Thereissubstantialevidencethat-考网

There is substantial evidence that by 1926, with the publication of The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes had broken with two well-established traditions in African American literature. In The Weary Blues, Hughes chose to modify the traditions that decreed that African American literature must promote racial acceptance and integration, and that, in order to do so, it must reflect an understanding and mastery of Western European literary techniques and styles. Necessarily excluded by this decree, linguistically and thematically, was the vast amount of secular folk material in the oral tradition that had been created by Black people in the years of slavery and after. It might be pointed out that even the spirituals or “sorrow songs” of the slaves—as distinct from their secular songs and stories—had been Europeanized to make them acceptable within these African American traditions after the Civil War. In 1862 northern White writers had commented favorably on the unique and provocative melodies of these “sorrow songs” when they first heard them sung by slaves in the Carolina sea islands. But by 1916, ten years before the publication of The Weary Blues, Hurry T. Burleigh, the Black baritone soloist at New York’s ultrafashionable Saint George’s Episcopal Church, had published Jubilee Songs of the United States, with every spiritual arranged so that a concert singer could sing it “in the manner of an art song.” Clearly, the artistic work of Black people could be used to promote racial acceptance and integration only on the condition that it became Europeanized.

　　Even more than his rebellion against this restrictive tradition in African American art, Hughes’s expression of the vibrant folk culture of Black people established his writing as a landmark in the history of African American literature. Most of his folk poems have the distinctive marks of this folk culture’s oral tradition: they contain many instances of naming and enumeration, considerable hyperbole and unde

A.suggest that White writers benefited more from exposure to African American art forms than Black writers did from exposure to European art forms
B.contrast White writers’ earlier appreciation of these songs with the growing tendency after the Civil War to regard Europeanized versions of the songs as more acceptable
C.show that the requirement that such songs be Europeanized was internal to the African American tradition and was unrelated to the literary standards or attitudes of White writers
D.demonstrate that such songs in their non-Europeanized form were more imaginative

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答案： B

本题解析：

作者提到美国北方白人作家对于“非欧洲化”的黑人灵歌的反应，是为了进行对比。早期他们很欣赏此类歌曲，在内战结束后，他们逐渐将欧洲化的歌曲视为可以接受的版本。第一段中“It might be pointed out that…had been Europeanized to make them acceptable within these African American traditions after the Civil War.”一句指出这些歌曲欧洲化之后才能被接受，之后一句即举了北方白人作家态度的转变过程的例子。