Additional information
by Melba Joyce Boyd (Author)
Frances E. W. Harper is a central figure in the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century African-American literature and intellectual thought. The foremost poet of the free colored community, she was also a lecturer,
educator, essayist, and novelist. A prolific champion of the abolitionist and feminist causes, she has come to be recognized for the critical role she played in the rise of the women's movement, particularly in the development of the black women's movement. Yet neither her art nor her political insight was preserved by subsequent generations until recently.
demonstrates how Harper's art and politics are synthesized into a dynamic whole. This book weaves Harper's radical vision with the intuitive and analytical dimensions of her imagination and language. Through perceptive explication of Harper's writings and consideration of her thematic inclinations and political and social affiliations, Boyd is able to show how Harper crafted her subjects and how the literature and speeches interrelated in theme and historical experience. Boyd has successfully arranged Harper's work in a manner that connects our present to Harper's past and that re-envisions her consciousness.
Author Biography
Melba Joyce Boyd is author of Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press and Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E. W. Harper, 1825-1911 (Wayne State University Press, 1994), co-editor of Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry 2001 (Wayne State University Press, 2001), and author of seven books of poetry, including Death Dance of a Butterfly. She is a distinguished university professor and chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Wayne State University and adjunct professor at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
