Two years before the publication of his second novel, Dark Princess: A Romance (1928), W.E.B. Du Bois published what is, perhaps, his most important essay on cultural aesthetics. In his signal 1926 essay, “Criteria of Negro Art”, Du Bois argued that art is both a concept and an intellectual activity of major importance that is central to social and political commitments. Linking art, including and especially literature, to various types of social phenomena, and articulating his vision of the role and function of art in social and political life, Du Bois conceived of art as a medium of critical exchange. He saw its expression as representative of a preponderance of ideas and ideals: its charge was to be a heuristic, to l…
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Citation: Rutledge Fisher, Rebecka. "Dark Princess: A Romance". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1125, accessed 18 April 2024.]
