The Signifying Monkey

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The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism is a work of literary criticism and theory by American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. first published in 1988. The book traces the folkloric origins of the African-American cultural practice of “signifying” and uses the concept of Signifyin to analyze the interplay between texts of prominent African-American writers, specifically Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed.
Signifyin is closely related to double-talk and trickery of the type used by the Monkey of these narratives, but, as Gates himself admits, “It is difficult to arrive at a consensus of definitions of signifyin.” Bernard W. Bell defines it as an “elaborate, indirect form of goading or insult generally making use of profanity.” Roger D. Abrahams writes that to signify is “to imply, goad, beg, boast by indirect verbal or gestural means.” Signifyin is a homonym with the concept of signification put forth by Semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure wherein the signifier interacts with the signified to form one whole linguistic sign.