Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Review of The Book of American Negro Spirituals

Review of The Book of American Negro Spirituals Review of The Book of American Negro Spirituals This title is an incentive to conjecture. What should a book contain which is designed to be "the" Book of American Negro Spirituals; how should the matter be treated and what spirit should dominate the work? Such questions naturally arise, and before the cover is lifted the imagination is busy contemplating answers which suggest themselves, probably as the result of an unconscious observance of traditional issues of such works . There should be information which should tend to increase the understanding of the songs by explaining their origin, characteris­ tics, and general significance; there should be songs as sung by the Negroes themselves and probably also such adaptations as would help bring out their character or make them more available for gen­ eral use. For the literary explanation, historical sequence has seemed the invariable rule although present-day tendencies appear to be allowing authors to achieve their ends by any means possible; but for the music any development which did not follow along the line of the natural tendency of the music would hardly seem appro­ priate. As for the dominant spirit, it is inconceivable that any work of art, especially one http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Black Sacred Music Duke University Press

Review of The Book of American Negro Spirituals

Spencer, Jon Michael
Black Sacred Music , Volume 5 (2) – Sep 1, 1991
Download PDF
3 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/duke-university-press/review-of-the-book-of-american-negro-spirituals-PfhoUR40i1

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1043-9455
eISSN
2640-9879
DOI
10.1215/10439455-5.2.48
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Review of The Book of American Negro Spirituals This title is an incentive to conjecture. What should a book contain which is designed to be "the" Book of American Negro Spirituals; how should the matter be treated and what spirit should dominate the work? Such questions naturally arise, and before the cover is lifted the imagination is busy contemplating answers which suggest themselves, probably as the result of an unconscious observance of traditional issues of such works . There should be information which should tend to increase the understanding of the songs by explaining their origin, characteris­ tics, and general significance; there should be songs as sung by the Negroes themselves and probably also such adaptations as would help bring out their character or make them more available for gen­ eral use. For the literary explanation, historical sequence has seemed the invariable rule although present-day tendencies appear to be allowing authors to achieve their ends by any means possible; but for the music any development which did not follow along the line of the natural tendency of the music would hardly seem appro­ priate. As for the dominant spirit, it is inconceivable that any work of art, especially one

Journal

Black Sacred Music – Duke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 1991

There are no references for this article.