I Mean to Signify

Author

Jermaine Thompson

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Lyons, Richard

Date of Degree

5-9-2015

Original embargo terms

MSU Only Indefinitely

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Campus Access Only

Major

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of English

Abstract

When he is not paying artistic homage to Diego Rivera and Balthus, or inventing the myth of how masculine and feminine relationships are held together by butter, or creating a “Gospel of Two Sisters” which chronicles the loss and reclamation of language, or exercising the limits of his Anagram poetic form; Terrance Hayes—in Hip Logic—employs the African-American rhetorical trope of signifying in order to examine the historic and contemporary role of the African-American male as victim, as heroic-icon, and as father by using real and imaginary Black-masculine figures. My collection, I Mean to Signify, employs signifying to engage with topics of Black male victimization and Northern elitism. Additionally, my collection depends heavily on the Gospel tradition of African-American domesticity, and engages with the universal topics of fear, death, and romantic relationships.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/18275

Recommended Citation

Thompson, Jermaine, "I Mean to Signify" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 2539.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/2539