Criticism
Joanne M. Braxton, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Case-
book (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Useful essays focused on thematic issues in the autobiography. The book includes
two interviews that shed light on Angelou’s career.
Mari Evans, ed., Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation (Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1984).
Collection of essays and biographical and bibliographic information on African
American writers. The section on Angelou includes the writer’s self-evaluation
of her works as well as two essays by literary critics: Selwyn R. Cudjoe’s “Maya
Angelou and the Autobiographical Statement,” which discusses her writing
within the context of the tradition of slave narratives; and Sondra O’Neale’s
“Reconstruction of the Composite Self: New Images of Black Women in Maya
Angelou’s Continuing Autobiography,” which discusses how Angelou challenges
and breaks free from stereotypes of black women.
George E. Kent, “Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Black
Autobiographical Tradition,” Kansas Quarterly, 7 (1975): 72–78.
Traces Angelou’s use of the gospel and blues traditions in the development of her
life story.
Mary Jane Lupton, Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1998).
Essential guide to all of Angelou’s autobiographical works except A Song Flung
up to Heaven.
Lupton, “Singing the Black Mother: Maya Angelou and Autobiographical Con-
tinuity,” Black American Literature Forum, 24, 2 (1990): 257–276.
Shows how the theme of motherhood is developed in Angelou’s works, particularly
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and discusses earlier scholarship on Angelou.
Dolly A. McPherson, Order out of Chaos: The Autobiographical Works of Maya
Angelou (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).
Evaluation of narrative technique and style that connects five of Angelou’s auto-
biographical works (through All God ’s Children Need Traveling Shoes).
Carol E. Neubauer, “Displacement and Autobiographical Style in Maya Ange-
lou’s The Heart of a Woman,” Black American Literature Forum, 17 (Autumn
1983): 123–129.
Notes parallels between the childhoods of the narrator and her son, Guy, and
argues that the narrator’s feelings of instability and displacement are transferred
to her son.
Sidonie Smith, “The Song of the Caged Bird: Maya Angelou’s Quest after Self-
Acceptance,” Southern Humanities Review, 7 (Fall 1973): 365–375.
Early critical essay that highlights and identifies important thematic concerns.
—Jaimie Young