206
PARTISAN REVIEW
peatedly in the dozens, as do the college boys in Redding's novel
Stranger and Alone,
along with the characters in many other Negro
works. There
is
a particularly interesting example in
Invisible Man.
The nameless protagonist, brought up on charges before a committee
of the Brotherhood,
is
asked indignantly where he got the "personal
responsibility" he claims, and automatically answers "From your rna,"
before he corrects himself.
Related to the theme of obscenity and abuse in the blues is a
pervasive cynicism, the cynicism of
"If
you don't like my peaches,
don't shake my tree; I ain't after your woman, she's after me"; or
"Papa, papa, you in a good man's way; I can get one better than
you any time of day." The Negro poet who has made this note
uniquely his own
is
Fenton Johnson. I quote part of his poem "Tired,"
which catches the fast blues' mingled tones of despair and mean com–
edy:
I am trred of work; I am tired of building up somebody else's
civilization.
Let us take a rest, M'Lissy Jane.
I will go down to the Last Chance Saloon, drink a gallon
or two of gin, shoot a game or two of dice and
sleep the rest of the night on one of
Mike'~
barrels.
You will let the old shanty go to rot, the white people's
clothes turn to dust, and the Calvary Baptist Church
sink to the bottomless pit.
You will spend your days forgetting you married me and
your nights hunting the warm gin Mike serves the
ladies in the rear of the Last' Chance Saloon.
Throw the children into the river; civilization has given
us too many.
Along with the themes and attitudes of the blues, their tech–
niques and diction are equally pervasive in Negro writing. In the
folk blues, the formal unit
is
not the song but the individual stanza
(what in ballad study is called the "commonplace"), and the com–
poser or singer strings traditional stanzas together to produce
his
own composition. The formal organization of the blues
is
thus not
narrative, dramatic, or logical; but lyric, thematic, and associative,
like a good deal of modern poetry. A typical folk blues is "Little
Brother's Blues," recorded by the Lomaxes for the Library of Con-
