The Signifying Monkey
The central idea that Henry Louis Gates, Jr., provides in The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (1988) is to be found in his analysis of black literature's emphasis on and use of Signification. Signifyin(g) is a technique that essentially amounts to repetition with a crucial difference, a way of commenting on other writers and their ideas through various sorts of parody and pastiche. This idea sheds new light on the seeming repetition in some black artists' work and on the literary evolution of black writers. Frequently accused of being merely imitative and not original, Gates echoes Zora Neale Hurston's idea that "what we really mean by originality is in fact masterful revision," that "imitation is the Afro-American's central art form." Furthermore, he continues, "For Hurston, the distinction between originality and imitation is a false distinction, and for the black writer to suffer under the burden of avoiding repetition, revision, or reinterpretation is to succumb to a political argument that reflects a racist subtext" (118).
Gates' idea of Signifyin(g) on literary precursors is not entirely unlike Harold Bloom's idea of the "anxiety of influence"; however, where Bloom sees primarily pressure and anxiety in the relation between a poet and his/her precursors, born from the need to distinguish him/herself and do something new and original, Gates sees creativity and possibilities for connections in the relation between a writer and his/her precursors. Whether the writer wishes to counter or affirm the ideas and style of a writer who has had an influence on him/her, in Gates' world of literary Signifyin(g), the countering or affirming will be a creative process in itself. Achieving striking originality and separating oneself from the pack is less important than is finding one's place--through Signification's playful, shifting processes--in the world of literary ancestors and relatives. These literary ancestors and relatives may or may not be other black writers. Gates is careful to avoid essentialism here, instead arguing that "shared experience of black people vis-a-vis white racism is not sufficient evidence upon which to argue that black writers have shared patterns of representation of their common subject for two centuries--unless one wishes to argue for a genetic theory of literature, which the biological sciences do not support. Rather, shared modes of figuration result only when writers read each other's texts and seize upon topoi and tropes to revise in their own texts" (128). Signification thus is a part of the creation of literary traditions, as Signifyin(g) revision "alters fundamentally the way we read the tradition, by defining the relation of the text at hand to the tradition" (124). Traditions are not static, neither are they handed down in a neat package to the next generation of writers; instead, each writer creates his/her own traditions and his/her own place in those traditions by reading and then by Signifyin(g) upon meaningful texts.
Gates' idea of Signifyin(g) on literary precursors is not entirely unlike Harold Bloom's idea of the "anxiety of influence"; however, where Bloom sees primarily pressure and anxiety in the relation between a poet and his/her precursors, born from the need to distinguish him/herself and do something new and original, Gates sees creativity and possibilities for connections in the relation between a writer and his/her precursors. Whether the writer wishes to counter or affirm the ideas and style of a writer who has had an influence on him/her, in Gates' world of literary Signifyin(g), the countering or affirming will be a creative process in itself. Achieving striking originality and separating oneself from the pack is less important than is finding one's place--through Signification's playful, shifting processes--in the world of literary ancestors and relatives. These literary ancestors and relatives may or may not be other black writers. Gates is careful to avoid essentialism here, instead arguing that "shared experience of black people vis-a-vis white racism is not sufficient evidence upon which to argue that black writers have shared patterns of representation of their common subject for two centuries--unless one wishes to argue for a genetic theory of literature, which the biological sciences do not support. Rather, shared modes of figuration result only when writers read each other's texts and seize upon topoi and tropes to revise in their own texts" (128). Signification thus is a part of the creation of literary traditions, as Signifyin(g) revision "alters fundamentally the way we read the tradition, by defining the relation of the text at hand to the tradition" (124). Traditions are not static, neither are they handed down in a neat package to the next generation of writers; instead, each writer creates his/her own traditions and his/her own place in those traditions by reading and then by Signifyin(g) upon meaningful texts.