Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Harold Bloom (Editor), Maya Angelou

Includes a brief biography of Maya Angelou, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.

Genres: Poetry, Literary Criticism

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[superawesomekt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of critical essays is perfect for the independent reader of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I did not read this in high school or college—or even with a book club. I read it with the Goodreads group "Everybody has read this but me." A wonderful group for catching up on iconic books and classics that everyone else has already read. Anyway, this collection helped me interpret and reflect on the book in ways that a discussion might have in a class. I did not read all of the essays—there are about a dozen—but instead picked the few that seemed the most interesting to me and read those. Highly recommended.

[Caterina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Angelou's autobiographical tone is one of profound intimacy and radiates goodwill, even a serenity astonishingly at variance with the terrors and degradations she suffered as a child and as a very young woman. Her voice speaks to something in the American "little me within the big me," white and black and whatever, that can survive dreadful experiences because the deepest self is beyond experience and cannot be violated. . . . Despite its secular mode, the book is a spiritual autobiography that addresses the popular imagination of a nation that does not understand its own religion, a Christian gnosis that has little in common with historical European Christianity. We have no history, only biography, and our biography has a single theme: survival of the innermost self. Maya Angelou, incarnating that theme, celebrates the immortality of a deepest self that was not born, and so cannot die, and is always being resurrected." -- from Harold Bloom's Introduction

The most worthwhile part of this short compendium of excerpts from critical essays was Harold Bloom's very short but creatively insightful introduction. Nothing else in the book was written by Bloom. The excerpts address important themes like the importance of Angelou's autobiographical works, black womanhood, Angelou's unique celebration of her culture and history despite its horrors, her use of language and narrative voice, racial self-hatred, rape and its aftermath, rape and self-expression, and Angelou's honesty. All the excerpts seem to suffer a bit from having been cut down from longer essays - I wanted them to go deeper.

[Gay Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This comprehensive, new edition of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings gives a summary and analysis explaining the book, as well as a short biographical sketch of the author. It is the story behind her life's story. The annotated bibliography points readers to an abundance of other resources.

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I expected with this but it basically isa whole lot of people;e banging on about her book. There is for all they say, not much to be said, except read the actual book. There was very little substance in this, and the reviews themselves were not that great.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't often read through things like Bloom's Notes or Cliff's Notes. I tend to prefer just reading the actual book rather than literary criticism of it. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings intrigued me enough that I wanted to experience other people's interpretations of it, however, and so I took what I could find in the form of this book.

The analysis was overall interesting, and covered the whole of Maya Angelou's autobiographies rather than simply Caged Bird. The study of style was something I enjoyed a great deal, as it compared her prose and poetry and what might have influenced the overall rhythms of her writing. Things such as character lists and chapter analysis, of course, are more helpful for student's trying to avoid reading the book...

But hey, it had some very interesting essays and I enjoyed getting a new perspective on a book that still won't quite leave my mind.

[Wisteria Leigh]

Maya Angelou,African American women,memoir,social conditions,non-fiction,rape,racism,poetry,Arkansas,20th century,feminism,civil rights,abuse,coming of age