Zora Neale Hurston's current high stature as a canonical author threatens to eclipse the history of how, during her lifetime, she failed to achieve her present place in American literary culture. Remarkably, as her works appeared, critical reception was--in many cases--negative. This project examines Hurston's changing status in American literary culture and reveals the influences upon her reputation.;Beginning with Hurston's arrival in New York City in 1925, it traces Hurston's critical reception through the 1995 publication of the Library of America's editions of her work. Drawing from a variety of cultural and literary sources to create the fullest possible context for understanding how and why Hurston moved from marginalized outsider to the subject of substantial critical enquiry and acclaim, this study argues that the politics of race and gender have shaped criticisms of her, as a person, and of her work. Furthermore, because aesthetics are culturally specific, it address the ways in which the reception of Hurston's work is connected with changes in American culture and literary studies, specifically the political, social, and aesthetic climate of the Harlem Renaissance, the protest tradition, assimilationism, the Black Arts movement, and feminism.;While the study is rooted in reviews of Hurston's seven books, it also discusses scholarly treatment by Hurston's contemporaries, advertising for her books, selected essays by Hurston, and biographical portraits that may have influenced perceptions of her.
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