Read complete books and articles on: Beloved (by Toni Morrison)

Morrison, Toni - 1931–, American writer, b. Lorain, Ohio, as Chloe Ardelia (later Anthony) Wofford; grad. Howard Univ. (B.A., 1953), Cornell Univ. (M.F.A., 1955). Her fiction is noted for its poetic language, lush detail, emotional intensity, and sensitive observation of American life as viewed from a variety of African-American perspectives. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), is the story of a girl ruined by a racist society and its violence. Song of Solomon (1977; National Book Award) established her as one of America's leading novelists. It concerns a middle-class man who achieves self-knowledge through the discovery of his rural black heritage. Her later fiction includes Beloved (1987; Pulitzer Prize), a powerful account of mother love, murder, and the legacy of slavery; and Jazz (1992), a tale of love and murder set in Harlem in the 1920s. Her other novels are Sula (1973), Tar Baby (1981), Paradise (1997), and Love (2003).

Among Morrison's other works are the essay collections Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power and Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (both: 1992); several children's books, including The Big Box (2000), written with her son, Slade; a play, Dreaming Emmett (1986); a song cycle, Honey and Me (1992), written with André Previn; and an opera, Margaret Garner (2003). Awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, she is the first African American to win the coveted prize. Morrison, who was an influential editor at Random House for nearly two decades, has been a professor at Princeton Univ. since 1989 and is the founder (1994) of the Princeton Atelier, a writers' and performers' workshop.

See studies by B. W. Jones (1985) and A. I. Vinson (1985); Conversations with Toni Morrison (1994).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Beloved (by Toni Morrison)

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Understanding Toni Morrison's Beloved and Sula: Selected Essays and Criticisms of the Works by the Nobel Prize-Winning Author » Read Now
by Marla W. Iyasere, Solomon O. Iyasere. 381 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Toni Morrison's "Beloved" is probably the most widely studied work of contemporary fiction, both in the United States and abroad. The novel appeals to readers across various disciplines; as such, it is now required reading in courses in English and American literature, feminist and multicultural...
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Toni Morrison's "Beloved" is probably the most widely studied work of contemporary fiction, both in the United States and abroad. The novel appeals to readers across various disciplines; as such, it is now required reading in courses in English and American literature, feminist and multicultural critiscism, and American history in universities and colleges around the world. The novel's universal appeal, with its unique structure and compelling story, has made it the subject of numerous scholarly essays published in reference journals. To make the best of these essays more accessible to university students, this book offers a volume of selected essays with a criticial introduction and annotated bibliography.
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2.

Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion (Chap. 7 "Beloved (1987)") » Read Now
by Missy Dehn Kubitschek. 203 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is among our most distinguished contemporary novelists. Morrison describes herself as a "black woman novelist," and all her novels deal with African American characters and communities. Exploring the entire cycle of human life in a...
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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is among our most distinguished contemporary novelists. Morrison describes herself as a "black woman novelist," and all her novels deal with African American characters and communities. Exploring the entire cycle of human life in a spiritual context, her novels are also universal in their depiction of families, especially mothers and their children. From her first novel, The Bluest Eye, to her most recent, Paradise, Toni Morrison has explored the African American experience, and by extension, the human experience. The characters she creates linger in our minds long after we have finished reading the novel. This is the only book-length study of Morrison's novels to discuss all of her novels published to date.
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3.

The Novels of Toni Morrison: The Search for Self and Place within the Community (Chap. VII "Beloved: The Paradox of a Past and Present Self and Place") » Read Now
by Patrick Bryce Bjork. 172 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...111 VII. Beloved: The Paradox of a Past and...of black people and culture by presenting the multiplicities of daily living; as Toni Morrison commented in an...
4.

'Beloved': Ideologies in Conflict, Improvised Subjects, in African American Review » Read Now
by Arlene R. Keizer. 19 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
5.

Models of Memory and Romance: The Dual Endings of Toni Morrison's Beloved, in Twentieth Century Literature » Read Now
by Mary Paniccia Carden. 27 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
6.

Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Apotropaic Imagination » Read Now
by Kathleen Marks. 162 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Apotropaic Imagination investigates Toni Morrison's Beloved in light of ancient Greek influences, arguing that the African American experience depicted in the novel can be set in a broader context than is usually allowed. Kathleen Marks gives a history of the...
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Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Apotropaic Imagination investigates Toni Morrison's Beloved in light of ancient Greek influences, arguing that the African American experience depicted in the novel can be set in a broader context than is usually allowed. Kathleen Marks gives a history of the apotropaic from ancient to modern times, and shows the ways that Beloved's protagonist, Sethe, and her community, engage the apotropaic as a mode of dealing with their communal suffering.
Apotropaic, from the Greek, meaning "to turn away from" refers to rituals that were performed in ancient times to ward off evil deities. Modern scholars use the term to denote an action that, in attempting to prevent an evil, causes that very evil. Freud used the apotropaic to inform his thought concerning Medusa and the castration complex, and Derrida found the apotropaic's logic of self-sabotage consonant with his own thought.
Marks draws on this critical history and argues that Morrison's heroine's effort to keep the past at bay is apotropaic: gestures aimed at resisting a danger, a threat, an imperative. These gestures anticipate, mirror, and put into effect that which they seek to avoid -- one does what one finds horrible so as to mitigate its horror. In Beloved, Sethe's killing of her baby reveals this logic: she kills the baby in order to save it. Her action has ritualistic undertones that link it to the type of primal crimes that can bring relief not only to herself but also to a petrified community. As do all great heroes, Sethe transgresses boundaries, and such transgressions bring with them terrific dangers. It is through a series of these gestures that the heroine and the community resist whatMorrison calls "cultural amnesia" and engage in a shared past, inaugurating a new order of love.
Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Apotropaic Imagination is eclectic in its approach -- calling upon Greek religion, Greek mythology
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7.

Toni Morrison's Developing Class Consciousness (Chap. 6 "Beloved: Solidarity as Solution") » Read Now
by Doreatha Drummond Mbalia. 244 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"Toni Morrison scholars as well as those interested in the creative process will be excited about a new feature that appears in this second edition of this book a sampling of Toni Morrison's creative process. In Part Two of this critical work, the author s"
8.

"To Be Loved and Cry Shame": A Psychological Reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved, in MELUS » Read Now
by Lynda Koolish. 27 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Psychology, Entire Library
9.

"From the Seen to the Told": The Construction of Subjectivity in Toni Morrison's Beloved, in African American Review » Read Now
by Jeanna Fuston-White. 13 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...of subjectivity in Toni Morrisons Beloved by Jeanna Fuston-White...marginality. (3) Toni Morrisons Beloved illustrates the construction of subjectivity...Logic of Slavery...
10.

Truth in Timbre: Morrison's Extension of Slave Narrative Song in Beloved, in African American Review » Read Now
by Peter J. Capuano. 9 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...in timbre: Morrisons extension of slave narrative song in Beloved. by Peter J. Capuano His voice was faint. A...Charles Johnson, who explore similar topics. Morrisons...
11.

'Beloved' and the Problem of Mourning, in Studies in the Novel » Read Now
by Teresa Heffernan. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...the heart of Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, Sethe, at a critical moment, is unable...around--as Morrisons dedication to Beloved puts it--the "Sixty Million and more...1989):...
12.

Narrative and Community Crisis in Beloved, in MELUS » Read Now
by D. Scot Hinson. 22 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Narrative and community crisis in Beloved by D. Scot Hinson Toni...Unspeakable Things" 21). Morrisons Beloved discloses the "secrets `we shared...P, 1991. Holloway, Karla...
13.

"Postmodern Blackness": Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' and the End of History, in Twentieth Century Literature » Read Now
by Kimberly Chabot Davis. 18 pgs.

Collections: History, Literature, Entire Library

...Postmodern blackness": Toni Morrisons Beloved and the end of history by Kimberly...Morrisons acclaimed historical novel Beloved (1987) enacts a hybrid vision of...
14.

Historical Nightmares and Imaginative Violence in American Women's Writings (Chap. 3 "Passages Home, Journeys Outward: A Reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved") » Read Now
by Amy S. Gottfried. 158 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Interpreting five contemporary novels that document suppressed histories of violence and abuse, including Toni Morrison's Beloved and Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, the author then examines the disturbing connections between violence and art.
15.

Toni Morrison's World of Fiction (Chap. 6 "Trilogy in Progress: Beloved and Jazz") » Read Now
by Karen Carmean. 132 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"Carmean's analysis . . . guides readers through the complex poetic metaphors toward their meaning. . . . Its annotated bibliography makes this book an important addition to academic libraries."—CHOICE
16.

"To Take the Sin out of Slicing Trees ...": The Law of the Tree in 'Beloved,' in African American Review » Read Now
by Michele Bonnet. 14 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Histoire Singuliere, Histoire Collective: la Double Identite de Beloved." Americana 11. Paris: Presses de IUniversite de Paris-Sorbonne...Paquet, Anne-Made. "Beloved: Tree...