Tales of Uncle Remus

Joel Chandler Harris

• Born 1845/8 to unwedmother in Georgia

• Poor, stutterer, shy andself-conscious

• Scant education, printers devil at local newspaper owned by Joseph A. Turner

• Turner owned Turnwold Plantation, where Harris first met black slaves

• Harris spent time withslaves learning songs andstories, dialect

• 1866 Civil War and Turner’sbusiness ended

• Harris moved through series of newspaper jobs• 1876 worked for Atlanta Constitution until

death in 1908• Contemporary and friend of Mark Twain

Uncle Remus works

• Uncle Remus: His Songsand Sayings (1880)

• Nights with Uncle Remus(1883)

• 6 more volumes duringhis life

• 2 more volumes afterhis death

Stories Wildly Popular

• Called “first graphic pictures of genuine Negro life in the South”

• “the First real book of American folklore”

Remus

• Character created by Harris based on people he knew

• Remus serves as narrator and provides continuity of tales

• Remus is elderly, former slave working for former masters

• Remus is non-threatening, especially to white audiences

• Remus is alter-ego of Harris (?)

Remus and the boy

Brer Rabbit

• Trickster in long folklore tradition (European, African, American)

• Representative of Blacks (?)

• Stories come from pre-1880 African-American tales, shaped by black artist under slavery

• Of 220 tales, over half have roots in African tales

Qualities of Dialect

• Word play• Word coinage• Authenticity to scene

and character• Poetic usage• Humor

Brer Tarrypin

Brer Rabbit and Miss Cow

Illustrations!

Brer Rabbit

And Brer Fox

(1881 edition)

AnAmerican

Community!

Brer Rabbit meets his match.

Cf. Aesop

Most Famous: Tarbaby Tale

Issued in many

editions since

Harris’ death.