"There is such a thing as American Indian literature, and it can be divided into several interlocking categories. The major divisions are traditional literature and genre literature of the present. Traditional literature can be further divided into ceremonial and popular varieties—that is, into canonical works and those that derive from the canon but that are widely told and appeal to audiences gathered on social occasions. Contemporary works, or genre literature, can be divided into the classic western categories of poetry, short fiction, the novel, and drama, with the addition of autobiography, as-told-to narrative, and mixed genre works. Structural and thematic elements from the oral tradition, usually from the writer’s own tribe, always show up in contemporary works by American Indians, and elements from contemporary, non-Indian works sometimes show up in contemporaneous tribal social literature."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesLiterary criticsCritics from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesFeminists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paula_Gunn_Allen
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was an American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies
114 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paula Gunn Allen →
Related Quotes
"The power of imagination, of image, which is the fundamental power of literature, is the power to determine a people’…"
"The planet, our mother, Grandmother Earth, is physical and therefore a spiritual, mental, and emotional being. Planet…"
"Can we, as scholars and teachers facing the twenty-first century, fail to realize that "something there is that does …"
"In America, law substitutes for custom. In America, society substitutes for love of family, comrade, village, or trib…"
"The Indian way includes ample room for vision translated into meaningful action and custom and thought, and it is bec…"
"The community is the greatest threat to the American Individual Ethic; and it is the community that must be punished …"
"There is a widespread belief that we, Native American and nonnative alike, have nothing to celebrate. All too many be…"
"I am Laguna, woman of the lake, daughter of the dawn, sunrise, kurena. I can see the light making the world anew. It …"
"When I was small, my mother often told me that animals, insects, and plants are to be treated with the kind of respec…"
"Timelessness—that place where one is whole."