ABSTRACT

Afro-American writers from Phillis Wheatley to Ishmael Reed respond to the works and high cultural status of John Milton in texts that are a record of strong conflict and ambivalence regarding western literary and cultural traditions. This chapter shows that their varying responses to John Milton illuminate the historical development of an Afro-American tradition of epic literature. It analyzes a relationship between Afro-American literature and a canonical western author. Studies of the relationships between figures like Milton and Afro-American authors often have been converted into discussions of black intellectual dependency on white accomplishment. The compilation and analysis of references to Milton in Afro-American writing have been restricted by the oppressive circumstances under which Afro-American literature developed. Rarely have critics had the luxury of analyzing the genres of Afro-American literature. Afro-American literature has always had epic propensities, however, and these propensities often developed as responses to Milton.