Abstract

Song of Solomon is a successful and wonderful work in the rank of African-American literature，winning the National Books Critics Award. In the novel, citing Milkman as the representative figure, Morrison, through collecting and using historical records, folktales, mythology and other historic fragments, displays us the living and spiritual situation where the white occupy the dominant position and discloses the process of Milkman’s growth in which he subverts the mainstream cultural containment and rebuilds his own ethnic history and cultural identity. This paper tries to use two main points of new historicism, namely intertextuality (including the historicity of texts and the textuality of the histories) and subversion against mainstream culture, to explore the ways and importance to reconstruct and regain ethnic history and cultural identity of the black community.

KEYWORDS: new historicism; the historicity of texts; the textuality of the histories; cultural subversion

摘  要

《所罗门之歌》在美国非裔文学研究上是一部成功的文学作品，曾获得全国图书评论奖。该小说围绕中心人物“奶娃”展开情节。莫里森通过收集与引用历史资料、民间传说、神话故事等其他历史碎片，向读者展示在白人主流社会下黑人的生存和精神状况，描述奶人成长过程中对主流文化束缚的颠覆，重构本民族历史和文化身份的过程。本论文主要从新历史主义角度出发，运用文本的历史性和历史的文本性，以及新历史主义下对主流文化颠覆的特征，探讨非裔黑人重构自己本民族历史以及文化身份的途径以及重要性。

关键词：新历史主义；文本的历史性；历史的文本性；文化颠覆

1 Introduction

Song of Solomon is a representative book of African-American literature and it was written by Toni Morrison. Because of abundant cultural phenomena in African-American history reflected in this novel and the increasing concern for the minorities in multicultural background of the whole world, it is of great significance to study this novel with new historicism theory.
1.1 The research background
It is noted that American culture and history should be defined by Americans of all national and ethnic backgrounds, including those who have been discriminated in the history of the United States.
Compared with White’s mainstream culture, African-American literature is still marginalized. Those African-American writers, such as Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, try to change the situation that the world of literature exerts deliberate indifference and ideological transformation on African-American literature through literature works. They commit to writing and recording African-American history and literary achievements. However, with the deformation and decline of post-modernism and the rise of popular culture, African-American writers pay more attention to cultural content and ethnic identity, attributing to the revival of black African literature and the flourishing of Black arts.