2010 Articles
O Cant: Singing the Race Music of Jean Toomer's Cane
This essay considers Jean Toomer's Cane from a musicological perspective and discusses the text's musical poetics with an ear toward 1920s discussions of African American folk culture, preservationism, and the mediation of song. At the time of Cane's publication, Toomer's poems -- modeled on African American spirituals -- could be appreciated and sung by readers of various ethnic backgrounds. This essay argues that their musicality and performability were ultimately intended to promote interracial empathy and to elide racial difference.
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Also Published In
- Title
- American Literature
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2010-043
More About This Work
- Academic Units
- English and Comparative Literature
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Published Here
- March 22, 2016