"The challenge of my project, if not exactly to invent a black theory, was to locate and identify how the 'black tradition' had theorized about itself" (ix). This sentence, taken from the Preface of Henry Louis Gates' book The Signifying Monkey, is the first indication to the reader that Gates' theory of African-American literary criticism is rooted in the actual texts of African-American literature. At first glance, such an indication may not seem worth noting. Indeed, we tend to take for granted that literary theories of specific genres or corpuses of texts do emanate from the texts themselves, and that critics stand on the foundations of specific textual evidence in claiming certain interpretations of bodies of text. However, all too often literary critics seem to approach a text with a particular reading firmly in mind, only then to proceed to read the text itself back against their critical presuppositions in search of "textual evidence." Such re-readings no doubt play a largerole in determining which texts critics cite in their theoretical studies.. This is not the case, however, with Gates' study of African-American literature.

Gates' theory of African-American literature is firmly rooted in the texts themselves. Superb close readings of various texts from the black tradition, from slave narratives to Alice Walker's The Color Purple, ground Gates' theory in clear, convincing analyses. Coupled with these textual analyses is an exciting and sometimes hilarious exploration of black English vernacular. The black vernacular tradition, Gates argues, is the source of common tropes and of interrelated rhetorical strategies, described as "Signifyin(g)," which are found throughout the texts of the Afro-American literary tradition. Gates' combination of his close readings with his studies of black vernacular speech results in a theory of African-American literary criticism that is as convincing as it is provocative.

Unfortunately, Gates does not begin his book with either close readings of texts or with the explication of how the black vernacular practice of "Signifyin(g)" informs the literary texts of the African-American tradition. Instead, The Signifying Monkey opens with a confusing and complicated chapter on an African mythological figure known as Esu-Elegbara. Gates has a number of reasons for wanting to trace his theory of African-American literature back to an African religious/philosophical belief, but it is nevertheless a difficult way to start thinking about African-American literature. Frankly, understanding the African mythological figure Esu-Elegbara has little to do with understanding how African-American texts relate to one another, and even Gates admits later on that he can only speculate as to how much this African figure relates to the African-American figure of the Signifying Monkey, which is so central to his theory.

Chapter Two, in which Gates explains just what exactly the Signifying Monkey is and how it relates to black English vernacular, is one of the highlights of the book. After a dense but brief discussion la Derrida of the semantic reasons for writing the term as "Signifyin(g)" (complete with graphs!), Gates relates the story of the Signifying Monkey. The Signifying Monkey is a crafty monkey in the jungle who, through the manipulation of language, manages to trick both the lion and the elephant into doing what he wants. The explication of the tale, which originated in slavery and is passed on amongst black communities today, leads Gates into a discussion of the black vernacular, rhetorical practice called "Signifyin(g)" and the book (finally) starts to read a little more easily.

"Signifyin(g)," as Gates describes it, can mean many things. Gates offers several different definitions of the practice: "repetition with a signal difference" (xxiv), "troping" (81), and as "a metaphor for textual revision" (88). In each case, it's important to recognize that "Signifyin(g)" is something done in the vernacular by the common man or woman. Just to give you a taste of what he's talking about, Gates quotes from a true master of Signifyin(g), H. Rap Brown, from his 1961 autobiography Die Nigger Die!:

And I ain't giving up nothing but bubble gum and hard times and I'm
Fresh out of bubble gum.
I'm giving up wooden nickles 'cause I know they won't spend,
And I got a pocketful of splinter change.
I'm a member of the bathtub club: I'm seeing a whole lot of ass but I
Ain't taking no shit. (73)

In any case, what Gates is describing is a rhetorical practice specific to black English vernacular communities which prized not just linguistic skill, but reflected such skill through stories, images, tropes, etc. that were passed along and repeated by different speakers with a different twist each time. In his next chapter, Gates extends his discussion of "Signifyin(g)" beyond the vernacular and into the African-American literary tradition. Thus, he says: "The 'blackness' of black American literature can be discerned only through close readings. By 'blackness' here I mean specific uses of literary language that are shared, repeated, critiqued, and revised" (121). Gates reads the vernacular and the literary together, as described by the principle of "Signification."

The second half of the book consists of close readings of five different texts, spanning several centuries of African-American literature. These texts include: four different slave narratives written between 1774-1830, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo (1972), and Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982). In addition to close readings of these texts, Gates discusses W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer's Cane, Wright's Native Son, and Ellison's Invisible Man in significant detail. In each of these readings, Gates focuses on common tropes (ie. "The Trope of the Talking Book" - slave narratives) and on the different but crucially interrelated rhetorical strategies different authors have used throughout the tradition.

As with any attempt to theorize a genre or corpus of texts, much less an entire tradition, Gates' theory is no doubt not foolproof. For instance, one thing his theory of "Signification" presupposes is that African-American authors are familiar with their fellow authors' uses of tropes and rhetorical strategies, and that they are responding to these in their own texts. This may not always be the case with every author of the African-American literary tradition, and furthermore, this may not be able to be shown by a critic.

But Gates' theory is a story in and of itself, with authors and texts as characters, and as such it works very well. Another aspect of Gates' theory that I appreciate is his unwillingness to measure the African-American literary tradition in relation to the more "mainstream" tradition of white, Western letters in America. Gates' theory rests on the foundational texts of a specifically African-American literature, without need of support from outside this tradition. Though it would be interesting to examine how and where this theory of African-American literary criticism intersects with other texts. Do Stowe, Twain, or Faulkner "Signif(y)?"