Folklore, Fakelore, and the History of the Dream: James McBride’s Song Yet Sung

Abstract

James McBride’s novel Song Yet Sung (2008), set in 1850 on Maryland’s eastern shore, the novel interrogates the relation between history and popular myth and explores the legitimacy of African American folklore as an empowering, imaginative resource. Controversially, in plot and symbolic structure, McBride exploits the “Quilt Code,” the secret instructions supposedly sewn into quilts to aid escaped slaves and now seen by historians as an example of fakelore: a synthetic product claimed as authentic oral tradition and used in classroom lessons, museum exhibits, public artworks, and children’s literature. Newman argues that if McBride mythologizes, he also demythologizes by recreating two women from American folklore: the Dreamer, an escaped slave based upon Harriet Tubman, heroine of the Underground Railroad; and Patty Cannon, historically notorious stealer of free blacks, operating an Underground Railroad in reverse. McBride’s novel questions both official and oral narratives, thus validating the vital role of the imagination in historical critique.