IRWIN RUSSELL
Irwin Russell s greatest distinction lies in his being the first to point out the literary possibilities of the negro. The negro had appeared in cidentally in Southern literature, but Russell was the first to make him not only the leading but the sole character. Thomas Nelson Page has admitted that Russell was his teacher in this field, and Joel Chandler Harris gives Russell the same distinction, saying, "Russell described the old-time darky that was even in his time beginning to disappear."
NEBUCHADNEZZAR (PAGE 410)
yeah s advancin: advances of supplies which the negro had secured from some merchant against the value of his crops.
QUESTIONS, i. Relate the incident. 2. Is the habit of philosophizing
with the animals a negro may be working with characteristic of the race? 3. Is the humorous acceptance of discomfiture also one of their characteristics?
SELLING A DOG (PAGE 412)
QUESTIONS, i. Who is speaking? 2. To whom? 3. What character
istics of the negro as a trader are shown.?
DAT PETER (PAGE 413)
QUESTION. What characteristics of the younger generation of
negroes is brought out in this poem?
SIDNEY LANIER
THE TOURNAMENT (PAGE 416)
This was one of the earliest poems of Lanier. The first part was written in 1862, amid the horrors of war, while the poet was in camp near Wilmington, North Carolina. The second part was written three years later at his home in Macon, Georgia, whither he had returned after the war. The poem was first published in "The Round Table," in 1867.
QUESTIONS, i. Interpret the meaning of the first joust. 2. Does the
last stanza of this part of the poem seem to give the poet s attitude toward the war in which he was engaged? If so, what does it seem to be?
