Term
| "Harlem" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/....Or does it explode? |
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Term
| "Dream Boogie" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| Good morning, daddy!/Ain't you heard/The boogie-woogie rumble/Of a dream deferred?/...You think/It's a happy beat? |
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Term
| "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay |
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Definition
| If we must die -- let it not be like hogs/Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,/While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs |
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Term
| The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois |
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Definition
| One ever feels his two-ness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn assunder. |
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Term
| "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Definition
| We sing, but oh the clay is vile/Beneath our feet, and long the mile;/But let the world dream otherwise |
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Term
| "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Definition
| This debt we pay to human guile;/With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,/And mouth with myriad subtleties. |
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Term
| "An Ante-Bellum Sermon" by Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Definition
| An' dahs othahs thinks lak Pher'oh,/But dey calls de Scriptuah liar,/Fu' de Bible says "a servant/Is a-worthy of his hire."/An' you cain't git roun' nor thoo dat,/An' you cain't git ovah it,/Fu' whatevah place you git in,/Dis hyeah Bible too'll fit. |
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Term
"An Ante-Bellum Sermon" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Definition
| Ef I'd pause agin to say,/Dat I'm talkin' 'bout ouah freedom/In a Bibleistic way. |
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Term
| "America" by Claude McKay |
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Definition
| I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!/Her vigor flows like tides into my blood |
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Term
| "America" by Claude McKay |
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Definition
| And see her might and granite wonders there,/Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,/Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand. |
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Term
| "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young./I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep./I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it./I hard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln/went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its/muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset |
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Term
| "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| I've known rivers:/Ancient, dusky rivers./My soul has grown deep like the rivers. |
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Term
| "Mulatto" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| I am your son, white man! / A little yellow/Bastard boy. |
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Term
| "Mulatto" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| What's a body but a toy?/The scent of pine wood stings the soft night air./What's the body of your mother?/Silver moonlight everywhere. |
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Term
"Mulatto" by Langston Hughes
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Definition
| A nigger night,/A nigger joy,/A little yellow/Bastard boy. |
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Term
| "Mulatto" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| Git on back there in the night,/You ain't white. |
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Term
| "Note on Commercial Theatre" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| You've take nmy blues and gone -- /You sing 'em on Broadway/And you sing 'em in Hollywood Bowl,/And you mixed 'em up with symphonies/And you fixed 'em/So they don't sound like me. |
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Term
"Note on Commercial Theatre" by Langston Hughes
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Definition
| But someday somebody'll/Stand up and talk about me,/And write about me --/Black and beautiful--/And sing about me,/And put on plays about me!/I reckon it'll be/Me myself!/Yes, it'll be me. |
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Term
| "The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes |
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Definition
| Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,/Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,/I heard a Negro play. |
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Term
"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes
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Definition
| In a deep voice with a melancholy tone/I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--/"Ain't got nobody in all this world,/Ain't got nobody but ma self./I's gwine to quit ma frownin'/And put ma troubles on de shelf." |
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Term
| "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston |
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Definition
| She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
context: Janie's first kiss
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Definition
| Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Nanny
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Definition
| De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| She slapped the girl's face violently, and forced her head back so that their eyes met in struggle. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Nanny's owner's wife
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Definition
| Nigger, whut's yo' baby doin' wid gray eyes and yaller hair? |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Nanny
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Definition
| Dat school teacher had done hid her in de woods all night long, and he had done raped mah baby and run on off just before day. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
context: Janie and Jody
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Definition
| Every day after that they managed to meet in the scrub oaks across the road and talk about when he would be a big ruler of things with her reaping the benefits. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody
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Definition
| Ah told you in the very first beginnin' dat Ah aimed tuh be uh big voice. You oughta be glad, 'cause dat makes uh big woman outa you. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
|
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Definition
| Take for instance the case of Matt Bonner's yellow mule. They had him up for conversation every day the Lord sent. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Matt Bonner
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Definition
| Ah does feed 'im. He's jus' too mean tuh git fat. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody
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Definition
| I god, Ah can't see what uh woman uh yo' sability would want tuh be treasurin' all dat gumgrease from folks dat don't even own de house dey sleep in. 'Tain't no earthly use. They's jus' some puny humans playin' round de toes uh Time. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody
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Definition
| Didn't buy 'im fuh no work. I god, Ah bought dat varmint tuh let 'im rest. You didn't have gumption enough tuh do it. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Janie
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Definition
| Freein' dat mule makes a mighty big man outa you. Something like George Washington and Lincoln...You got uh town so you freed uh mule. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Janie
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Definition
| How come Ah can't go long wid you tuh de draggin'-out? |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| She wasn't petal-open anymore with him. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| Joe wasn't so young as he used to be. There was already something dead about him. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
context: Janie hated Nanny
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Definition
| She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
context: Mrs. Turner
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Definition
| That was the mystery and mysteries are the chores of gods. Beyond her faith was a fanaticism to defend the altars of her god. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Definition
| It woke up old Okechobee and the monster began to roll in his bed. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Janie
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Definition
| We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin' round and God opened the door. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
context: Tea Cake's death
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Definition
| He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. |
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Term
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Tea Cake
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Definition
| They's mighty particular how dese dead folks goes tuh judgment. Look lak dey think God don't know nothin' 'bout de Jim Crow law. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Speaker: Caroline speaking to Caddy |
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Definition
| Bring him here. He's too big for you to carry. You must stop trying. You'll injure your back. All of our women have prided themselves on their carraige. Do you want to look like a washerwoman. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Speaker: Caroline speaking to Caddy
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Definition
| You humor him to much. You and your father both. You dont realise that I am the one who has to pay for it. Damuddy spoiled Jason that way and it took him two years to outgrow it, and I am not strong enough to go through the same thing with Benjamin. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Speaker: Caddy speaking to Benjy
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Definition
| Ice. That means how cold it is. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Speaker: Versh
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Definition
| Your paw told you to stay out that tree. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section
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Definition
| Well I'm not surprised I expected it all the time the whole family's crazy....I could see the bottom of his nightshirt and his bare legs and hear the decanter clicking until finally TP had to pour it for him.. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| I was in time again, hearing the watch. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which teh others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| Dalton Ames. When he put the pistol in my hand I didn't. That's why I didn't. He would be there and she would and I would. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| There was a clock, high up in the sun, and I thought about how, when you dont want to do a thing, your body will try to trick you into doing it, sort of unawares. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| I got off, into the middle of my shadow. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| Let us sell Benjy's pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard and I may knock my bones together and together. I will be dead in. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| Harvard is such a fine sound forty acres is no high price for a fine sound. A fine dead sound we will swap Benjy's pasture for a fine dead sound. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section, Mr. Compson speaking
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Definition
| man who is conceived by accident and whose every breath is a fresh cast with dice already loaded against him will not face the final main which he knows before hand he has assuredly to face without essaying expedients and ranging all the way from violence to petty chicanery that would not deceive a child.... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section, Mr. Compson speaking
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Definition
| you will not do that until you come to believe that even she was not quite worth despair perhaps |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section - Quentin speaking to Dalton Ames
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Definition
| I'll give you until sundown to leave town. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| This was where I saw the river for the last time this morning, about here. I could feel water beyond the twilight, smell. When it bloomed in the spring and it rained the smell was everywhere you didn't notice it so much at other times but when it rained the smell began to come into the house... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Quentin's Section
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Definition
| if I'd just had a mother so I could say Mother Mother |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section - speaking of Caroline
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Definition
| like that time when she happened to see one of them kissing Caddy and all the next day she went around the house in a black dress and veil |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section - Speaker: Caroline
Speaking of: Quentin
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Definition
| We Bascombs need nobody's charity. Certainly not that of a fallen woman. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section (Speaker is Jason)
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Definition
| I began to feel sort of funny and so I decided to walk around a while...We stood there looking at the grave, and then I got to thinking about when we were little and one thing and another and I got to feeling funny again, kind of mad or something, thinking about now we'd have Uncle Maury around the house all the time... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Speaker: Jason (in Jason's Section)
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Definition
| I have nothing against jews as an individual. It's just the race. You'll admit they produce nothing. They follow the pioneers into a new country and sell them clothes. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section
|
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Definition
| it was the same day one month that Father went up there and got it and brought it home and wouldn't tell anything about where she was or anything and Mother crying and saying "And you didn't even see him? You didn't even try to get him to make any provision for it?" |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section
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Definition
| I happened to look around and I had my hand right on a bunch of poison oak. The only thing I couldn't understand was why it was just poison oak and not a snake or something. So I didn't even bother to move it. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Jason's Section (Jason speaking)
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Definition
| Of course it's not. She's too much like both of them to doubt that. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Disley's Section |
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Definition
| The day dawned bleak and chill, a moving wall of gray light out of hte northeast, which, instead of dissolving into moisture, seemed to disintegrate into minute and venemous particles, like dust... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Disley's Section |
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Definition
|
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Disley's Section
context: describing Dilsey |
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Definition
| The gown fell gauntly from her shoulders, across her fallen breasts, then tightened upon her paunch and fell again, ballooning a little above the nether garments which she would remove layer by layer as the spring accomplished and the warm days, in color regal and moribud. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Speaker: Disley
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Definition
| Ive seed de first en de last. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Disley's Section: describing the Compson house
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Definition
| Immediately Ben began to whimper again, and for a while all of them looked up the drive at the square, paintless house with its rotting portico. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Disley's section: describing Benjy
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Definition
| His skinw as dead looking and hairless; dropsical too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear. His hair was pale and fine....His eyes were clear... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Disley's Section: describing Caroline
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Definition
| ...the other cold and querulous, with perfectly white hair and eyes pouched and baffled and so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section: speaker - Jason, speaking to Caroline
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Definition
| You never resurrected Christ, did you? |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's section: speaker - Jason, speaking to Disley about Caroline, then to Caroline
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Definition
| The key. To that room. Does she carry it with her all the time. Mother. The key. Give it here. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section: describing Quentin's room
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Definition
| It was not a girl's room. It was not anybody's room, and the faint scent of cheap cosmetics and the few feminine objects and the other evidences of crude and hopefuless efforts to feminise it but added to its anonymity |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section
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Definition
| It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow became vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section: describing Rev. Shegog
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Definition
| They began to watch him as they would a man on a tight rope. They even forgot his insignificant appearance in the virtuosity with which he ran and poised and swooped upon the cold inflectionless wire of his voice, so that at last, when with a sort of swooping glide he came to rest again beside the reading desk with one arm resting upon it at shoulder height and his monkey body as reft of all motion as a mummy or an empitied vessel... |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section: Caroline speaking
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Definition
| What reason did Quentin have? Under God's heaven what reason did he have? It can't be simply to flout and hurt me. Whoever God is, He would not permit that. I'm a lady. |
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Term
"The Sound and the Fury" by Wiliam Faulkner
Dilsey's Section: last scene
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Definition
| The broken flower drooped over Ben's fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway and signboard each in its ordered place. |
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
context: Mrs. Hopewell |
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Definition
| She would make these statements, usually at the table, in a tone of gentle insistence as if no one held them but her, and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her icy blue, with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it. |
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
context: Mrs. Hopewell
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Definition
| Nothing had been arrived at by anyone that had not first been arrived at by her. |
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
Speaker: Joy
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Definition
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
context: Joy
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Definition
| she felt as if her heart had stopped and left her mind to pump her blood. |
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
Speaker: Manley Pointer
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Definition
| I been believing in nothing every since I was born! |
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Term
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
Speaker:Mrs. Freeman
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Definition
| Some cant be that simple. I know I never could. |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Salzman |
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Definition
| You wouldn't believe me how much cards I got in my office. The drawers are already filled to the top, so I keep them now in a barrel, but is every girl good for a new rabbi? |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Leo Finkle
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Definition
| Because I detest stomach specialists. |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Salzman
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Definition
| Am I responsible that the world is filled with widows? |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Lily
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Definition
| When did you become enamored of God? |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Leo Finkle
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Definition
| I am not a talented religious person. I think that I came to God not because I loved Him, but because I did not. |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Leo Finkle
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Definition
| Love, I have said to myself, should be a by-product of living and worship rather than its own end. Yet for myself I find it necessary to establish the level of my need and fulfill it. |
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Term
"The Magic Barrell" by Bernard Malamud
context: Stella
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Definition
| this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy
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Definition
| He might have been compared to a summer's day. |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy
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Definition
| Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find friends all along the way; friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River. |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy and amnesia
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Definition
| Then there was an explosion, a smell of cordite, and rain lashed the Japanese lanterns that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or was it the year before that? |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy
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Definition
| Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of truth? |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy visits mistress' house
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Definition
| Love -- sexual roughhouse in fact -- was the supreme elixir, the painkiller, the brightly colored pill that would put the spring back into his step, the joy of life in his heart. |
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Term
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever
context: Neddy
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Definition
| He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw that the place was empty. |
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Term
"Separating" by John Updike
Speaker: Joan speaking to Richard |
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Definition
| I think just making an announcement is a cop-out. They'll start quarrelling and playing to each other instead of focussing. They're each individuals, you know, not just some corporate obstacle to your freedom. |
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Term
"Seperating" by John Updike
Speaker: Judith
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Definition
| I was anxious to come home. I'm an American. |
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Term
"Seperating" by John Updike
context: Richard
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Definition
| Tears dropped from his nose as he broke the lobster's back; salt flavored his champagne as he sipped it; the raw clench at the back of his throat was delicious. |
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Term
"Seperating" by John Updike
Speaker: Judith
|
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Definition
| I think it's silly. You should either live together or get divorced. |
|
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Term
"Seperating" by John Updike
Speaker: Richard
|
|
Definition
| If I could undo it all, I would. |
|
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Term
"Seperating" by John Updike
Speaker: Dickie
|
|
Definition
| "Why?" Why. It was a whistle of wind in a crack, a knife thrust, a window thrown open on emptiness. |
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