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Discussions of folk tradition and literature which slight
the
cific literary forms involved seem to me questionable. Most of
writers whom Hyman mentions are novelists, workers
in
a
which has absorbed folk tradition into its thematic structures, its
symbolism and rhetoric; and which has its special way with
as it has with manners, history, sociology and psychology.
novelists in our time are more likely to be inspired by reading
than by their acquaintance with any folk tradition.
I use folklore in my work not because I am Negro, but
writers like Eliot and Joyce made me conscious of the literary
of my folk inheritance. My cultural background, like that of
Americans, is dual (my middle name, sadly enough, is Waldo).
I knew the trickster Ulysses just as early as I knew
the
rabbit of Negro American lore, and I could easily imagine
a pint-sized Ulysses but hardly a rabbit, no matter how human
resourceful or Negro. And a little later I could imagine myself
Huck Finn (I so nicknamed my brother) but not, though I
identified with him, as Nigger Jim, who struck me as a white
inadequate portrait of a slave.
My point is that the Negro American writer is also an heir
the human experience which is literature, and this might
weB
more important to him than his living folk tradition. For
least, in the discontinuous, swiftly changing and diverse
culture, the stability of the Negro American folk tradition
precious as a result of an act of literary discovery. Taken as a
its spirituals along with its blues, jazz, and folk tales, it has, as
suggests, much to tell us of the faith, humor, and adaptability
reality necessary to live in a world which has taken on much
of
insecurity and blues-like absurdity known to those who
into being. For those who are able to translate its meanings
wider, more precise vocabularies it has much to offer indeed.
performs a service when he makes us aware that Negro
folk tradition constitutes a valuable source for literature, but for
novelist, of any cultural or racial identity, his form is
his
freedom and his insights are where he finds them.
