Valerie Smith's
Song of Solomon
The American Novel series provides students of
American literature with introductory critical guides to great works of
American literature. Each volume begins with a substantial introduction by a
distinguished authority on the text, giving details of the work's composition,
publication history, and contemporary reception, as well as a survey of the
major critical trends and readings from first publication to the present. This
overview is followed by a group of new essays, each specially commissioned from
a leading scholar in the field, which together constitute a forum of
interpretative methods and prominent contemporary ideas on the text. There are
also helpful guides to further reading. Specifically designed for
undergraduates, the series will be a powerful resource for anyone engaged in
the critical analysis of major American novels and other important texts.
The essays collected here, written by leading critics of Toni Morrison's work,
exemplify the fresh theoretical and cultural perspectives that have been
brought to bear upon African American texts in general and upon Song of
Solomon in particular. They reveal the complexities of a deceptively
straightforward novel, at once acknowledging and kindling renewed interest in
what has proved a pivotal text by one of the most gifted authors this nation
has produced.
Song of Solomon