Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - Gabriella Varró: The Theme of Comic Love in Blackface Minstrelsy: The Anatomy of the Grotesque

Monday was my wedding day Tuesday I was married, Wen'sdy night my wife took sick Sat'day she was buried. Wen 'sdy night my wife took sick Despair ob death cum o'er her O! some did cry, but I did laff To see dat death go from her. /Starr/ Another version of the song quoted in Dennison registered the proceedings after the wife's death in a more explicit fashion, prefiguring some of the concluding events in Faulkner's poor white story of As I Lay Dying, where on the day of Addie's burial Anse Bundren goes off mysteriously by himself and then returns to his family with a new wife. Saturday night my old wife died, Sunday she war buried, Monday was my courting day, On Tuesday I got married. /Dennison 124/ The pseudo-black male of minstrelsy did not take his relationships seriously, nor did he regard others' as sacred, or something to be respected. The stereotype of the Black Seducer and that of the Jealous Black Lover appeared together in most songs. The black male was pictured as at once careless and jealous in love. This discrepancy, however, did not seem to worry songsmiths who produced hundreds and hundreds of songs to fit both patterns. Most songs with the jealous lover theme fell back on the dramaturgy of "Coal Black Rose," which, as I have noted, set the convention for songs of this kind for several decades. 107