ENG 380 Dramatic Literature (Julie Quarles)

This collection of essays deals individually with Wilson's five major plays and also addresses issues crucial to his canon: the role of history, the relationship of African ritual to African American drama, gender relations in the African American community, music and cultural identity, the influence of Romare Bearden's collages, and the politics of drama.

This book offers essays and interviews addressing Wilson's work, ranging from examinations of the presence of Wilson's politics in his plays to the limitations of these politics on contemporary interpretations of Black aesthetics.

A comprehensive study of August Wilson's drama introduces the major themes and motifs that unite Wilson's ten-play cycle about African American life in each decade of the twentieth century. Framed by Wilson's life experiences and informed by his extensive interviews, this book provides detailed readings of each play, well-situated in the extant scholarship. It also provides an overview of the cycle as a whole, demonstrating how it comprises a compelling interrogation of American culture and historiography. Wilson's improvisational logics become crucial to expressing his notions of black identity and resituating the relationship of literal to figurative in the African American community.

A comprehensive view of the plays of August Wilson. It looks at their thematic structure, places them within the context of American drama, and examines the distinctively African American experiences they dramatize. There is a chapter on The Piano Lesson.