Date of Award
1932
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Keywords
Negro Art, Harlem Renaissance, African American Music, Spirituals, Negro Dialect Poetry, Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, African Cultural History, Negro Artists
Abstract
This thesis, submitted to Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1932, surveys the contributions of Black artists to literature and music in America, situating these contributions within a broader history of African civilization and creative achievement. The thesis opens with a discussion of ancient African scientific, religious, and artistic accomplishments before turning to its central focus on Black American literary and musical figures from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries.
The thesis profiles a series of poets and writers, including Phyllis Wheatley, described as the first Black woman in American literature; Paul Laurence Dunbar, credited as the first native-born Black American poet to write about Black life in dialect verse; W.E.B. Du Bois, discussed as a scholar and editor of The Crisis; and William Stanley Braithwaite, noted as a literary critic. The thesis then turns to music, examining the origins and characteristics of the spiritual as a distinctly American folk art form, along with the emergence of the blues. It profiles composers and musicians including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and James Weldon Johnson, describing their training, major works, and contributions to the arrangement and performance of Black musical traditions. The thesis concludes that Black Americans have made substantial and distinctive contributions to American art and literature, rooted in an inherited rhythmic and creative sensibility, and argues that continued access to education will further advance these contributions.
Note: No original abstract was included; this abstract is provided by the XULA Digital Commons editors.
Recommended Citation
Richards, Vera Helena, "Negro Art" (1932). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 118.
https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/etd/118
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons