“All literature is protest.”

— Richard Wright

Last update March 21, 2024. History

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Richard Wright130

African-American writer 1908–1960

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"All Literature", from Anarchism Is Not Enough (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928)

“Oratory is, after all, the prose literature of the savage.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

Vol. 1, p. 203
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day

“The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott <br class="br">1950s <br class="br">Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches <br class="br">Context: We are here, we are here this evening because we're tired now. And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all.

“Rokeby, J.: I do not think but a Popish doctor may be a good doctor to a Protestant patient; but I do not think that a Popish governor can be a good governor for a Protestant subject.
Holt, C. J.: Aye, but a Popish censor is not so proper to supervise and inspect all the Protestant physicians.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

King against Dr. Burrel (1699), 5 Mod. 432.

“It's an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pleasure or not at all. You shouldn't be taught to monkey with it.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 31

“In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

“I don't get this at all. It's like protesting the fact that some people are red-haired.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Their protest against injustice and oppression, to the neglect of all other social evils, is almost monotonous.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 12-13
Context: There is no question on which side the sympathy of the prophets was enlisted. Their protest against injustice and oppression, to the neglect of all other social evils, is almost monotonous.

“Literature has many uses, not all of which occur in a classroom”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

20
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

“Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Moralités (1932)

“All literature is protest.”

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