Politics in the African-American Novel ― James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison

These classic essays by an important independent scholar cull the novels of the Afro-American writers James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison for their political meanings and provide interpretations of experience that suggest political meanings. Starting with philosopher Robin Collingwood's notion that "the historian and novelist have much in common for both attempt to define the largest lines of historical development," Kostelanetz deduces themes in the fiction that are then interpreted as intellectual history, a wholly original approach which no other scholarly work treating these books has taken.

RICHARD KOSTELANETZ, following his tenure as Fulbright Scholar at King's College, University of London, and as Visiting Professor of American Studies and English at the University of Texas at Austin, has written many books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and cultural history. He has also edited more than two dozen anthologies of art, literature, and criticism. His essays have been published in scores of periodicals around the world. Among his current projects are books about the art of radio in North America, contemporary avant-garde literature, and the maturity of American thought from 1945 to 1967.