The Harlem Renaissnace was such an important part of American history and literary history, but it is sadly neglected in “traditional” history courses. Naturally, I had read some works by prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson, but most of the participants were unfamiliar to me. Furthermore, he knew next to nothing about the historical and social context from which the Harlem Renaissance emerged.

In conducting my research, I consulted four books on the Harlem Renaissance, many articles in The Oxford Companion for African American Literatureand nine published articles. It would be impossible to describe everything I learned about the Harlem Renaissance in these essays. The aspects of the Harlem Renaissance that I will primarily focus on are the philosophical debate among African Americans about how they should be represented in literature, the writers’ responses to the debate, a short biographical sketch of eight of the artists, a list of their main artists. it works, and how their lives and works connect with American romanticism.

My first stop in my search for the Harlem Renaissance was The Oxford Companion for African American Literature. From the article on the “Harlem Renaissance,” I learned that there are many ambiguities about the movement. Many critics and literary historians dispute the time period of its beginning and end. However, the article states that there is broad consensus that the Native son (1940) “heralded a new phase of harsh realism in African-American writing,” thus distancing himself from the philosophy of the Harlem Renaissance writers (Singh 340). The philosophy of the movement was also controversial; black intelligentsia and artists had opposing views on what the literary movement should be.

To explore these opposing views further, I turned to Black Culture and Harlem Renaissance by Cary D. Wintz. Wintz offers a very detailed description of the social and political forces that fostered the movement, the literary roots of the Harlem Renaissance, an extensive list of the people, both black and white, involved in the movement and their contributions to it. I will not give an abbreviated description of everything I learned from Wintz’s book; doing so would be an injustice to the entire scope of your work. But I will make a few points from his study of the Harlem Renaissance.

Wintz argues that there was no consensus among artists, critics, and publishers on what the Harlem Renaissance should be. It states that the participants took two positions: (1) those who thought that art should be used for political and propaganda purposes, and (2) those who insisted that art should be only for art and resisted attempts to limit the freedom of artists. expression. Although all or most of the participants in the movement came from a middle-class background, they were divided into two groups arguing about how black should be represented in literature. On the one hand (the ‘promoters’), there were James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke and Charles Johnson who promoted artistic freedom. James Weldon Johnson argued that “it was far more important for a black writer to find a publisher than for his works to embrace middle-class standards of morality or to consciously seek to elevate the race” (Wintz 108). Alain Locke’s vision of art was purely aesthetic; therefore, “he applauded the vigorous lustful realism adopted by most young writers, and praised their struggle to free themselves from the dictates of their elders who felt that art must wage social battles and compensate for social ills” (Wintz 113) .

On the other hand, those who advocated the use of art for political and / or propaganda purposes were such prominent men as WEB DuBois, William Stanley Braithwaite, Charles W. Chestnutt, and Benjamin Brawley. These critics objected to the representation of the Negro in what was called ghetto realism. Braithwaite claimed that ghetto realism “praised degradation” and “would stereotype blacks as immoral” (Wintz 132). Brawley saw the realism of the ghetto and the local color depiction of Harlem as providing “ammunition for intolerant whites to use in their fight against racial equality” (Wintz 135). Brawley wanted black writers to use his art as a means of “countering prevailing prejudices and presenting race in a favorable light” (Wintz 135). WEB DuBois, editor of The crisis, was more inflexible in his condemnation of art for art’s sake:

Thus, all Art is propaganda and

must always be, despite the cries of the

purists. I remain in total shame

and say that whatever art you have to write

it has always been used for propaganda. . . .

I don’t give a damn whatever art it is

it is not used for propaganda. (Wintz 145)

Although Alain Locke promoted freedom of expression for younger artists, he was well aware of the dangers of stereotypical portrayals of African Americans in literature, as were men like DuBois. In his essay, “The American Literary Tradition and the Negro,” Locke identifies seven stereotypical images of African Americans. It was these stereotypes that DuBois and his school worked so hard to dismantle, but unlike DuBois, Locke did not believe that African Americans should be portrayed as possessors of middle-class values ​​but rather as they actually existed.

Both sides of this debate display elements of romanticism. The use of art for the propaganda side wanted to romanticize African Americans by portraying only good middle-class qualities and values; in short, to show that they were like everyone else. Art for art’s sake was more focused on representing the reality of lower-class Harlem culture. In effect, this camp was rebelling against the idea that blacks must become white to overcome stereotypes. They promoted the “blackness” of their culture and sought a shared identity or racial consciousness.

These opposing views are derived from the literary history of African Americans. Between the time of Reconstruction and the early Harlem Renaissance period, there were three main genres of literature, which were written by black writers and by white writers who portrayed African Americans. These genres were the plantation tradition, protest literature, and “passage” novels.

The plantation tradition was instigated by the whites of the South after the Civil War who were “seeking, through romantic images of plantation life, to recover for the nation the forms of power and racial order that war and Reconstruction had been dismantled “(MacKethan 579). The North embraced this type of literature:

Northern magazines like Scribner’s, the

Century, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly invited

syrupy visions of the Old South

delivered in dialect by his slave

workforce recast as family

retainers and fluttering moms.

Thus, the reunion of the North and the South,

and the effective establishment

of a policy of white racial supremacy,

were achieved through a

design in which pastoral nostalgia

masked the violence of the slave

past and stereotypical African American

characters became defenders of their

own disempowerment. (MacKethan 579-80)

The second genre, protest literature, originated with Phyllis Wheatley, around the time of the American Revolution. While Wheatley’s style was one of “gentle piety and classical verse,” he used his poetry primarily to “affirm human equality and liberty and to express his opposition to slavery” (Bruce 601). Slave narratives are also part of this genre of protest literature, such as the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass.

The third genre in the literary tradition are “passage” novels. While this genre is sometimes used to protest, other times it is not. Characters in these novels who attempt to “impersonate” white do so for a myriad of reasons, for example, to escape slavery, avoid racism, or improve their economic opportunities (Little 548). Some examples of this type of genre are those of William Wells Brown. Clotel, or the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in America (1853), by Frances Ellen Watkin Harper Iola Leroy, or raised shadows (1892), by Charles Waddell Chestnutt The house behind the cedars (1900) and James Weldon Johnson The autobiography of a former man of color (1912).

This genre shows romantic tendencies in the sense that the novels often contain “the taboo of interracial sex and the built-in dramas of hidden identity, tangled deceptions, fear of exposure, guilt and the search for identity” (Little 548). The protagonists are crossing borders and seeking to define themselves. In these novels, most of the characters ultimately choose not to pose as white, and as such, this genre “has been used largely to promote racial loyalty and solidarity” (Little 548). Young Harlem Renaissance writers will use all three of these genres, but with the addition of their own distinctive voices.

Like the elders of the Harlem Renaissance, the younger generation of writers would also grapple with the question of how African-Americans should be presented in literature. And also, like the elders, their views would diverge. While it is difficult to place the Harlem Renaissance poets and novelists in one philosophy of art or the opposite philosophy (as both views are present at various times in their works), they generally exhibit tendencies toward one of the more philosophical philosophies. than towards the other. in most of his works. Thus, while Countee Cullen, Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Claude McKay use their art primarily for propaganda or political purposes; and Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman are more inclined towards the use of art for art’s sake, I will not fail to point out in the following discussion where they diverge from those views.

In Part Two, I begin by examining the life of Countee Cullen and his contributions to the Harlem Renaissance.

Bibliography

Bruce Jr., Dickson D. “Protest Literature.” The Oxford Companion for African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 600-04.

Little, Jonathan D. “Novels of passage.” The Oxford Companion for African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 548-50.

Locke, Alain. “The American Literary Tradition and the Negro”. The Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940. Ed. Cary D. Wintz. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1996. 79-86.

MacKethan, Lucinda H. “Plantation Tradition.” The Oxford Companion for African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 579-82.

Singh, Amritjit. “Harlem Renaissance.” The Oxford Companion for African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 340-342.

Wintz, Cary D. Black Culture and Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988.