African Oral Tradition Analysis
Herbert Martin's speech "The African American Oral Tradition" is about how African American writers imply oral forms in their literary works. African American literatures use several different types of genres to form its basis about slavery. Genres such as, spiritual, folk songs and gospels are all intertwined together to form each individual work. Martin begins by explaining the language of the African Americans. The law forbade anyone to teach the slaves standard English; therefore, they learned solely by ear. When they transferred the language that they heard to paper, a new style of language was formed which was referred to as dialect. Dialect was not Standard English because it was what the African Americans perceived they had heard or how they thought the word was spelled, since they were forbidden to learn Standard English. Dunbar is celebrated as the first African American writer. His literacy is still alive, however with a stigma attached. Dunbar was introduced to the public, whom despise
These songs are poetic with the accompaniment of rhythmic sounds to add to the meaning. Martin speaks of the two elements that are essential to African American Literature, the spiritual and the sermon. All together, this is what formed the African American oral tradition according to Herbert Martin. Anderson is a prime example of a woman who was created by the African American culture then came to the metropolitan Opera later in her life an sang phenomenally in Four Season. Spirituals are said to belong to the collective community because of the various different forms of each one. Singers such as Elvis Presley siphoned songs from blacks such as "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay. A sermon, on the other hand, is a more humorous was to use dialect. Catches are a type of folk poem that is often used as sales and pitch songs. Because of the bad stigma attached to dialect, African Americans did not like to be associated with this style of language. " They were called the "Blues Queens. Baldwin, a preacher is an example of a spiritual writer. These songs are often used to pass news; this shows the duality in African American oral tradition. d dialect, but celebrated Dunbar whom used dialect. This has given their work a sort of bilingual style. From blues came rhythmic blues, a genre that showed how well African Americans could adapt.
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