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Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life.


Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.  and a History of Southern Life by Tiffany Ruby Patterson Temple University Press, June 2005 $64.50, ISBN ISBN
abbr.
International Standard Book Number


ISBN International Standard Book Number

ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 
 1-592-13289-8

Enthusiasts for the work of Zora Neale Hurston will not be disappointed in Tiffany Ruby Patterson's excellent study of Hurston's work. While much of the information Patterson covers is not new ground, there is a decidedly different cast to her research.

As a historian, Patterson is perfectly comfortable with examining how Hurston recr ates and even reports Southern history something many literary purists are loath loath also loth  
adj.
Unwilling or reluctant; disinclined: I am loath to go on such short notice.



[Middle English loth, displeasing, loath
 to do in their analyses for fear of mixing social science with art.

The result of Patterson's close reading of Hurston's canon, her careful and painstaking research, including interviews with a number of latter-day Eatonville residents, and her precise recasting of history through the eyes of one of our most careful observers is a book that never fails to inform and delight. She uses some of Hurston's lesser-known works and makes generous references to those that are commonly known, demonstrating how Hurston's canon presents a view of black life in the South that many have not supposed she knew much about. For example, the founding of Eatonville is fore-grounded in one of the chapters, and Patterson shows just how cleverly disguised Hurston's accounts are of that event, particularly those found in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jonah's Gourd gourd (gôrd, grd), common name for some members of the Cucurbitaceae, a family of plants whose range includes all tropical and subtropical areas and extends into the temperate zones.  Vine.

Perhaps one of the most exciting chapters in the book is the one that deals with Hurston's unpublished play Polk County Polk County is the name of twelve counties in the United States, all except two named after president of the United States James Knox Polk:
  • Polk County, Arkansas
  • Polk County, Florida
  • Polk County, Georgia
  • Polk County, Iowa
  • Polk County, Minnesota
, written in 1944 with Dorothy Waring. Although Polk County has received scant mention in other works and enjoyed a live production in October 2004, Patterson's analysis is one of a very few sustained treatments of the play as a historical document. This is a valuable and long-overdue addition to scholarship on Hurston and black life in the South.

--Reviewed by Warren J. Carson, Ph.D.

Warren J. Carson is chair of the Department of English Noun 1. department of English - the academic department responsible for teaching English and American literature
English department

academic department - a division of a school that is responsible for a given subject
 at the University of South Carolina Upstate Colleges and Schools
  • Mary Black School of Nursing
  • School of Business Administration and Economics
  • School of Education
History
After the Spartanburg General Hospital decided to discontinue its degree program for nurses, local politicians, led by
.
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Copyright 2005, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Article Details
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Author:Carson, Warren J.
Publication:Black Issues Book Review
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Sep 1, 2005
Words:330
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