After our discussion about this topic in class the other day, when we brought up Black Elk Speaks in terms of its genre, I went online to see what it is generally listed as. I went to several sites, such as Amazon, to see what this book is technically listed as but I couldn’t find a clear genre. I went found an explanation of what types of genre this book encompasses on “Cliff Notes” which I think made the most sense. “Black Elk Speaks, a personal narrative, has the characteristics of several genres: autobiography, testimonial, tribal history, and elegy. However, Neihardt's editing and his daughter's transcription of Black Elk's words, as well as Black Elk's son's original spoken translation, raise questions about the narrative's authenticity”
I agree with this statement, Black Elk Speaks could be considered all of those genres found above. It could be a historical account, or a biography, as most of the book is written in this fashion. Personally, the moments when Neihardt puts his own impute don’t make me think less of what is written. The story is still the same in the broad sense. The biggest difference is that these additions help readers to better understand what they are reading. Since I have a version of the text which highlights what is or is not the original manuscript, I feel like I trust the work even more. Instead of writing these additions without noting them, this book tells the reader, so I believe the other parts are mostly straight from Black Elk. I also understand that this information was passed through several sources, due to translation and documenting and I recognize this too makes other unavoidable minor alterations.
Overall, I agree that this work is a biography, with some small changes. As a whole, these alterations do not undermine the main objective of this work, as a biography of Black Elk.
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