literature and criticality, P.Xi). It can be seen that once critical discourse is ideological in political and cultural concepts, the evaluation value of literary aesthetics will inevitably show great contrast, so some active advocates of cultural nationalism have also given up their positions and turned to structuralism theory. In 1976, Larry Neil admitted that the "emotional rhetoric dimension" existing in nationalist criticism no longer works. Baraka changed from a cultural black nationalist to a pure Marxist, which is also a dramatic change for the development of black aesthetics. In a shocking article "Why I Change My Cognition-Black Nationalism and Socialist Revolution" (June 65438+July 0975), Baraka officially announced that he had changed his course and admitted that he had made mistakes in many aspects of black race issues.

Thirdly, the deconstruction and reconstruction of critical theory.

The end of the black power movement, the rise of the black feminist movement and the influence of European literary theory on the United States led to the disintegration of the black aesthetic school. In the late 1970s, a new generation of black critics began to consciously use the theories of some structuralist theorists in their literary criticism, such as Levi-Strauss, roland barthes and michel foucault. Henry Luois Gates Jr clearly expressed his support for this tendency in The Preamble to Black Sex: Text and Pre-Text, and he pointed out that black critics "urgently need to pay attention to the essence of black figurative language and narrative form, and point out the relationship between symbols and their references" (Note: Winston Napier African-American Literary Theory, new york University Press, 2000, p. 1, p. 5, p.1. )。 Robert steptoe and Dexter Fisher also said in 1976 that people who teach African-American literature are not necessarily blacks, and blacks are not necessarily the authority to interpret texts. They believe that people who teach black literature should receive training and learn how to interpret "internal cultural metaphor", "code structure" and "poetic rhetoric" in black texts.

In the middle and late 1980s, black critics began to apply the post-structuralism theory of French thinkers jacques derrida and michel foucault to their own research, trying to construct a new theoretical framework and put the study of black American literature in the context of post-structuralism literary theory. In the preface of Black American Literature: Re-education, Stampdo pointed out that formalism and cultural studies should be used simultaneously in the study of black literature.

Gates and Baker are two black critics who apply Derrida's deconstruction concept to academic research. Baker's Belief, Theory and Bruce: Notes on Post-structuralism Criticism of African-American Literature (1986) marks the formation of post-structuralism criticism theory of African-American literature. In the late 1960s, Baker defined and examined African-American aesthetics in the context of cultural background, especially cultural nationalism. Since 1970s, Baker has gradually broken away from the utopian framework of black aesthetics and focused on the theoretical factors contained in black expression. The main method is to "link the cultural tradition of African-Americans with the cultural practice of contemporary African-Americans, define the essence of African-American literature and culture, and pay attention to the relationship between African-Americans' language use and their culture" (Note: Wang Xiaolu: Expression of Differences-African Aesthetics and Baker's Critical Theory, Foreign Literature, No.2, 2000). )。 Baker successfully constructed the theoretical system of cultural criticism by using the theories and methods of structuralism, semiotics and deconstruction, and his research work provided a successful example for the study of minority culture under the shadow of mainstream discourse.

Gates defines his field of text research as African, Caribbean and American black literature, and his goal is to apply contemporary literary theory to the study of black literature and save black texts from the political and ideological context. Because in his view, political and ideological context suppressed the system of black text, and regarded it only as a record of sociology, anthropology or black experience, and did not regard black text as art, Gates used an important concept in his research: textmilieu, which applied the dynamic relationship between man and environment in archaeology to the relationship between human environment and text. Metaphor Game: The Theory of Black American Literary Criticism is Gates' masterpiece. He aims to explain and define the relationship between traditional African-American texts through the discovery of "black people", and to explain metaphors and other rhetorical devices, thus reconstructing the discourse system of African-American texts. Therefore, it can be said that the interpretation mode of Gates' critical theory is "a theoretical system aimed at the dual phonetic and ideographic features of blacks, that is, creating reference standards and writing methods for interpreting black texts, so that readers can truly experience black writing." (Noe: Wang Xiaolu: The Construction of Gates' Literary Archaeology and Critical Theory, Foreign Literature, 1995,No. 1 period. ) Gates' re-understanding of black literary theory, literary history and cultural tradition has made outstanding contributions to the excavation and establishment of black literary classics, and he will be "the central figure in the critical and cultural circles in the coming decades". (Note: Gregory S. Jay, ed. American Critics in Modern Times 1955, Detroit: Gail Books, 1988, p. 129. )

Black literary criticism has further enriched and developed the deconstruction theory, and it can even be said that deconstruction consciousness runs through the history of black Americans. At the same time, however, we should also see that black deconstructionists are far away from blacks because of their obscure terms and complicated analysis, and they are accused by some critics, among which the most representative ones are Joyce A. Joyce's Black Classics: Reconstructing Black Literary Criticism (1987) and Barbara Christian. However, deconstructionist critics believe that the meaning of language and text structure needs a corresponding explanation and cognition, which is most suitable for analyzing and defining the various meanings and values presented by literature as a cultural carrier.

Fourth, from the edge to the center: the latest development of black literary theory

In the late 1970s, black feminist criticism began to rise in American literary criticism with an independent attitude. The rise of black feminist criticism is closely related to the double oppression of black women by race and gender. "Because black female critics and writers realized that both white men and women and black men regarded their own experience as a standard and regarded it as heresy, this contributed to the birth of black feminist criticism" (Noe: elaine showalter: New Feminist Criticism, quoted from Zhu Liyuan: Contemporary Western Literary Theory). Barbara Smith can be said to be the pioneer of black feminist criticism. In the article Towards Black Feminist Criticism written by 1977, on the one hand, she agrees with the revolutionary spirit of the black literature movement, on the other hand, she points out that the task of critics is not only to resist racial discrimination of whites, but also to resist gender discrimination of whites and black men. Smith introduced the concept of "race" into feminist literary criticism and even the whole field of literary criticism, which laid the foundation for black feminist criticism. It can be said that she created a kind of black feminist discourse and established the principle of black feminist criticism: to explore the obvious literary tradition formed by gender and race in black female literature-that is, the dual identity of black and women. Under the guidance of this critical principle, "black feminists must think about their own identity and avoid adopting male writers' critical methods and aesthetic categories" (Note: Luo Ting: On the Criticism of American Minority Women, Journal of Xiangtan University,No. 1997,No. 1. )。

As black women are both women and minorities, with the emergence of minority discourse theory, black feminist criticism pays more and more attention to the unique language phenomenon in black women's literature. Deborah mcdowell advocates that black feminist criticism should avoid abstract speculation and generalization, but should consider the specific language of black female literature and explore the unique ways in which black female writers use literary means. Following this view, Erin Stetson compiled a collection of poems, Black Sisters: Poems with the African-American Women (1746 ~ 198 1), which proved that the tradition of African-American women's literature is After confirming that black women have their own literary traditions, black feminists demand to re-examine and revise American literary standards and American literary history.

In the early 1980s, Alice Walker put forward the concept of "feminism" in her collection "Looking for Mother's Garden", which can be said to be "the watershed between black feminist criticism and traditional black literature and white feminism" (Note: Min Min: An Overview of American Black Feminist Criticism, Foreign Literature Research, 2000. )。 Walker's "feminism" highlights the black female discourse from the cover of white feminist discourse and black male traditional discourse. In addition, the idea of establishing a kind of self-subjectivity also runs through all Belhook's works. Her main point is that opposition alone is not enough, but it is important to construct a radical black female subjectivity. However, the construction of this self-subject can not be negatively understood as overwhelming, against the white superiority theory. It should be positive, not just passive, and should be resisted in a positive and creative way. Hercules regards novels and theoretical criticism as the key components of constructing subjectivity, reminding black writers not to ignore identity politics, but to construct various identity concepts on the basis of respecting differences rather than confronting whites (Note: See Bart Moore-Gilbert: Postcolonial Criticism, translated by Yang Naiqiao, Peking University Publishing House, 200 1, pp. 309-365438. )。

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, black female critics further expanded the scope of examining and explaining female experiences from the perspectives of race, gender, politics and psychology. However, western feminist criticism, including black feminist criticism, has not yet formed a complete and clear theoretical system and is still in the process of continuous development. It provides a new perspective for literary research, and it also innovates in theoretical generalization and interpretation methods. However, most of its strategies to eliminate male chauvinism remain at the level of language and culture, so it is quite utopian.

Since 1990s, a new development trend of black literary criticism theory is the emergence of black queer theory (also translated as "weird theory"). Charles Nero's Towards Black Homosexuality Aesthetics, written in 199 1, is the first paper on black queer theory written by black scholars. Coincidentally, the title of this paper is similar to Smith's Towards Black Feminist Criticism written in 1977. In a sense, black queer theory can be regarded as the further development of black feminism, because they all pay attention to the words of minority groups ignored and suppressed by whites and blacks.

At the end of the 20th century, the latest development of black literary criticism is theorists' broad understanding of the concept of text. Text has become an arbitrary place to represent meaning, and culture also represents text events that need to be explained. This new theoretical trend has opened up a new research field for black literary criticism. More and more theorists find that they have broken the traditional theoretical framework of literary analysis and turned to cultural information carried by other multicultural styles, such as movies, dances, music and other cultural carriers. This shift to cultural studies complicates the academic thoughts and identities of critics, as Rubiano pointed out: "The discourse of African-American literature has never been monotonous ... This discourse focuses on the relationship between power and social and economic history (note: edited by Winston Napier). New york University African-American Literature Theory Prep.

Keywords, 2000, p. 1, p.5, p. 1 1. This sentence clearly explains the cultural connotation of social and political subtext contained in black literary classics. For example, critics read and analyze African-American culture with the text of Black Funeral, with the aim of digging the connection between culture and the daily life of African-American and expanding our understanding of African-American experience. At this point, the theory of black literature has not only become a cultural strategy to resist the mainstream American discourse, but also made ethnic minorities and marginal cultures re-recognize themselves and their national cultural prospects.

The past life of immigrants and cultural conflicts suggest you watch a documentary about Martin Luther King.

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2.blazing addles( 1974)

Guess who will come to dinner.

4. Obey the rules and do the right thing (1989)

5.BlackLikeMe( 1964)

6. Superfly (1972)

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8. Root (1982)

9. Lady Blue (1972)

10. The birth of a country (19 15)