Through an analysis of classic slave narratives in comparison with texts such as the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, this study presents a new paradigm for the social character of the
African American autobiography. Since the rise of Black Studies in the late 1960s, leading critics have constructed black lives and letters as antitheses to the ways and writings of mainstream
culture. That position fosters the notion that black autobiography differs radically from heroic white American tales. But this volume argues that the African American autobiography is a
continuation of the epic tradition, and that African Americans have shared and shaped the American experience.
