Watch the Signifyin Monkey fuck around with language!

 

Deep down in the jungle so they say
There's a signifying motherfucker down the way.
There hadn't been no disturbin' in the jungle for quite a bit,
For up jumped the monkey in the tree one day and laughed,
"I guess I'll start some shit."

The word “signifying” in the dictionary has many sets of definitions. However when you hear a black person refer to this word, chances you will need more than a dictionary to understand what exactly the speaker is referring to. Signifying is a verbal play-serious play that serves as instruction, entertainment, mental exercise, preparation for interacting with friend and foe in the social arena. In black vernacular, the word signifying refers to a sign that words cant be trusted, that even the most literal utterance allows space for interpretations, that language can be both carnival and dangerous.

The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates as vulgar, is being kind. This poem is a mixture of curse words, vanity, and sexual connotations. Henry Louis Gates sets out to "identify how the 'black tradition' had theorized about itself" (ix). Gates' theory is derived from reading the actual text of African American literature. His careful analyses of the varied texts combined with his knowledge of the black dialect tradition are the basis for The Signifying Monkey.

In part I of The Signifying Monkey, Gates begins with a historical exploration of Esu-Elegbara, a mythical African figure. It outlines the origins and myths behind the character, the monkey,  and it's development in the African culture. The chapter is complex. Gates states that he cannot historically link Esu and the Signifying monkey, but he feels that there is a connection between the tradition of the Monkey and the religious and philosophical African beliefs.

The Signifying Monkey is a cunning character whose manipulation, through language, allows him to trick an elephant and a monkey into doing whatever he wants them to do. Gates explains that the story has been passed through the black community since the days of slavery, the poem celebrates a traditional use of figurative language verses literal interpretations.

“As the African American toast cited above clearly shows, a trickster figure such as the Signifying Monkey enjoys stirring up trouble for its own sake. All trickster figures, however, are rather wise too. Perhaps they know that laughing at trouble (and even creating trouble just to laugh) has a special kind of transformative power. Tricksters can level the playing field in a flash and make it possible for burdened and uptight people to suddenly feel lighthearted and playful. Tricksters show up in the folklore and creation myths of a number of cultures worldwide, including African, Haitian, Native American (or American Indian) and African American” . (http://ualr.edu/jxbriton/folk.html)

"Eclectic, exciting, convincing, provocative, challenging.... Gates gives black literature room to breathe, invents interpretive frameworks that enable us to experience black writing rather than label it in terms of theme or ideology. From this perspective his book is a generous, long-awaited gift.... Like great novels that force us to view the world differently, Mr. Gates' compelling study suggests new ways of seeing."--John Wideman, The New York Times Book Review