Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentaryâeach book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.
With a dash of the Victorian and Enlightenment influences that peppered Du Boisâs impassioned yet formal prose, the largely autobiographical chapters of The Souls of Black Folks take the reader through the momentous and moody maze of Afro-American life after the Emancipation Proclamation: from poverty, the neo-slavery of the sharecropper, illiteracy, miseducation, and lynching, to the heights of humanity reached by the spiritual âsorrow songsâ that birthed gospel music and the blues. The capstone of The Souls of Black Folk is Du Boisâs haunting, eloquent description of the concept of the black psycheâs âdouble consciousness,â which he described as âa peculiar sensation...One ever feels this twonessâan American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.â
Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the authorâs personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.
Read with confidence.