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Books by Sterling Brown
Southern Road /
The Negro Caravan /
The Collected Poems of Sterling Brown /
The Negro in American Fiction; Negro Poetry and Drama
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Last Ride of Wild Bill and Eleven Narrative Poems
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Books about Sterling Brown
Joanne,Gabbin.
Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition (1994)
John Edgar Tidwell,
Sterling A. Brown's A Negro Looks at the South (2007)
Charles Rowell.
Callaloo's Sterling A. Brown: Special Issue (1998)
Mark A. Sanders.
Afro-Modernist Aesthetics & the Poetry of Sterling Brown
(1999)
Mark A. Sanders.
A Son's Return: Selected Essays of Sterling Brown (1996)
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Bio-Sketch
Sterling Allen Brown (1901-1989), author, critic,
professor, Poet Laureate for Washington, DC, and "the Dean of American
Poets," was born on Howard University's campus at the site where Cook Hall
Dormitory now stands, in a house on Sixth and Fairmount in
Washington, DC, Brown was the last of six children born to Reverend Sterling
Nelson and Adelaid Allen Brown. He grew up on the campus of Howard University,
where his father taught in the School of Religion. He was educated in the District of Columbia Public Schools
and received his Bachelor's degree from Williams College (Williamstown, MA) in
1922 with honors as a Phi Beta Kappa. Brown entered graduate school and received
his Master's degree from Harvard University in 1923.
He taught at Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg,
Virginia; Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee; and Lincoln
University in Missouri. He was a visiting lecturer at Atlanta
University, New York University and Vassar College.
Sterling Brown joined the Howard University faculty in 1929 and
remained associated with Howard for almost sixty years.
His poem "Strong Men," from his book entitled Southern Road
(1931), celebrates the enduring spirit of Black people in the
face of racial oppression and political exploitation. The
poem captures the horrors of the Middle Passage and reflects the
"idea of Black stoicism," Brown explains in
Southern Road.
According to literary critic Joanne V. Gabbin, "During the 1930s
and 1940s, Brown's studies of the folk experience and culture
were the fullest of any in the field."
In his book, The Negro in
American Fiction (1937), Brown shows parallels of how
treatment of an oppressed group in literature reflects its
treatment in life. His pioneering work brought recognition to
African-American literature and folklore. Primary Works
Southern Road , 1932; "Negro Characters as Seen by White
Authors," 1933; Negro Poetry and Drama, 1938; The Negro
in American Fiction, 1938 ( PS374 N4 B7);
The Negro Caravan (an anthology, co edited with Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee), 1941 (
PS508.N3 B75);
The Collected Poems of Sterling Brown
, 1980.
Brown, Sterling A. "A Century of Negro Portraiture in American
Literature." Massachusetts Review 7 (1966): 73-96.
- - -.
The Negro in American Fiction; Negro Poetry and Drama.
NY: Arno, 1969.
- - -. "Arna Bontemps: Co-Worker, Comrade." Black World
22.1 (1973): 1, 11,91-97.
- - -.
Last Ride of Wild Bill and Eleven Narrative Poems.
Detroit: Broadside Press, 1975. PS3503 R833 L3
- - -. "A Son's Return 'Oh, Didn't He Ramble'."
Chant of
Saints A Gathering of Afro American Literature, Art, and Scholarship.
Eds. Michael Harper and others. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1979.
- - -. "Negro Character as Seen by White Authors." Callaloo
5.1-2 (Feb-May 1982): 55-89.
- - -. "On Dialect Usage."
The Slave's Narrative.
Eds. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Oxford: Oxford UP,
1985.
- - -. "Our Literary Audience ."
Within the Circle: An
Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem
Renaissance to the Present. Ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Durham, NC Duke
UP, 1994. 69-78.
Joanne,Gabbin.
Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition (1994)
Southern Road
and the "New Negro Renaissance"
Sterling Brown Papers.
Manuscript Division,
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC). Howard University
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posted 29 June 2008 |
