A Historical Analysis Of August Wilson - 1946 Words

As Sam Pollard, director of the PBS special - August Wilson: The Ground of Which I Stand, asserts, August Wilson may be regarded as an American Shakespeare, for â€Å"his body of work really covers the whole 20th century of American history†¦and there is no other American playwright who did that body of work over a period of time.† (American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground of Which I Stand) While such grand comparisons may or may not be merited, August Wilson’s Pittsburg Cycle stands as a literary, historical, and cultural feat in which Wilson illustrates, teaches, and preserves the African American experience through an exploration into the poetics of the Blues. No literary scholar would deny this claim; and this assertion remains completely†¦show more content†¦You don t sing to feel better. You sing cause that s a way of understanding life.† CUTLER: â€Å"That’s right. You get that understanding and you done got a grip on life to where you can hold your head up and go on to see what else life got to offer.† MA RAINEY: â€Å"The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you aint alone. Tire’s something else in the world. Something’s been added by that song. This be an empty world without the blues. I take that emptiness and try to fill it up with something.† (Wilson, 82-83) In this respect, the blues functions as a means of moving through suffering. Just as musicians in the band play the blues, the blues makes instruments out of the musicians. Levee, a brash trumpeter, wants to move on from traditional blues music and into more energizing Jazz, an increasingly popular genre. Levee wants to neglect the past, and the blues function as a reawakening to the dark reality of African American history. Being fully cognizant of one’s ancestral origins and how understanding how it may help in the present is ultimately not important to Levee – â€Å"I know he ain’t talking about me. You don’t see me running around with no bone in my nose.† (Wilson, 32) Larry Neal, the author of â€Å"The Black Arts Movement† published in Drama Review, elaborates on this connection between the Blues and history: â€Å"History, like the blues, demands that we witness the painful events of our prior lives; and thatShow MoreRelatedPolice Chie f August Vollmer s Contributions Of Modern California Law Enforcement1014 Words   |  5 PagesPolice Chief August Vollmer’s Contributions to Modern California Law Enforcement With the on-going development of the United States throughout the 1900’s, the evolution of crime and the need to address it also continued to progress. New advances in technological equipment (and application) continued to spread throughout the country in all common areas of life. 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