Claude Mckay's Poem In The Harlem Dancer, And I, Too

During the period of Harlem Renaissance, many black artists emerged and took forward the mission of promoting black identity and expressing the black or the Negro thoughts at time. At start, this movement was viewed or was seen as a literary movement which changed with time and became to be known as a national movement with links with international development in arts and culture. Harlem Renaissance is believed to

The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, is a time period in American history that bred the likes of Langston Hughes, W.E.B Dubois, and Zora Neale Hurston. Despite the name, the Harlem Renaissance is not exclusive to the city of Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance period is an “interdisciplinary cultural movement” (Jones 2008) that unleashed creativity in the African American community and allowed the ingenuity of the community to be shared with the world. The Harlem Renaissance is the beginning of the age of modernism. This artistic movement included creative explosions in the areas of literature, poetry, dance, and music.

This writing style is when authors use tragic events for stories, for example war. These two period of writing styles have importance to American culture, but talk about different To begin with The Harlem Renaissance poems main points the author tries to get across are about African - American culture. The authors try to tell the readers how they were treated, how they feel in society, and what they do, “I, too sing America. I am the darken brother.” (Hughes).

Hip Hop also plays a very important role in modern culture and society of African-Americans. After the abolition of slavery, African-Americans

His life work is important to all of us because it shaped the artistic of Harlem. " My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America. "(Hughes qtd. In Brainly Quote) Unlike other notable black poets of in this period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black Americans.

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic way during the 1920’s and the 30’s. Many African Americans who participated in this movement showed a different side of the “Negro Life,” and rejected the stereotypes that were forced on themselves. The Harlem Renaissance was full of artists, musicians, and writers who wrote about their thoughts, especially on discrimination towards blacks, such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance was an influential and exciting movement, and influenced others to fight for what they want and believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Harlem Renaissance Era took place during the 1920’s and 1930’s bring with it an explosive new genre of jazz and blues, art ,poetry and many other creative outlets thus creating many great changes. This was an era for expressing the African-American culture in American; documenting everything from our countries dark past to the optimistic hope of a brighter future for African Americans. The primary and most important factors that contributed to the up rise of the Harlem Renaissance were World War I and the Great Migration. For it was the relocation to Harlem during The Great Migration of African-American people from the egregious oppression of South to the North, that was the cause of this phenomenon. Harlem became one of the largest African- American communities in The United States, and during the Harlem Renaissance and soon became a center for art and literature.

Many people of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts movements, along with later movements, described Toomer’s work in Cane as an inspiration in their own works. “When the writers of the early Harlem Renaissance read Cane, they were pleasantly surprised. Jean Toomer mostly associated with progressive white writers of the late 1910s and 1920s. After writing Cane, he was proclaimed by the black writers as the most promising black writer of that time” (Whisenton 5). His work in Cane was applauded for its recognition of African American culture and struggles, along with its representation of sexual issues that are still overly present.

The most influential movement in African American literary history, which contributed the phase of the “New Negro”, is known as The Harlem Renaissance. This movement played a pivotal role in creating a different identity for the black culture (History.com). Emerging in the 1920s, The Harlem Renaissance allowed black writers, artists, photographers, scholars, poets, and musicians to express their talents Part of the foundations of the movement was the Great Migration of African Americans from South to North, drastically expanding their knowledge and socioeconomic opportunities. Certainly the movement was more than literary, for having such a proximate relation to civil rights, the “New Negro” demanded civil and political privileges. Additionally, it had a revitalizing influence for African Americans to develop race pride; giving such a prestige to their work affected African Americans in a manner of desiring to reconnect with their unwanted African heritage.

Not to mention, Motley was a great importance during the Harlem Renaissance time period, known as a symbolic painter. Greatly known for his paintings of jazz culture in passionate city scenes and black social life. Motley made many contributions to life in

After the end of World War I, America entered a new age of cultural and artistic growth. One area in particular, Harlem, New York, became the cornerstone of an African American movement called the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance spanned across all of the arts embracing and presenting African American culture. This movement experienced the beginnings of numerous influential African American writers and works. One of these important writers was Langston Hughes.

Hughes Essay Langston Hughes, wrote “Refugee in America”, “I, Too”, and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Hughes lived from February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967 and was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Hughes was also one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form, jazz poetry. My thesis for the connection of these three poems are that they all relate to oppression and the change that is to come one day.

One of the most important literary figure was Langston Hughes. When the “Harlem Renaissance” became popular, Langston Hughes’ influences, style of writing, and themes made him different than the others. Langston Hughes was influenced by people and events. The people that influenced him were Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman.

The first author that I have chosen to write about is Claude Mckay. “Claude Mckay was born into a poor farm-working family in Sunny Ville, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, and spent half of his life on the British Caribbean Island” (Norton 2721). As I noticed while reading a brief description about Claude Mckay he had a rough upbringing and had a harsh life like most authors did. Mckay had several jobs such as a cabinetmaker and a police. As stated in the Norton, “Walter Jekyll, encouraged him to write in Jamaican dialect, or Creole” (Norton 2721).

Langston Hughes was first recognized as an important literary figure during the 1920s, a period known as the "Harlem Renaissance", because of the number of black writers that was coming up. Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes was best known for describing the black life from the 20s to the 50s, in novels, short-stories, plays, and poems. He was also known for the influence jazz had on all of his creative writings.