When selecting a title, Angelou turned to Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet whose works she had admired for years. Jazz vocalist and civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln suggested the title. According to Lyman B. Hagen, the title pulls Angelou's readers into the book while reminding them that it is possible to both lose control of one's life and to have one's freedom taken from them. Angelou has credited Dunbar, along with Shakespeare, with forming her "writing ambition". The title of the book comes from the third stanza of Dunbar's poem "Sympathy": I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,When he beats his bars and would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee,But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings.
Title
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Title
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. 1969 Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. 1969.
when was i know why the caged bird sings poem written
user
1969
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who was the author?
user
Maya Angelou
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is it a part of a book?
user
An autobiography describing the early years of the poet.
assistant
what inspired the name of this text?
user
The title of the book comes from the third stanza of Dunbar's poem "Sympathy".
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when was this poem published?
user
When selecting a title, Angelou turned to Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet whose works she had admired for years. Jazz vocalist and civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln suggested the title. According to Lyman B. Hagen, the title pulls Angelou's readers into the book while reminding them that it is possible to both lose control of one's life and to have one's freedom taken from them. Angelou has credited Dunbar, along with Shakespeare, with forming her "writing ambition". The title of the book comes from the third stanza of Dunbar's poem "Sympathy": I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,When he beats his bars and would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee,But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Title
Angelou returned to the same poem she based the title of "Caged Bird" upon for the title of "A Song Flung Up to Heaven," from the third stanza of the Paul Laurence Dunbar poem "Sympathy". Along with Shakespeare, Angelou has credited Dunbar with forming her "writing ambition". The caged bird, a symbol for the chained slave, is an image Angelou uses throughout all her writings. I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,When he beats his bars and would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee,But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings.
A Song Flung Up to Heaven | Title
Maya is so devastated and traumatized, she chooses to not speak for five years. She gets her voice back when someone asks her to read one of her poems in public.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mr. Freeman
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. In the course of "Caged Bird", Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Introduction
Also in 1968, inspired at a dinner party she attended with Baldwin, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and his wife Judy, and challenged by Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", published in 1969. This brought her international recognition and acclaim.
Maya Angelou | Africa to "Caged Bird": 1961–69
Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage described in the Paul Laurence Dunbar poem "Sympathy" throughout all of her autobiographies; she uses the metaphor in the titles of both "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and her sixth autobiography "A Song Flung Up to Heaven". Like elements within a prison narrative, the "caged bird" represents Angelou's confinement resulting from racism and oppression. This metaphor also invokes the "supposed contradiction of the bird singing in the midst of its struggle". Reviewer Hilton Als observed that Angelou's witnessing of the evil in her society, as directed towards Black women, shaped Angelou's young life and informed her views into adulthood.
Themes in Maya Angelou's autobiographies | "Caged Bird" and "Gather Together"
When Angelou wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" at the end of the 1960s, one of the necessary and accepted features of literature, according to critic Pierre A. Walker, was thematic unity. One of Angelou's goals was to create a book that satisfied this criterion, in order to achieve her political purposes, which were to demonstrate how to resist racism in America. The structure of the text, which resembles a series of short stories, is not chronological but rather thematic. Walker, in his 1993 article about "Caged Bird", "Racial Protest, Identity, Words, and Form", focuses on the book's structure, and describes how it supports her presentation of racism.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Form
"Why do you weep?" inquired the young siskin of the old, "You're more comfortable in this cage than out in the cold." "You were born caged," said the elder, "this was your morrow; "I was free, now I'm caged—hence the cause of my sorrow."
Fables and Parables | Birds in a Cage
Maya internalizes the rejection she has experienced – her belief in her own ugliness was "absolute". McPherson believes that the concept of family, or what she calls "kinship concerns", in Angelou's books must be understood in the light of the children's displacement at the beginning of "Caged Bird". Being sent away from their parents was a psychological rejection, and resulted in a quest for love, acceptance, and self-worth for both Maya and Bailey.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Identity
Angelou's treatment of racism provides a thematic unity to the book. Literacy and the power of words help young Maya cope with her bewildering world; books become her refuge as she works through her trauma.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Introduction
Walker calls Momma's way a "strategy of subtle resistance" and McPherson calls it "the dignified course of silent endurance".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Racism
A member of the Black church in Stamps. She is not always able to come to services, but when she does, she shouts as loud as possible to make up for her absences. Many humorous church-related anecdotes focus on her and her behavior. Also, one of the most comical chapters in the book.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Sister Monroe
She also wanted to prevent it from happening to someone else, so that anyone who had been raped might gain understanding and not blame herself for it.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Rape
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", the 1969 autobiography about the early years of African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou, features many characters, including Angelou as a child, which she has called "the Maya character". The first in a six-volume series, "Caged Bird" is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. In the course of "Caged Bird", Maya transforms from a victim of racism into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Introduction
When he witnesses the murder of a black man by a group of white men, he is confused and unable to understand their hatred.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Bailey Johnson Jr
She goes from feeling shame about her race and appearance to feeling pride, in spite of experiences of racism and trauma. She is raped at the age of eight by her mother's boyfriend and responds by choosing not to speak for five years. She is brought out of her muteness by Mrs. Bertha Flowers, who introduces her to great literature.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Marguerite Johnson ("Maya")
Freeman. He is found guilty during the trial, but escapes jail time and is murdered, presumably by Maya's uncles. Maya feels guilty and withdraws from everyone but her brother. Even after returning to Stamps, Maya remains reclusive and nearly mute until she meets Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "the aristocrat of Black Stamps," who encourages her through books and communication to regain her voice and soul. This coaxes Maya out of her shell. Later, Momma decides to send her grandchildren to their mother in San Francisco, California, to protect them from the dangers of racism in Stamps. Maya attends George Washington High School and studies dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Plot summary
Momma's neighbor, and the only black man Maya has seen whose trousers match his jackets. She and Bailey admire him because he does not go to church, which makes him "courageous".
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mr. McElroy
The week after Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration, sales of the paperback version of "Caged Bird" and her other works rose by 300–600 percent. "Caged Bird" had sold steadily since its publication, but it increased by 500 percent. The 16-page publication of "On the Pulse of Morning" became a best-seller, and the recording of the poem was awarded a Grammy Award. The Bantam Books edition of "Caged Bird" was a bestseller for 36 weeks, and they had to reprint 400,000 copies of her books to meet demand. Random House, which published Angelou's hardcover books and the poem later that year, reported that they sold more of her books in January 1993 than they did in all of 1992, marking a 1,200 percent increase.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Critical reception and sales
"Oh Pray My Wings are Gonna Fit Me Well" is Maya Angelou's second volume of poetry. She studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of eight, as recounted in her first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. Angelou's film "Georgia, Georgia", produced by a Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the first screenplay written by a Black woman, and was released in 1972.
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well | Background
Critic Lyman B. Hagan states that although the title is "less striking or oblique than titles of her preceding books," it is appropriate because Johnson's poem mentions a caged bird and provides a connection to Angelou's first autobiography, whose title was taken from a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The title suggests Angelou's painful loneliness and exposes a spiritual dilemma also present in her first volume. Johnson's use of the metaphor is different from Dunbar's because her bird is a female whose isolation is sexual rather than racial. The caged bird may also refer to Angelou after her failed marriage, but writer Mary Jane Lupton says that "the Maya Angelou of "The Heart of a Woman" is too strong and too self-determined to be kept in a cage".
The Heart of a Woman | Title
He has called the book a highly effective tool for providing real-life examples of these psychological concepts.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Influence
Stamps, Arkansas, as depicted in "Caged Bird", has very little "social ambiguity": it is a racist world divided between Black and white, male and female. Als characterizes the division as "good and evil", and notes how Angelou's witness of the evil in her society, which was directed at Black women, shaped Angelou's young life and informed her views into adulthood. Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage, described in Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, as a prominent symbol throughout her series of autobiographies. Like elements within a prison narrative, the caged bird represents Angelou's confinement resulting from racism and oppression.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Racism
As critic Susan Gilbert states, Angelou was reporting not one person's story, but the collective's. Scholar Selwyn R. Cudjoe agrees, and sees Angelou as representative of the convention in African-American autobiography as a public gesture that speaks for an entire group of people. Scholar Joanne M. Braxton sees "Caged Bird" as "the fully developed black female autobiographical form that began to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s". The book presents themes that are common in autobiography by Black American women: a celebration of Black motherhood; a criticism of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Style and genre
"Caged Bird" appeared third on the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000, sixth on the ALA's 2000–2009 list, and one of the ten books most frequently banned from high school and junior high school libraries and classrooms.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Censorship
Later books in the series include "Gather Together in My Name" (1974), "Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas" (1976), "The Heart of a Woman" (1981), "All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes" (1986), "A Song Flung Up to Heaven" (2002), and "Mom & Me & Mom" (2013, at the age of 85). Critics have often judged Angelou's later autobiographies "in light of the first", and "Caged Bird" generally receives the highest praise.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Background
Webster's "We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry" is the novel's epigraph: the younger generation, apparently privileged but in reality trapped by the legacy of war and class, were singing captives. The novel ends with a note of liberation: Hal and Roden and Francis, like characters in Chekhov, will now have to do some real work; Stella must marry where she may; Caroline too will have to find work, though trained up to nothing by her upbringing.
E. B. C. Jones | "The Singing Captives" (1921)
The caged bird metaphor also invokes the "supposed contradiction of the bird singing in the midst of its struggle". Scholar Ernece B. Kelley calls "Caged Bird" a "gentle indictment of white American womanhood"; Hagen expands it further, stating that the book is "a dismaying story of white dominance". "Caged Bird" has been called "perhaps the most aesthetically satisfying autobiography written in the years immediately following the Civil Rights era". Critic Pierre A. Walker expresses a similar sentiment, and places it in the African-American literature tradition of political protest. Angelou demonstrates, through her involvement with the Black community of Stamps, as well as her presentation of vivid and realistic racist characters and "the vulgarity of white Southern attitudes toward African Americans", her developing understanding of the rules for surviving in a racist society.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Racism
Three white rural girls who attempt to humiliate and intimidate Momma in front of her store when they taunt and expose themselves to her. Momma reacts by passively humming a spiritual, while Maya, watching from inside the store, weeps with shame and humiliation.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | "Powhitetrash" girls
Poet James Bertolino asserts that "Caged Bird" "is one of the essential books produced by our culture". He insists that "[w]e should all read it, especially our children". It was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, has never been out of print, and has been published in many languages. It has been a Book of the Month Club selection and an Ebony Book Club selection. In 2011, "Time Magazine" placed the book in its list of 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. Critic Robert A. Gross called "Caged Bird" "a "tour de force" of language".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Critical reception and sales
A "repulsive church official" who visits Stamps every 3 months. Maya and Bailey despise him because he is obese and never remembers their names, and because he eats the best chicken pieces at Sunday dinner. One Sunday, Sister Monroe is so inspired by his preaching that she hits him over the head with her purse; his teeth fall out and onto the floor near Maya, which results in Maya and Bailey's uncontrollable laughter and subsequent beating by Uncle Willie.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Reverend Thomas
The valedictorian of Maya's eighth grade class. He makes up for Mr. Donleavy's discouragement by leading the audience in "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing", the "Negro national anthem".
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Henry Reed
Many of the poems in "Shaker "focus on survival despite threatened freedom, lost love, and defeated dreams. Over half of them are love poems, and emphasize the inevitable loss of love. "Caged Bird", which refers to Angelou's first autobiography, is contained in this volume.
Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? | Introduction
Upon its first publication, a reviewer for the Cincinnati newspaper "Daily Commercial" called the poem "unmixed and hopeless drivel" and a disgrace to its publisher. Shortly after, on January 7, 1860, the "Saturday Press" published a response to that review titled "All About a Mocking-Bird", celebrating Whitman's poem. This article may have been written by Whitman himself.
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking | Analysis and response
When "Caged Bird" was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African-American women who was able to publicly discuss her personal life. Up to that point, Black women writers were marginalized to the point that they were unable to present themselves as central characters. Writer Julian Mayfield, who called "Caged Bird" "a work of art that eludes description", has insisted that Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent for African-American autobiography as a whole. Als insisted that "Caged Bird" marked one of the first times that a Black autobiographer could, as Als put it, "write about blackness from the inside, without apology or defense".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Influence
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" follows Marguerite's (called "My" or "Maya" by her brother) life from the age of three to seventeen and the struggles she faces – particularly with racism – in the Southern United States. Abandoned by their parents, Maya and her older brother Bailey are sent to live with their paternal grandmother (Momma) and disabled uncle (Uncle Willie) in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya and Bailey are haunted by their parents' abandonment throughout the book – they travel alone and are labeled like baggage. Many of the problems Maya encounters in her childhood stem from the overt racism of her white neighbors.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Plot summary
However, Hagen notes that instead of beginning "Caged Bird" chronologically, with Maya and Bailey's arrival in Stamps, Angelou begins the book much later chronologically by recounting an embarrassing experience at church, an incident that demonstrates Maya's diminished sense of self, insecurity, and lack of status. Hagen explains that Angelou's purpose is to demonstrate Maya's journey from insecurity to her feelings of worth gained by becoming a mother at the end of the book.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Form
Angelou states, early in "Caged Bird", that she, as the Maya character, "met and fell in love with William Shakespeare". Critic Mary Vermillion sees a connection between Maya's rape and Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece", which Maya memorizes and recites when she regains her speech. Vermillion maintains that Maya finds comfort in the poem's identification with suffering. Maya finds novels and their characters complete and meaningful, so she uses them to make sense of her bewildering world. She is so involved in her fantasy world of books that she even uses them as a way to cope with her rape, writing in "Caged Bird", "...I was sure that any minute my mother or Bailey or the Green Hornet would bust in the door and save me".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Literacy
When "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African-American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to scholar Hilton Als, up to that point, black female writers were marginalized to the point that they were unable to present themselves as central characters in the literature they wrote. Linguist John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He placed Angelou in the tradition of African-American literature as a defense of black culture, which he called "a literary manifestation of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship of the period".
Maya Angelou | Influence
Edmund Fuller insisted that Angelou's intellectual range and artistry were apparent in how she told her story. "Caged Bird" catapulted Angelou to international fame and critical acclaim, was a significant development in Black women's literature in that it "heralded the success of other now prominent writers". Other reviewers have praised Angelou's use of language in the book, including critic E. M. Guiney, who reported that "Caged Bird" was "one of the best autobiographies of its kind that I have read". Critic R. A. Gross praised Angelou for her use of rich and dazzling images. By the mid-1980s, "Caged Bird" had gone through 20 hardback printings and 32 paperback printings.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Critical reception and sales
Angelou was unable to resist a challenge, and she began writing "Caged Bird." After "closeting herself" in London, it took her two years to write it. She shared the manuscript with her friend, writer Jessica Mitford, before submitting it for publication. Angelou subsequently wrote six additional autobiographies, covering a variety of her young adult experiences. They are distinct in style and narration, but unified in their themes and stretch from Arkansas to Africa, and back to the US, from the beginnings of World War II to King's assassination. Like "Caged Bird", the events in these books are episodic and crafted as a series of short stories, yet do not follow a strict chronology.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Background
Bailey Sr.'s pretentious girlfriend, who becomes jealous of Maya. After a violent argument, Maya runs away from her father's home and is homeless for a short while.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Dolores
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is the most highly acclaimed of Angelou's autobiographies. The other volumes in her series of seven autobiographies are judged and compared to "Caged Bird." It became a bestseller immediately after it was published. Angelou's friend and mentor, James Baldwin, maintained that her book "liberates the reader into life" and called it "a Biblical study of life in the midst of death". According to Angelou's biographers, "Readers, especially women, and in particular Black women, took the book to heart". By the end of 1969, critics had placed Angelou in the tradition of other Black autobiographers.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Critical reception and sales
He survives, fortunately, and returns to prison after being hospitalized and making a full recovery. Back at the prison, Marge finally visits Dwight, who gives her a flattened dandelion encased in a bar of soap he had carved for her with a message on the back intending to recruit her in helping him attempt another prison break. Marge does not agree to the escape attempt and Dwight, although saddened, says she can keep the token.
I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Plot
Dunbar took almost forty years to produce her "colossal" edition of Aristophanes' Birds with an introduction and commentary. It was finally published in 1995 to great acclaim. Her commentary is notable for its detailed discussion of the ornithological aspects of the play, reflecting detailed knowledge of modern ornithology. An abridged edition for students was published by Oxford University Press in 1997.
Nan Dunbar | Edition of Aristophanes' "Birds"
The Bird in a Cage, or The Beauties is a Caroline era comedy written by James Shirley, first published in 1633. The play is notable, even among Shirley's plays, for its lushness — what one critic has called "gay romanticism run mad."
The Bird in a Cage | Introduction
In its closing, the poem questions whether the bird's song has been real or part of a dream: "Was it a vision, or a waking dream? / Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?" (lines 79–80), and the theme of imagination once again arises as the poet appears, according to Timothy Hilton, unable to distinguish between his own artistic imagination and the song which he believes to have spurred it into action.
John Keats's 1819 odes | Ode to a Nightingale
The Bird With The Coppery, Keen Claws is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was originally published in 1921, so it is in the public domain. Librivox has made the poem available in voice recording in its "The Complete Public Domain Poems of Wallace Stevens".
The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws | Introduction
"Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie" is Maya Angelou's first volume of poetry. She studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of eight, as recounted in her first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. Angelou recorded two albums of poetry and songs she wrote during her career as a night club performer; the first in 1957 for Liberty Records and the second "The Poetry of Maya Angelou", for GWP Records the year before the publication of her first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969).
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie | Background
A white dentist who refuses to treat Maya's tooth pain, in spite of his debt to Momma, incurred during the Great Depression. He states that he would rather put his "hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's". Momma reacts to this with passivity, while Maya is horrified and dreams up an elaborate fantasy about Momma threatening the racist dentist.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Dentist Lincoln
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well is a book of poems by American author Maya Angelou, published by Random House in 1975. It is Angelou's second volume of poetry, written after her first two autobiographies and first volume of poetry were published. Angelou considers herself a poet and a playwright, but is best known for her seven autobiographies, especially her first, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", although her poetry has also been successful. She began, early in her writing career, alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry. Although her poetry collections have been best-sellers, they have not received serious critical attention.
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well | Introduction
Maya's teacher at George Washington High School in San Francisco. "A rare educator", she is white but shows no favoritism to her students based upon their race. Angelou states that she is "the only teacher I remembered", and probably the only white person who befriended her.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Miss Kirwin
"Llyfr y Tri Aderyn" was translated into English by L.J. Parry for the National Eisteddfod in 1896, and by Rob Mimpriss as "A Book of Three Birds" (Cockatrice Books, 2017).
Morgan Llwyd | Critical Response
Vivian Baxter's boyfriend, he lives with Vivian and her family in St. Louis when Maya and Bailey are sent there to be with their mother. At first, he is a father substitute for Maya, who is hungry to be accepted by a male. He takes advantage of this by raping her, when she is eight years old, and then threatens to kill Bailey if she told anyone about it. Bailey encourages Maya to disclose what has happened, and Mr. Freeman goes to trial. He is sentenced to one year and one day, but is released, anyway. Four days later he is found murdered, probably by Maya's uncles.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mr. Freeman
"A Bird in a Gilded Cage" is a song composed by Arthur J. Lamb and Harry Von Tilzer. It was a sentimental ballad (or tear-jerker) that became one of the most popular songs of 1900, reportedly selling more than two million copies in sheet music. Jere Mahoney (Edison) and Steve Porter (Columbia) recorded two early popular versions of this song.
A Bird in a Gilded Cage | Introduction
Lauret sees a connection between Angelou's autobiographies, which Lauret calls "fictions of subjectivity" and "feminist first-person narratives", and fictional first-person narratives (such as "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French and "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing) written during the same period. As French and Lessing do in their novels, Angelou employs the narrator as protagonist and depends upon "the illusion of presence in their mode of signification". As a displaced girl, Maya's pain is worsened by an awareness of her displacement. She is "the forgotten child", and must come to terms with "the unimaginable reality" of being unloved and unwanted; she lives in a hostile world that defines beauty in terms of whiteness and that rejects her simply because she is a Black girl.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Identity
Arensberg notes that Maya's rape is connected to the theme of death in "Caged Bird", as Mr. Freeman threatens to kill Maya's brother Bailey if she tells anyone about the rape. After Maya lies during Freeman's trial, stating that the rape was the first time he touched her inappropriately, Freeman is murdered (presumably by one of Maya's uncles) and Maya sees her words as a bringer of death. As a result, she resolves never to speak to anyone other than Bailey. Angelou connects the violation of her body and the devaluation of her words through the depiction of her self-imposed, five-year-long silence.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Rape
The song describes the sad life of a beautiful woman who has married for money instead of love. Its lyrics are as follows: The ballroom was filled with fashion's throng, It shone with a thousand lights, And there was a woman who passed along,
A Bird in a Gilded Cage | Synopsis
"Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie" was a best-seller and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The poems in the volume have received mixed reviews. Critic John Alfred Avant recognized that the volume would be popular due to the success of "Caged Bird", but he characterized it as "rather well done schlock poetry, not to be confused with poetry for people who read poetry" and stated, "This collection isn't accomplished, not by any means; but some readers are going to love it." Martha Liddy, who reviewed the collection in the same issue of the "Library Journal" in 1971, classified it, like "Caged Bird", in the young adult category and called "Diiie" a "volume of marvelously lyrical, rhythmical poems".
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie | Critical response
A made-for-TV movie version of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was filmed in Mississippi and aired on April 28, 1979, on CBS. Angelou and Leonora Thuna wrote the screenplay; the movie was directed by Fielder Cook. Constance Good played young Maya. Also appearing were actors Esther Rolle, Roger E. Mosley, Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee, and Madge Sinclair. Two scenes in the movie differed from events described in the book. Angelou added a scene between Maya and Uncle Willie after the Joe Louis fight; in it, he expresses his feelings of redemption and hope after Louis defeats a white opponent.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Film version
The book ends with Angelou at "the threshold of her literary career", writing the opening lines to her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". As she had begun to do in "Caged Bird", and continued throughout her series, Angelou upheld the long tradition of African-American autobiography. At the same time she made a deliberate attempt to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Most reviewers agreed that the book was made up of a series of vignettes. By the time "Song" was written in 2002, sixteen years after her previous autobiography, Angelou had experienced great fame and recognition as an author and poet.
A Song Flung Up to Heaven | Introduction
Angelou was challenged by her friend author James Baldwin, and her editor, Robert Loomis, to write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. Reviewers often categorize "Caged Bird" as autobiographical fiction because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand. The book covers topics common to autobiographies written by Black American women in the years following the Civil Rights Movement: a celebration of Black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Introduction
A white man, he is the guest speaker at Maya's eighth grade graduation. He puts a pall over the ceremony and crushes the educational dreams of the audience by insinuating that black students are only capable of becoming athletes.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mr. Donleavy
A Summer Bird-Cage is the 1963 debut novel by Margaret Drabble published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The title of the novel is taken from a quotation from the play "The White Devil" by John Webster: ‘"Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out."
A Summer Bird-Cage | Introduction
The poem tells about the wonders of the South, like Cypresses and Mount Etna, but it also tells about homesickness and patriotism. The cage mentioned in the first verse refers to a cruel way of catching birds: The bird is trapped into a cage with its eyes pierced, and as a night singer it will attract other birds, who will fly straight to the catcher's net. Topelius opposed this harsh way of netting.
Sylvian Joululaulu | Introduction
A bird can't sing in a cage and also, a child can't be happy in school: his potential is restrained. Stanza five shows how people are dismayed at school and how students are stripped of their joy.
The School Boy | Poem transcription
"Caged Bird" has been criticized by many parents, causing it to be removed from school curricula and library shelves. The book was approved to be taught in public schools and was placed in public school libraries through the U.S. in the early-1980s, and was included in advanced placement and gifted student curricula, but attempts by parents to censor it began in 1983. It has been challenged in fifteen U.S. states. Educators have responded to these challenges by removing it from reading lists and libraries, by providing students with alternatives, and by requiring parental permission from students. Some have been critical of its sexually explicit scenes, use of language, and irreverent religious depictions.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Censorship
"Gather Together in My Name", published in 1974, is Maya Angelou's second book in her series of seven autobiographies. Written three years after her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", the book "depicts a single mother's slide down the social ladder into poverty and crime". In 1971, Angelou published her first volume of poetry, "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie" (1971), which became a bestseller and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It was Angelou's early practice to alternate a prose volume with a poetry volume. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F.
Gather Together in My Name | Background
Its success signalled the dominance of ballads in American popular music through 1914.
A Bird in a Gilded Cage | Background
Although Momma is relatively wealthy because she owns the general store at the heart of Stamps' Black community, the white children of their town hassle Maya's family relentlessly. One of these "powhitetrash" girls, for example, reveals her pubic hair to Momma in a humiliating incident. Early in the book, Momma hides Uncle Willie in a vegetable bin to protect him from Ku Klux Klan raiders. Maya has to endure the insult of her name being changed to Mary by a racist employer. A white speaker at her eighth grade graduation ceremony disparages the Black audience by suggesting that they have limited job opportunities.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Plot summary
As Lupton points out, all of Angelou's autobiographies, especially "Caged Bird" and its immediate sequel "Gather Together in My Name", are "very much concerned with what [Angelou] knew and how she learned it". Lupton compares Angelou's informal education with the education of other Black writers of the twentieth century, who did not earn official degrees and depended upon the "direct instruction of African American cultural forms". Angelou's quest for learning and literacy parallels "the central myth of black culture in America": that freedom and literacy are connected. Angelou is influenced by writers introduced to her by Mrs. Flowers during her self-imposed muteness, including Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Literacy
"The Blinded Bird" is a 1916 poem written by English author and poet Thomas Hardy. The poem was reportedly written as a protest against Vinkensport, a sort of singing competition between male finches. The poem decries the prior historical practice of blinding birds to improve their performance at the sport. For its last stanza Hardy borrows from the New Testament using themes found in 1 Cor. 13: 1-8.
The Blinded Bird | Introduction
At first, Angelou intended to return to poetry and play-writing after completing "Caged Bird" and write no more autobiographies, but she chose the genre as her primary mode of expression because of its challenge and so that she could "change it, to make it bigger, richer, finer, and more inclusive in the twentieth century". In a 1989 interview, she stated, "I think I am the only serious writer who has chosen the autobiographical form to carry my work, my expression". As she told journalist George Plimpton during a 1990 interview, "Autobiography is awfully seductive; it’s wonderful". She also told Plimpton that like the tradition begun by Frederick Douglass in slave narratives, she used the literary technique of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meaning 'we'".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Style and genre
"Birth" A deaf drumming hurts to hear To live to live trapped in the cage female bird I've already seen the infinite I was constellation Now I'm a wandering asteroid shooting star I divided myself in two Divided in order to not be subtracted I stayed whole if dented in each piece I cried because I was being born
Miriam Alves | Poem
Maya's employer when she is ten years old. She insists upon calling her "Mary" or "Margaret". Maya is unable to tolerate this because "whites called black people too many other names", so Maya deliberately tries to get fired. She finally succeeds by breaking Mrs. Cullinan's prized china.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mrs. Viola Cullinan
Angelou uses her autobiography to explore subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy. She also writes in new ways about women's lives in a male-dominated society. Maya, the younger version of Angelou and the book's central character, has been called "a symbolic character for every black girl growing up in America". Angelou's description of being raped as an eight-year-old child overwhelms the book, although it is presented briefly in the text. Another metaphor, that of a bird struggling to escape its cage, is a central image throughout the work, which consists of "a sequence of lessons about resisting racist oppression".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Introduction
According to Walker, the power of words is another theme that appears repeatedly in "Caged Bird". For example, Maya chooses to not speak after her rape because she is afraid of the destructive power of words. Mrs. Flowers, by introducing her to classic literature and poetry, teaches her about the positive power of language and empowers Maya to speak again. The importance of both the spoken and written word also appears repeatedly in "Caged Bird" and in all of Angelou's autobiographies. Referring to the importance of literacy and methods of effective writing, Angelou once advised Oprah Winfrey in a 1993 interview to "do as West Africans do ...
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Literacy
The themes encompassed in African-American writer Maya Angelou's seven autobiographies include racism, identity, family, and travel. Angelou (1928–2014) is best known for her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969). The rest of the books in her series are "Gather Together in My Name" (1974), "Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas" (1976), "The Heart of a Woman" (1981), "All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes" (1986), "A Song Flung Up to Heaven" (2002), and "Mom & Me & Mom" (2013). Beginning with "Caged Bird" and ending with her final autobiography, Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird (which represents the confinement of racism and depression) struggling to escape its cage, as described in the Paul Laurence Dunbar poem "Sympathy".
Themes in Maya Angelou's autobiographies | Introduction
This is apparently the brood that emerged in 1936, inspiring Ogden Nash's poem "Locust-Lovers, Attention!", published in "The New Yorker" on June 20, 1936, and later reprinted in his collection "I'm a Stranger Here Myself". Bob Dylan's song "Day of the Locusts" on his 1970 album "New Morning" refers to the Brood X cicadas that were present in Princeton, New Jersey, in June 1970 when Dylan received an honorary degree from Princeton University.
Brood X | Popular culture
Maya Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young age, having "fallen in love with poetry in Stamps, Arkansas", where she grew up and the setting of her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969). At the age of eight, she was raped, as recounted in "Caged Bird." She dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affects Angelou's sensibilities as the poet and writer she becomes, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve in her own poetic canon".
Poetry of Maya Angelou | Background
In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. With the publication of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S.
Maya Angelou | Introduction
The main character, "an unlikely heroine", from whose perspective the story is told. She has been described as "a symbolic character for every black girl growing up in America". The book covers most of her childhood, from the age of three, when she and her older brother Bailey are sent to their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, until she was sixteen, when she gives birth to her son Clyde. Through the character of Maya, Angelou uses her own childhood to demonstrate how she was able to survive as a black child in a white-dominated world. Maya is resilient, highly intelligent and loves literature.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Marguerite Johnson ("Maya")
A white dentist refuses to treat Maya's rotting tooth, even when Momma reminds him that she had loaned him money during the Depression. The Black community of Stamps enjoys a moment of racial victory when they listen to the radio broadcast of Joe Louis's championship fight, but generally, they feel the heavy weight of racist oppression. A turning point in the book occurs when Maya and Bailey's father unexpectedly appears in Stamps. He takes the two children with him when he departs, but leaves them with their mother in St. Louis, Missouri. Eight-year-old Maya is sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Plot summary
Maya and Bailey's "glamorous if feckless mother". Maya is in awe of her beauty:she is "too beautiful to have children". Vivian captivates both her children with her worldliness and euphoria, especially Bailey. Maya is emotionally separated from her mother. Angelou stated later in her life that she recognized that her mother had abandoned her and her brother, which meant that Vivian was "a terrible parent of young children". Vivian is concerned about providing for her children, but negligent towards them. When Maya becomes pregnant at the end of the book, Vivian accepts Maya and her child; it is the birth of her grandson that causes a connection between mother and daughter.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Vivian Baxter Johnson ("Mother Dear")
"What a queer bird" is a poem, folk song, or essay that may be sung as a round. It first can be found in print in 1922, rapidly disseminating across dozens of publications in the United States that year, but its precise origin is unclear.
What a queer bird | Introduction
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) is the first collection of poems by African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou. Many of the poems in "Diiie" were originally song lyrics, written during Angelou's career as a night club performer, and recorded on two albums before the publication of Angelou's first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969). Angelou considers herself a poet and a playwright, but is best known for her seven autobiographies. Early in her writing career she began a practice of alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry.
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie | Introduction
Devastated and adrift, she joined her brother in Hawaii, where she resumed her singing career. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on her writing career. Working as a market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in the summer of 1965. She acted in and wrote plays, and returned to New York in 1967. She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her friendship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris in the 1950s and called "my brother", during this time. Her friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to support her writing. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr.
Maya Angelou | Africa to "Caged Bird": 1961–69
"And Still I Rise" is Maya Angelou's third volume of poetry. She studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of eight, as recounted in her first autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. The publication of "And Still I Rise" occurred during one of the most productive periods of Angelou's career. She had written songs for Roberta Flack and had composed movie scores. She had written articles, short stories, TV scripts and documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry; she produced plays; and she was named a visiting professor of several colleges and universities.
And Still I Rise | Background
The "aristocrat of Stamps" and the town's "black intellectual", Mrs. Flowers is a "self-supporting, independent, graceful" Black woman. She is the first person to treat Maya as an individual, and teaches her about the relationship between Blacks and the larger society, as well as "the beauty and power of language". She gently nurses Maya out of her mutism by reading to her and by loaning her books that inspire Maya to speak again.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Mrs. Bertha Flowers
Reviewer Elsie B. Washington, most likely due to President Clinton's choice of Angelou to recite her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at his 1993 inauguration, called her "the black woman's poet laureate". Sales of the paperback version of her books and poetry rose by 300–600% the week after Angelou's recitation. Random House, which published the poem later that year, had to reprint 400,000 copies of all her books to keep up with the demand. They sold more of her books in January 1993 than they did in all of 1992, accounting for a 1200% increase. Angelou famously said, in response to criticism regarding using the details of her life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'." Younge, speaking after the publication of Angelou's third book of essays, "Letter to My Daughter "(2008), has said, "For the last couple of decades she has merged her various talents into a kind of performance art—issuing a message of personal and social uplift by blending poetry, song and conversation." Angelou's books, especially "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", have been criticized by many parents, causing their removal from school curricula and library shelves.
Maya Angelou | Critical reception
Angelou also presents her eighth grade graduation differently in the film. In the book, Henry Reed delivers the valedictory speech and leads the Black audience in the Negro national anthem. In the movie, Maya conducts these activities.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Film version
"The Sparrows Nest" is a lyric poem written by William Wordsworth at Town End, Grasmere, in 1801. It was first published in the collection "Poems in Two Volumes" in 1807. The poem is a moving tribute to Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, recalling their early childhood together in Cockermouth before they were separated following their mother's death in 1778 when he was barely eight years old.
The Sparrow's Nest | Introduction
"The Cuckoo" was published as a broadside by London and provincial printers, but does not seem to have been common. Broadsides are not precisely dated, but the earliest in the Bodleian Ballad Collection was published between 1780 and 1812 CE, the latest before 1845. The broadside texts are similar, of five verses starting with a "Come all ye" warning about courting sailors and with the cuckoo appearing in the second verse.
The Cuckoo (song) | Early printed versions
Nan Dunbar (18 July 1928 – 3 April 2005) was Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Somerville College, Oxford. She is known for her 1995 edition of Aristophanes' "The Birds".
Nan Dunbar | Introduction
Maya and Bailey's uncle and Annie Henderson's son, he became disabled at the age of three when a babysitter dropped him. He walks with a cane. Early in "Caged Bird", Momma hides him in a bin of potatoes and onions to avoid being detected by the Ku Klux Klan. He helps Momma run her store and shows Maya kindness to the point that she wishes that he could be her father. He is just as strict as Momma, however, beating Maya and Bailey after they disrupt a church service and threatening to burn her on a potbelly stove for not learning her multiplication tables.
List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters | Uncle Willie
"I Shall Not Be Moved" is Maya Angelou's fifth volume of poetry. She studied and began writing poetry at a young age. After her rape at the age of seven, as recounted in her first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), she dealt with her trauma by memorizing and reciting great works of literature, including poetry, which helped bring her out of her self-imposed muteness. Although Angelou considered herself a playwright and poet when her editor Robert Loomis challenged her to write "Caged Bird", she has been best known for her autobiographies, and many critics consider her autobiographies more important than her poetry.
I Shall Not Be Moved (poetry collection) | Background
The Caged Bird is a 1913 American silent short drama film, produced by the Thanhouser Company, and starring William Garwood and Marguerite Snow.
The Caged Bird | Introduction
African-American spirituality, as represented by Angelou's grandmother, has influenced all of Angelou's writings, in the activities of the church community she first experiences in Stamps, in the sermonizing, and in scripture. Hagen goes on to say that in addition to being influenced by rich literary form, Angelou has also been influenced by oral traditions. In "Caged Bird", Mrs. Flowers encourages her to listen carefully to "Mother Wit", which Hagen defines as the collective wisdom of the African-American community as expressed in folklore and humor.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Literacy
The bird was a popular pet in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Alfred, Lord Tennyson mentions "the linnet born within the cage" in Canto 27 of his 1849 poem "In Memoriam A.H.H.", the same section that contains the famous lines "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." A "cock linnet" features in the classic British music hall song of that period My Old Man, and as a character in Oscar Wilde's children's story "The Devoted Friend"; Wilde also mentions how the call of the linnet awakens "The Selfish Giant" to the one tree where it is springtime in his garden.
Common linnet | Cultural references
Gather Together in My Name (1974) is a memoir by American writer and poet Maya Angelou. It is the second book in Angelou's series of seven autobiographies. The book begins immediately following the events described in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", and follows Angelou, called Rita, from the ages of 17 to 19. Written three years after "Caged Bird", the book "depicts a single mother's slide down the social ladder into poverty and crime." The title of the book is taken from the Bible, but it also conveys how one black female lived in the white-dominated society of the U.S.
Gather Together in My Name | Introduction