Fly away home : tracing the flying African folktale from oral literature to verse and prose : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

This examination of the Flying African myth is divided into three areas of exploration. In Chapter I the creation of folklore, especially within the AfricanAmerican community, is investigated alongside of several versions of the Flying African folktale recorded during 1939 and 1940 off of the coast of Georgia. The second chapter addresses the influence of specific elements of the Flying African folktale on the Black Aesthetic and African-American poetry of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the transformation of the myth into verse form. Chapter III deals solely with Toni Morrison's fictional novel Song of Solomon, explaining how the novel functions as a return to oral literature via the transformation of the Flying African myth in written form. The three chapters work together to establish the significant literary influence of the Flying African folktale outside of the sphere of scientific study of African-American folklore.