Abstract
Lorraine Hansberry, African American playwright, is hailed as a pioneer of Black theater with her seminal work A Raisin in the Sun. She artfully weaves elements of African-American popular arts such as spirituals, gospel, blues, and folk dance into the fabric of the play. Focusing on the play’s rich musical landscape, this article argues that music in the play functions as both a cultural bond that sustains collective memory and pursues harmony, and an aesthetic space that exposes individual differences and accommodates conflicts. The aim is to elucidate how these artistic elements awaken African American’s consciousness of cultural subjectivity and confront the problem of racial discrimination, thereby promoting, to a certain extent, the construction and development of ethnic community.
Note
This article is supported by the General Program of National Social Science Fund of China “Research on the Museum Writing of Victorian British Authors” (21BWW045).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Friedrich Nietzsche and René Wellek’s Concept of Literary History (Neo-Idealistic Acceptance among Slavonic Literatures)
- « Sourire au milieu du pillage ». La dénonciation du néolibéralisme dans le théâtre d’Eudes Labrusse : Le Rêve d’Alvaro
- An Ophelia for the Anthropocene: Floral Agency and the Rewriting of Ophelia’s Victimhood in Hamlet
- Music Writing and Community Construction in A Raisin in the Sun
- Transgenerational Trauma, Belated Witnessing, and Resilience in Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone
- Nagasaki’s Scar: The Formation, Reference, and Transformation of Nuclear Explosion Memory in A Pale View of Hills
- Reviews
- Mona Körte, Elisa Ronzheimer und Sebastian Schönbeck, Hgg.: Wechselwörter. Personalpronomen in Bewegung (Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2025. 274 S.
- James V. Morrison: Comedy in Literature and Popular Culture: From Aristophanes to Saturday Night Live. London: Routledge, 2025. ix + 233 pp.
- Jutta Müller-Tamm und Sylwia Werner, Hgg.: Mobile Avantgarden. Netzwerke der Moderne im nördlichen und östlichen Europa (WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures, Bd. 25). Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2025. 250 S.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Friedrich Nietzsche and René Wellek’s Concept of Literary History (Neo-Idealistic Acceptance among Slavonic Literatures)
- « Sourire au milieu du pillage ». La dénonciation du néolibéralisme dans le théâtre d’Eudes Labrusse : Le Rêve d’Alvaro
- An Ophelia for the Anthropocene: Floral Agency and the Rewriting of Ophelia’s Victimhood in Hamlet
- Music Writing and Community Construction in A Raisin in the Sun
- Transgenerational Trauma, Belated Witnessing, and Resilience in Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone
- Nagasaki’s Scar: The Formation, Reference, and Transformation of Nuclear Explosion Memory in A Pale View of Hills
- Reviews
- Mona Körte, Elisa Ronzheimer und Sebastian Schönbeck, Hgg.: Wechselwörter. Personalpronomen in Bewegung (Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2025. 274 S.
- James V. Morrison: Comedy in Literature and Popular Culture: From Aristophanes to Saturday Night Live. London: Routledge, 2025. ix + 233 pp.
- Jutta Müller-Tamm und Sylwia Werner, Hgg.: Mobile Avantgarden. Netzwerke der Moderne im nördlichen und östlichen Europa (WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures, Bd. 25). Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2025. 250 S.