Toasts are long, epic poems traditionally performed in a dramatic fashion. While related to trickster narratives, which are stories that incorporate unlikely heroes who manage to overcome adverse situations using solely their superior wits, the toast incorporates the badman theme with unlikely heroes including poor workers, pimps, players, and hustlers. Toasts utilize humor via excessive profanity, sexual innuendo, irony, and verbal wit. They are often performed in communal settings such as barbershops, pool halls, or even block parties as a source of entertainment and boasting. The toaster (person who performs the toast) attempts to present the toast in an exaggerated, comedic fashion to win over the audience. The audience’s role in the event impacts the delivery of the toast. A master toaster responds to the audience’s reaction by altering aspects of the poem to their tastes, thereby emphasizing certain parts and obscuring others.
While the origin of toasts remains unknown, they proliferated during the period of the Great Migration (1910–1930). As Southern blacks ventured northward, they experienced a plethora of difficulties in industrialized cities. Many of these hardships were incorporated into toasts as a way to achieve a sense of relief from common problems experienced by many African American migrants. Toasts were not collected until the 1930s in Louisiana and Mississippi, but many folklore scholars argue that the form began as early as 1912. Folklorists such as Roger Abrahams, William Labov, and John Lewis encountered African American toasters who informed them of the tradition and patterns. As a result, these folklorists first began to analyze and publish toasts in anthologies in the late 1960s.
Roger Abrahams (1933–) details the components of the toast in his book Deep Down in the Jungle (1964). Deep Down in the Jungle was one of the first books to analyze toasts critically by linking these narrative poems to other more recognized genres (blues, folktales, and chants) within the African American literary and oral tradition. The toast includes “some type of picturesque or exciting introduction, action alternating with dialogue (because the action is usually a struggle between two people or animals), and a twist ending of some sort, a quip, an ironic statement, or a brag” (Abrahams 1964, 99). The format includes rhyming couplets and a four-stress line verse. The style incorporates signifyin’, which John Russell Rickford (1949–) defines as “ritualized wordplay, a highly stylized lying, joking, and carrying on” (Rickford 2000, 82). Ultimately, the speaker uses metaphor to get the better of the opponent by making fun of his or her perceived strengths. This joking style elevates the perceived weaker character by demonstrating his or her true inner strength evidenced by superior intelligence.
Toasts are typically performed by African American men in social settings within the community. Because of the provocative language and subject matter contained in toasts, they are typically performed in intimate settings. The communal sharing of humorous odes of cultural heroes extends beyond neighborhood gathering places. In fact, prison yards are a prominent location for sharing toasts. Since toasts feature unlikely heroes, prisoners often share these tales to pass the time, to entertain themselves, and to inspire.
Similar to ancient Greek and Roman epics, toasts are episodic in nature. While there is generally a loose structure that guides the performance of the toast, the details and language of the toast often shift depending on the speaker. Although the stories are traditional, the delivery should be as creative as possible. A toastmaster must be adept at improvisation or the poem will sound boring and uninspired. The toaster makes the familiar narrative poems fresh by embellishing details and incorporating fresh images.
The hero of the toast can vary significantly. The protagonists in these narrative poems manifest in different forms such as the monkey from “The Signifying Monkey” or Shine from “Shine and the Titanic.” However, the heroes possess similar qualities that readily identify them as champions to the audience. The heroes are powerful. Their strength lies in their defiant personalities. Their heroic qualities emphasize that they are not the traditional good guys. In fact, their badness makes them strong. A few qualities that define the hero in the toast include promiscuity, fearlessness, willingness to fight, overt masculinity, verbal combativeness, and general defiance. Their strength reflects their ability to defy societal expectations concerning decorum and behavior. The protagonists do what they want when they want. Their ability to decide their own path and to stand up to authoritative figures further demonstrates their strength.
The most famous toast is “The Signifying Monkey.” Unlike other toasts, “The Signifying Monkey” is set in the African jungle. The monkey is trapped high up in a tree and wants to come down. Unfortunately, the stronger and more physically aggressive lion prevents the monkey’s escape. To encourage the lion to leave the foot of the tree, the monkey tempts the lion. The monkey says that he has overheard that there is someone stronger than the lion who has been bragging that he can beat the lion in a fight if given the chance. This challenger even talks about the lion’s mamma and grandmamma too. The lion demands to know the name of the would-be challenger. Monkey identifies the challenger as the elephant. As soon as the monkey says the name, the lion takes off in a flash to challenge the elephant and put an end to all the boasting. The elephant, unaware of the monkey’s claims, is sleeping in the shade of another tree in the jungle. Suddenly, the lion approaches the elephant with an attitude and calls him all kinds of rude names. The lion lets out a mighty roar and attacks the elephant. The elephant merely kicks the smaller beast in the stomach and laughs as the lion soars through the air and lands on the ground with a loud thump some distance away. The lion is not easily deterred. He tries again and again to beat the elephant, but the elephant always outmaneuvers the lion. The lion eventually grows tired of the beating and retreats back to the tree where the signifying monkey still sits. When the monkey sees the bruised and battered lion coming, he laughs and laughs. The monkey taunts the lion and wants to know who was the real king of the jungle. The monkey is so busy laughing that he loses his footing and falls from his high place in the tree. The lion pounces and beats him up pretty badly, but the monkey, being fast and nimble, manages to climb back up into the high tree, where he remains to this very day.
In “The Signifiying Monkey,” the monkey is the hero. Although he is smaller and physically weaker than the lion and the elephant, the monkey is smarter than both and is able to use his superior intellect to manipulate their behavior. While the monkey has a good time making fun of the lion and starting trouble with the elephant, it is important to remember that the monkey still occupies the same place in the tree at the end of the tale. This subtle symbol reminds the audience that there are ways to outsmart systems of authority, but these systems, whether they represent the police or government, have great power over the lives of African Americans. In this way, toasts represent a political form of resistance. While the toaster is spinning creative poems about animals and workers, the performer is also emphasizing real-life problems members of the audience experience. The performance then serves as a consciousness-raising, while entertaining the people of the community.
Jennifer L. Hayes
See also Badman; Tricksters, Native American
Further Reading
Abrahams, Roger D. 1964. Deep Down in the Jungle: Black American Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia. 2006. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Labov, William, et al. 1981. “Toasts.” In Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of African-American Folklore, edited by Alan Dundes. New York: Garland.
Rickford, John R. 2000. Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1977. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.