202
PARTISAN REVIEW
sources in myth and ritual. High Western culture and the Negro folk
tradition thus do not appear to pull the writer
in
opposite directions,
but to say the same thing in their different vocabularies, to come to–
gether and reinforce insight with insight. Prince Myshkin in
The Idiot
derives identically from the
Eiron
and Fool of drama, the Fool
in
Christ, and a folk figure of wisdom-in-stupidity out of Russian peas–
ant life and lore instead of Negro.
*
* *
The relationship of Negro writing to the blues is, if anything,
even more immediately visible than its relationship to the folk tale,
although it is much harder to describe, since the blues is an extra–
ordinarily complicated and subtle form, much of it depending on the
music, which I shall have to ignore here. Most blues songs seem to
divide readily into two types, a slow lament and a faster and gayer
form. The slow lament says, with Ma Rainey:
Easy rider, see what you done done,
Easy rider, see what you done done;
You made me love you, now my man done come.
or with Be5.Sie Smith:
I was with you, baby, when you didn't have a dime,
I was with you, baby, when you didn't have a dime;
Now since you got plenty monry you have throwed your good gal
down.
The fast blues says, with Joe Turner:
You so beautiful, but you gotta die someday,
Oh, you so beautiful, but you gotta die someday;
All I want's a little lovin', baby, just before 'you pass away.
or with J abo Williams:
Please, fat mama, take those big legs oft of me,
Please, fat mama, take those big legs 'oft of me.
Those great big legs gonna drive me away,
Those big legs drive me away.
or with Rosetta Crawford:
I'm gonna get me a razor and a gun,
Cut him if he stand still, shoot him if he run;
'Cause that man jumped salty
on
TTU.
