6/4/2023 0 Comments The piano lesson![]() ![]() It is with the long history of both Western, white theater ghosts and of southern slave cosmology that Wilson writes a play full of ghosts. Even into the modern day, stereotypes have persisted regarding African Americans and superstition, particularly regarding ghost stories. Slave culture melded its assigned Christianity with the spiritual beliefs of Africa, and the result was a highly active paranormal realm. ![]() ![]() He may be coming out of a long tradition of expository hauntings, but he is also consciously reflecting a key element of the African American cosmology.Īfrican American culture has long been associated with ghosts and ghost stories. Perhaps all our modern Western conceptions about ghosts and the dramatic conventions surrounding their use can be traced to Shakespeare, as well as to Charles Dickens.Īugust Wilson takes a particularly historical and cultural approach to the theatrical ghost in The Piano Lesson. The ghost of Agamemnom in Aeschylus's Oresteia is perhaps one of the earliest examples, but the most foundational today is certainly the ghost in Hamlet. Since the ancient Greeks, the device of an apparition of someone who is deceased has been used to deliver information, create motivation, and pronounce morals. ![]() One of the oldest tricks in the playwright's book is the ghost. ![]()
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