Towards a horizontal critical literary reading of Hughes’ and Angelou’s poems

Abstract EN

As a reader of literary discourse, one endeavours to explore and understand the similarities with and differences from the other in that literary discourse is laden with the authors’ and characters’/speakers’ experiences.

Readers allow themselves either a centripetal or a centrifugal reading with reference to their implication in the text and to their different backgrounds.

As a result, this view created binary oppositions such as the self versus the other, male versus female and oppressor versus oppressed.

Therefore, the study of literary discourse should attempt to generate a horizontal account for human relationships beyond any vertical social, cultural, racial, sexual and even ideological considerations.