Go Tell It on the Mountain (For Further Study)

For Further Study

• Robert A. Bone, "The Novels of James Baldwin," in Tri-Quarterly, Winter, 1965, pp. 3-20.

  Bone suggests that in Go Tell It on the Mountain Baldwin "approaches the very essence of Negro experience" and presents a "psychic drama" of religious conversion.

• Ama Bontemps, 100 Years of Negro Freedom, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1961.

  At first glance, this book appears to be a primer for grade school children, but the author, Bontemps, was one of the most respected intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. This book is clear and straightforward, covering history lessons that are not touched by mainstream reading lists.

• Jane Campbell, "Retreat into the Self: Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' and James Baldwin's 'Go Tell It on the Mountain, " in Mythic Black Fiction: The Transformation of History, University of Tennessee Press, 1986, pp. 87-110.

  Compares confessional elements in both novels.

• Richard Courage, "James Baldwin's 'Go Tell It on the Mountain': Voices of a People," in CLA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4, June, 1989, pp. 131-42.

  Courage argues that the novel "highlights the role of the black church in maintaining a sense of communal identity."

• Michael Fabre, "Fathers and Sons in James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain," in James Baldwin: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Keneth Kinnamon, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1974, pp. 120-38.

  Explores the religious and psychological symbolism of the novel.

• Neil Fligstein, Going North: Migration of Blacks and Whites From the South, 1900-1950, Academic Press, 1981.

  Fligstein, a sociologist, wrote this work for other professors, and it is filled with statistics and tables, but the average student should be able to get a good view of the abstract social dynamics that control the characters in Baldwin's novel.

• David E. Foster, "'Cause My House Fell Down': The Theme of the Fall in Baldwin's Novels," in Critique, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1971, pp. 50-62.

  This article explores the fall from grace in many of Baldwin's novels including Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• James R. Giles, "Religious Alienation and 'Homosexual Consciousness' in 'City of the Night' and 'Go Tell It on the Mountain," in CLA Journal, Vol. 7, No. 3, March, 1964, pp. 369-80.

  Discusses themes of religion and homosexuality in John Rechy's City of the Night and Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Howard M. Harper, Jr., "James Baldwin: Art or Propaganda?" in Desperate Faith: A Study of Bellow, Salinger, Mailer, Baldwin, and Updike, University of North Carolina Press, 1967, pp. 137-61.

  Explores the fall from grace in many of Baldwin's novels including Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Marcus Klein, "James Baldwin: A Question of Identity," in After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century, World Publishing Company, 1962, pp. 147-95.

  Examines the link between maturation and identity in Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed Society, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.

  Covering a period later than the one portrayed in the novel — from the 1940s to the 1960s — Lemann explores the effect of the population shift on three specific cities: Chicago, Washington, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. The relevance of this book to Baldwin's novel is slightly abstract, but it is still helpful for understanding the social situation that the Grimes family faces in Harlem.

• John R. May, "Images of Apocalypse in the Black Novel," in Renascence, Vol. 23, No. 1, Autumn, 1970, pp. 31-45.

  This article includes an exploration of images of apocalypse in Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Therman B. O'Daniel, "James Baldwin: An Interpretive Study," in CLA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 37-47.

  Analyzes the themes of homosexuality and racism in Baldwin's novels including Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Horace A. Porter, Stealing Fire: The Art and Protest of James Baldwin, Wesleyan University Press, 1989.

  This book holds Baldwin to a high standard and is not at all shy about criticizing his flaws, but it is just as free with its praise. The well-researched portrait of Baldwin that emerges here is that of a man of contradictions, who learned from the best of white tradition and kept his sympathies rooted on black culture.