Since the publication of 'Invisible Man' in 1952, scholarship on Ellison's masterpiece has been abundant indeed. Scores of articles, dissertations, book chapters, and the like have delineated aspects of the novel's narrative structure, imagistic texture, and thematic design; at the same time, Ellison's own essays and interviews have provided lucid authorial perspectives on these and similar issues.
And yet, while reviewing this impressive interpretive activity a few years ago, the author found that the criticism tended to collect at either of two extremes: descriptive-aesthetic and prescriptive-ideological. This volume reflects an effort to redress this schism by suggesting an image of a more complex and coherent career.
The essays in this collection have been chosen and organized to reflect the dynamic interplay of aesthetic practice and cultural perception which the author takes to be the cornerstone of Ellison's vision. Indeed, nothing unites the essays gathered here more than the collective intuition of Ellison's central 'moral' ideal: the dialectical mutuality of conscience and craft that enables the artist to dare 'speak for you.'.
May of the essays presented here were commissioned especially to engage the complexities of this Ellisonian vision. The volume begins with the widest concerns (biography, sense of place, general aesthetics), then moves to increasingly focused matters of practice (instances of interaction between Ellison and his forebears) and, finally, to readings of 'Invisible Man' illuminated by consideration of Ellison's cultural vision at large. Each section begins with Ellison's own reflections: it seems only proper that even as we speak for him he speaks, in turn, for himself.
And yet, while reviewing this impressive interpretive activity a few years ago, the author found that the criticism tended to collect at either of two extremes: descriptive-aesthetic and prescriptive-ideological. This volume reflects an effort to redress this schism by suggesting an image of a more complex and coherent career.
The essays in this collection have been chosen and organized to reflect the dynamic interplay of aesthetic practice and cultural perception which the author takes to be the cornerstone of Ellison's vision. Indeed, nothing unites the essays gathered here more than the collective intuition of Ellison's central 'moral' ideal: the dialectical mutuality of conscience and craft that enables the artist to dare 'speak for you.'.
May of the essays presented here were commissioned especially to engage the complexities of this Ellisonian vision. The volume begins with the widest concerns (biography, sense of place, general aesthetics), then moves to increasingly focused matters of practice (instances of interaction between Ellison and his forebears) and, finally, to readings of 'Invisible Man' illuminated by consideration of Ellison's cultural vision at large. Each section begins with Ellison's own reflections: it seems only proper that even as we speak for him he speaks, in turn, for himself.
