Abstract
My article, “Spirituals As Symbolic Expression” appeared in the Fall, 1977 issue of this journal. It analyzed examples of archetypal material present in Negro Spirituals. The analysis assumed the theoretical formulation of Carl G. Jung, particularly his emphasis upon the theorum of the universality of images and their concrete functionality in the lives of people. The basic thesis of the article stressed that archetypal material in spirituals represented the unconscious strivings of black slaves for ultimate meaning—that is, the material served as a mediating force through which black slaves made sense out of an unfamiliar and hostile environment and established a renewed sense of personhood.