The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be
research on William Faulkner’s place in Southern literature, and specifically Mississippi regional literature
June 30, 2019Explore the issues of hope, justice, class, and race in “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner.
June 30, 2019The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be
Slave Culture and Resistance
Our course pack contains readings from two authors in section XI (pp. 267-299), William J. Faulkner and Peter Kolchin. These authors provide different perspectives on slave culture, life, religion and resistance. While Kolchin’s work is scholarly, the excerpts from Faulkner come from the book The Days When the Animals Talked. This is an amazing book of folklore; I have provided a helpful review of Faulkner’s book from Amazon.com to give you a sense of his work:
5.0 out of 5 stars Among the best of its kind, March 16, 2011
By
Andre M. “brnn64” (Links to an external site.) (Mt. Pleasant, SC United States) –
This review is from: The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be
This is unquestionably hands-down one of the best books ever written on Black American Folklore.
This was where William J. Faulkner (not to be confused with the the Nobel-winning Misssissippian author of the same name) recalled the tales told to him as a child by an ex-slave handyman named Simon Brown in rural South Carolina circa 1900 when the author was about 10 years old.
