Chapter 1: Black Matters Summary and Analysis

The first chapter begins with a quote from T. S. Eliot's "Preludes IV" about being moved by fancies curled around the images of an infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing. Toni Morrison argues for extending the study of American literature into a wider landscape. She does not bring to this matter solely the tools of a literary critic; she is also a reader and a writer. Books reveal themselves differently to a writer. Morrison is interested in what prompts and makes possible the process of entering what one is estranged from. Her work requires her to consider how free she can be as an African-American female writer in a genderized, sexualized, racialized world; it also causes her to consider what happens to other writers working in the same world. Morrison's project arises out of delight in what she...