Aesthetics refers to the nature and expression of beauty. In literature, this makes a literary work worth reading, with the combination of elements and styles both in prose and poetry showing its artistic value. Post Civil American War marked the change of America’s thought of itself (Oakes xii). Basically, the end of the Civil War led to the rise of African American writers and what they experienced during this time. However, there were also some White Americans who wrote of the aftermath of the war.
The artistic value of literary pieces after the Civil War lies in the ascension of realism, which concerns itself with the daily conditions of the people after the war (Finseth 10). Finseth added that literatures in the Post Civil American War are forms of social and personal reconstruction (13). Literature of the Post Civil American War illustrated the Black Americans’ slavery.
William Edward B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, which is an autobiography, illustrated this slavery. “I knew your father, John, he belonged to my brother and he was a good Nigger” (qtd. in Shaw 13). This clearly exemplified the slavery during this period in which Negros were sold as slaves.
Inequality is also reflected in Du Bois’ autobiography. He wrote, “It is a peculiar sensation, double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (qtd. in Shaw 15). This demonstrated that a Negro does not have their own identity unless seen and understood by the White Americans.
The Post Civil American war greatly affected the content and themes of the literary pieces. In particular, these themes revolved around the struggles of the Black Americans and their efforts to attain freedom and equality. The literature was the medium used by the Americans to understand how the Black Americans were deprived and looked down on because of the Civil War. As such, it became the stimulus for the writers to do something for the betterment of their status in society.
Works Cited
Finseth, Ian Frederick. The American Civil War: An Anthology of Essential Writings.
New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2006. Print.
Oakes, Elizabeth. American Writers Focuses on the Rich on the Rich Diversity of
American Novelists. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2004. Print.
Shaw, Stephanie. W.E.B. Du Bois and the The Souls of Black Folk. North Carolina:
