Why read Rhetorics of Literacy?

Book cover of Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry

Book description

Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry explores the production and reception of dialect poetry in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America and investigates the genre’s rhetorical interest in where sound meets print. Dialect poetry’s popularity stems not only from its use as an entertaining distraction from “serious”…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rhetorics of Literacy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Hollis Robbins

Author

Nadia Nurhussein’s book is critically important for understanding the role of dialect poetry in the African American poetic tradition. It is all too easy to dismiss the popularity of dialect poetry in America—including Black dialect—as an embarrassing phase in American taste and particularly problematic for poetry used in minstrelsy but Nurhussein argues for the importance of the craft of dialect poetry and the remarkable brilliance of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s work along with many other poets working in many other dialects.

From Hollis' list on The best books on Black poetry.