ipl-logo

Language Relating To Context In Countee Cullen's Yet Do I Marvel

1227 Words5 Pages

Alessandra Gonzalez-Valdez
English Composition 1302
Professor Lopez
21 April, 2023
Language Relating to Context in Cullen’s “Yet Do I Marvel” During the American pre-civil War period, sometime after, and even now, black Americans were treated unjustly and silenced. “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen expresses his faith and how God chose to make a poet black, meaning why God would make him a poet if his voice wasn’t going to be listened to. The context of Cullen’s poem connects to the use of his language in ways that represent the Jim Crow laws period and the Harlem Renaissance, where he questions his faith, specifically why God allowed such suffering. “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen is a poem wrote about Cullen's faith and God’s choices. …show more content…

Cullen was well-accepted in white communities, this made it easier for him to talk about racial inequality and his experiences. An event that promoted him to write was World War I when many African Americans served in the U.S. Army and came back to be treated unequally and laid off from their jobs. The context of the war connects back to the language Cullen uses in ways that he has already experienced inequality and has been a bystander especially when it comes to God’s torturous decisions, Cullen understands yet he “Marvels” better yet, wonders.
In conclusion, the sonnet “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen uses language to connect to the context of the writing in ways that represent events of the period, such as the Jim Crow laws and the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen’s language use such as talking about Greek gods plus stories, death, and even questioning God and his morality ties together with the context of African American inequality during the 1920s. Not only that but it connects with other contexts such as World War I and even other works published around the same time Cullen’s poem was released such as “A New Negro” by Alain …show more content…

“Countee Cullen.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/countee-cullen. Accessed 16 April 2023.
Sánchez-Pardo, Esther. "Melancholia, the New Negro, and the Fear of Modernity: Forms Sublime and Denigrated in Countee Cullen's Writings." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 220, Gale, 2009. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420091563/LitRC?u=txshracd2487&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=435e3539. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. Originally published in Cultures of the Death Drive: Melanie Klein and Modernist Melancholia, Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 343-385
Leonard, Keith D. "'To Make a Poet Black': Constructing an Ethnic Poetics in Harlem Renaissance Poetry." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 218, Gale, 2009. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420090820/LitRC?u=txshracd2487&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=bfa4838d. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. Originally published in Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights, University of Virginia Press, 2006, pp.

Show More
Related

  • Similarities Between Booker T. Washington And W. E. B. Dubois

    542 Words  | 3 Pages

    Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were two influential leaders in the late 19th and 20th century America. Despite many similarities in background, Dubois and Washington had conflicting viewpoints of the economic and social successes of African Americans. Their opposing philosophies can be found through study and discussion of their literary works. A notable disagreement can be found in Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech and DuBois’s excerpt, Critique of Booker T. Washington, from his publication The Souls of Black Folk.

    Read More

  • Ethos Pathos Logos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

    269 Words  | 2 Pages

    He engages his audience of clergymen through pathos by indicating some of the many struggles only black people have to deal with such as “when you are humiliated day in day out by nagging signs reading

    Read More

  • Comparing Richard Wright And James Baldwin's Blueprint For Negro Writing

    1817 Words  | 8 Pages

    Instead, he implores them to be more political. His goal in writing is to make people aware of the social injustices occurring. The Negro writer who seeks to function within his race as a purposeful aren has a serious responsibility. In order to do justice to his subject matter, in order to depict Negro life in all of its manifold and intricate relationships, a deep, informed, and complex consciousness is necessary; a consciousness which draws for its strength upon the fluid lore of a great people, and more this lore with concepts that move and direct the forces of history today (Wright,

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Souls Of Black Folk By W. E. B Dubois

    193 Words  | 1 Pages

    One of the first things W. E. B. DuBois discusses in the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk is the idea that African Americans are “problems.” Four decades after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans are not as free as the proclamation originally claimed. DuBois states that no man or woman “worshipped Freedom with such unquestioning faith” the way African Americans did for two centuries. He then goes into a discussion regarding how much disappointment the Emancipation Proclamation brought to African Americans. He suggests that “the idea of ‘book-learning’” supported African Americans ability to truly explore themselves, particularly “self-consciousness and self-respect.”

    Read More

  • The Not So Beautiful: Frederick Douglas, Harriet Jacobs, And Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

    975 Words  | 4 Pages

    America The Not So Beautiful America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave, but the reality is that not everyone in America was free. This essay is about the influence black romantic writers have on their readers and how black Americans today can relate to the topics of the writings. I will include information about the writings of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. While reading the works of these three writers I noticed some recurring themes within their experiences.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In Invisible Man

    672 Words  | 3 Pages

    The sad reality of Clifton’s death is that it was a theft of the black community at the hands of white society. The author uses rhetorical strategies of tone, irony,

    Read More

  • Similarities Between 'The Souls Of Black Folk And Frederick Douglass'

    1892 Words  | 8 Pages

    Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk" and Frederick Douglass' "Reconstruction" are two literary pieces that have played significant roles in shaping the conversation around race and equality in America. Both works were written during different historical periods in American Literature, with Du Bois' work published in 1903, while Douglass' "Reconstruction" was published in 1866. These two works provide us with insights into the social, political, and economic conditions that African Americans faced during these eras. As a student of American Literature, it is essential to understand how these works have influenced society and the ongoing conversations around race and social justice.

    Read More

  • Mississippi By Anthony Walton Sparknotes

    989 Words  | 4 Pages

    Walton begins his fourth chapter with a quote from Henry James that introduces “A Sort of Chorus’” recurring theme: race relations. On page 190, W.E.B. DuBois creates a dichotomy between being black and being American by highlighting the two souls of black people: the “black” soul and the “American” soul, and saying that the black struggle is that of “merging” the two souls without losing a part of either. DuBois’ criticism of the dichotomy between the two souls gives the reader a glimpse of the paradoxical situation that complicated Black life in the past and continues to do so today: being accepted in a white society without bleaching out their heritage, and not having doors to opportunity closed in their face. Though Walton connects other ideas to the theme of race relations throughout “A Sort of Chorus,” where he drives home the theme’s impact on the present can be found in “Walkin’ Blues.” In a discussion with a

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Between The World And Me

    1421 Words  | 6 Pages

    Coates calls on his readers, particularly black individuals in America, to confront and challenge the oppression and racism that perpetuate injustice. He indicates that this can be achieved through recognizing the history of violence and systemic oppression that has shaped America. He states, “I judged them against the country I knew, which had acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery, against the country whose armies fanned out across the world to extend their dominion. The world, the real one, was civilization secured and ruled by savage means”(Coates 79). Coates argues that America's progress was built on the enslavement and violence of black people.

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Impact

    884 Words  | 4 Pages

    Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen resonates with The Harlem renaissance; it represents racial identification thrown from the movement but still captures grievance in distinction. When Cullen talks about how god could "make a poet black" (Countee Cullen 14), it contributes to what African Americans could and could not do. Even though the poem depicts itself, it is clear that there is a more profound connection. The movement and poetry demonstrate how one's nature and similarity may progress. Yet Do I Marvel corresponds to how the movement is depicted throughout history, conveying how the writer felt through his irony in the poem with the agony, changes, or even aggravation.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Working Together In The Works Of The Harlem Renaissance

    606 Words  | 3 Pages

    An example of the author conveying the theme of community in this work is, “I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.” This line from the poem shows how the figurative language describes the dark past of African American History and how people have been there to see its dark past and how it’s blossoming into a bright future. The Negro Speaks of Rivers is yet another one of the many works from the Harlem Renaissance that conveys the importance of working

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

    1545 Words  | 7 Pages

    The shame wasn’t a cause for them to turn away from the love for their culture, it just made the proud of their deep black beautiful roots. The black artists of the Harlem Renaissance put a visual scene to the joy, pain, laughter, tears, and the ugly truth within this endearing culture. The literature of the Harlem Renaissance gave an intellectual opinion in American during in the turn of the 20th century. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance have had a profound impact on the American society today.

    Read More

  • James Weldon Johnson Rhetorical Devices

    1271 Words  | 6 Pages

    For instance, Johnson asks black Americans to sing until heaven “Ring with the harmonies of Liberty”; with “ev’ry voice”, full of “faith” and “hope”. Similarly, the second stanza starts with Johnson asking “Have not our weary feet/Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?” and ends with him declaring that “we stand at last” out of the “gloomy past”. Johnson’s cause and effect writing style provides the reader with a reason to sing and its benefits. Johnson recognizes black America’s misery over time; however, he too knows that nothing good comes easy.

    Read More

  • Phyllis Wheatley: A Brief Biography

    882 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1773, there were slaves all over colonial America working in plantations, and cleaning their masters houses. It wasn’t common for a slave to be writing poetry with their owners consent. Phyllis Wheatley’s success as the first African American published poet was what inspired generations to tell her story. It was her intellectual mind and point of view that made her different from others, both black and white. Phyllis’s story broke the barrier for all African American writers, and proved that no matter the gender or race, all human beings are capable of having an intelligent state of mind.

    Read More

  • The Negro's Complaint Analysis

    1541 Words  | 7 Pages

    Poetry Analyzation: Both Cowper and Poe have very distinct writing styles and techniques, as Cowper writes poetry that revolves around religion and Poe differs with essays that involve many imaginative and dark aspects, such as a theme of death. In one of his poems “The Negro’s Complaint” , Cowper demonstrates his writing skills through a controversial poem that brings god and slavery together. This poem was used as an act of conscience, because of the guilt he felt for the “sin” of using African-Americans as pawns of slavery by his people. Cowper made this poem to give those who are not heard, a voice, and to raise awareness for those who cannot riot or protest for their own freedom, hoping to result with putting reality into the conscience of slave owners.

    Read More

More about Language Relating To Context In Countee Cullen's Yet Do I Marvel

Open Document