Long 18th Century Poetry
Explain the significance of Christianity for many African American writers during the Long 18th Century (1783-1917).
What is a source of hope (for equal treatment once arrive in Heaven) and provided credibility.
Later in the century, black authors would refute Christianity practiced by racist people and argue that it wasn't true Christianity.
Mention a character in the book and explain their significance.
Answers will vary.
What was the Harlem Renaissance and when was it?
What is...Harlem Renaissance after/ around WWI and ending around great depression (or 1937). Black social, political, and artistic movement (dance, fashion, music, art, literature).
What is Double Consciousness?
a source of inward “twoness” putatively experienced by African-Americans because of their racialized oppression and devaluation in a white-dominated society. The concept is often associated with W.E.B. Du Bois.
What are the three parts to close reading that we've discussed in class?
CONTEXT (This might include…Who is the author? When was he/she born and when did he/she pass away? When and where text was published? Who did he/she write this text for? Where is the author from? When is the text set? What was happening in America during this time?
How is the text written? STRUCTURE
TECHNIQUE: from first word to last word, who is telling the story and how do they tell the story?
Who is a poet we studied that wrote during the Postbellum period and what stands out his poetry?
Who is Paul Laurence Dunbar? He writes in different dialects
What lesson does Belton learn after desiring to kill his roommate?
The university president talks about the importance of forgiveness
What conflict did Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen have?
What is Cullen wanted to viewed as a poet first, then as a black man. Hughes wanted to celebrate working class black life, which Cullen thought he used "too many Negro themes."
DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
Who wrote this poem and what is its title?
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
AND: What is something important about the author or her (or his) writing style?
"America" by Claude McKay
Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities.
Studied British masters
Often wrote in sonnets
Why did Viola kill herself?
She wants to be patriotic towards the black race and refuses to marry a mixed race man.
Who is this?
Who is Frances E.W. Harper?
DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
Provide an example of power and control in the story.
Schooling, Belton kicked off train, Belton lynched and shot, forbidding AA from voting, church scene, etc.
What is The Burden of Representation and how does it apply to an author we studied in the Harlem Renaissance?
What is the pressure on the individual to represent the whole group? Hughes is expected to present a view of black life from the upper-class perspective instead of the working class.
The following lines are an example of
So boy, don’t you turn back./ Don’t you set down on the steps/ ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
What is Assonance?
What is The Burden of Representation and how does it apply to an author we studied?
What is the pressure on the individual to represent the whole group?
Hughes is expected to present a view of black life from the upper-class perspective instead of the working class.
Cullen and McKay expect to change their writing styles to fit assumptions of how black art should be represented
Hurston's critics for her depictions of black characters
What is signifying retextualization?
What is how the enslaved are using words vs. how traditionally used. Religious interpretation and anti-slavery interpretations?
Pick a theme or political view from Imperium in Imperio and explain how it is relevant to the text and postbellum era.
Answers will vary.
Themes: patriotism (to race and nation), black and white relations, schooling for African Americans, revenge and forgiveness, control and power, racism
Political Views: Treatment of black women; black peoples’ place in America after slavery (Negro Question); patriotism (to race and nation); miscegenation; violence against black people; racial uplift (views on how to advance...education, hard work, etc.)
Based on our readings of Hurston, McKay, Cullen, and Hughes, how might their works fit in with the literary criticism presented during the Harlem Renaissance?
Hurston: saw value in everyday folk as makers of sophisticated cultural forms worth incorporating within “Negro art.” Didn't belong to school of "sobbing Negrohood"
Hughes: critiqued American standardization and any suppression of racial difference.
McKay and Cullen: embraced classic British writing styles
"I am a traitor. I have violated an oath that was solemn and binding as any ever taken by man on earth. I have trampled under my feet the sacred trust of a loving people, and have betrayed secrets which were dearer to them than life itself."
Berl Trout after he betrays the imperium.
Select any author that we’ve studied so far and provide a basic summary regarding her (or his) writing style. What do we know about this author? How does the author fit (or not fit) into her period? Think elements of context, structure, and technique.
Answers will vary.
How do Early National black poets differ from the Antebellum or Postbellum black poets?
What is the Early National poets are more patient with injustices because the ideas presented in the Declaration of Independence were new?
What was Sutton Griggs's political view and how does this relate to Imperium in Imperio?
Griggs believed in the need of cooperation with whites (Coleman viii).
Whites would step forward to assist when blacks show that they are deserving (Griggs 34, Coleman 49).
Empower and uplift blacks and warn whites of impending crisis (Coleman 41).
“Some vacillation in Griggs’s positions has been observed—from writing radical novels and tracts, to presenting positions that seem accommodationist…Because of this shifting…Griggs has been labeled ‘uncertain’…(Verdelle ix).
What is the Great Migration and why is it relevant to the Harlem Renaissance and the "New Negro" of the 1920s.
Movement of AA from the N to S. Influx of black arts in various northern cities across U.S. Celebration of black culture separate from white culture.
Who said the quote below and what is its significance?
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ar'n't I a woman?”
S. Truth
She argues black women are women too