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1. The Harlem Renaissance Harlem ... HarlemBlack, black HarlemSouls of Black FolkAsk Du BoisLittle grey restless feetAsk Claude McKayCity of RefugeAsk Rudolph FisherDon't damn your body's itchAsk Countee CullenDoes the jazz band sob?Ask Langston HughesNigger HeavenAsk Carl Van VechtenHey! ... Hey!“ ... Say it brotherSay it ...” - Frank Horne, “Harlem”
2. The Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance is the period from the end of World War I in 1918 through the middle of the 1930s Depression, during which a group of talented African-American writers produced a sizable body of literature in the four prominent genres of poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. Major Themes: Examples in Hughes’ Work: Alienation Marginality Use of folk material Use of the blues tradition Problems of writing for an elite audience
3. Brought the African American experience clearly within the general American cultural history. Remarkable coincidences and luck provided a sizable chunk of real estate in the heart of Manhattan. The Black migration, from south to north, changed their image from rural to urban, from peasant to sophisticate. Harlem became a crossroads where African Americans expanded their contacts internationally. Harlem Renaissance profited from a spirit of self-determination which was widespread after W.W.I. The Harlem Renaissance …
4. The Harlem Renaissance vs. Modernism Harlem is viciousModernism. BangClash.Vicious the way it's made,Can you stand such beauty.So violent and transforming. - Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
5. Complex relationship Share the important motif of alienation The character belongs to a "lost generation" (Gertrude Stein), suffers from a "dissociation of sensibility" (T. S. Eliot), and has "a dream deferred" (Langston Hughes). Alienation leads to an awareness about one's inner life. American modernism is inspired by the European avant-garde art, while the Renaissance represents the unique and distinct experience of black Americans. Modernism borrows from the Renaissance the themes of marginality and the use of folk or the so-called "primitive" material. The use of the blues tradition—important for the Renaissance—is not shared by white modernists; considered too limiting (mere complaint about one's repressed and exploited condition), the blues tradition represents images and themes of liberation and revolt. The Harlem Renaissance vs. Modernism
6. Modernism is a literary and artistic movement from the 1890s through the 1940s that provided a radical break with traditional modes of Western art, thought, religion, social conventions, and morality. It was a movement away from realism and romanticism. Major themes: attack on notions of hierarchy; experimentation in new forms of narrative, such as stream of consciousness; doubt about the existence of knowable, objective reality; attention to alternative viewpoints and modes of thinking; and self-referentiality as a means of drawing attention to the relationships between artist and audience and form and content. modernism
7. Collectivism versus the authority of the individual The impact of the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia The Jazz Age The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 giving women the right to vote Prohibition of the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933 The stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression of the 1930s and their impact Additional Modern Themes
8. The artist is generally less appreciated but more sensitive, even more heroic, than the average person. The artist challenges tradition and reinvigorates it. The artist breaks away from patterned responses and predictable forms. Modern Attitudes
9. T. S. Eliot F. Scott Fitzgerald Robert Frost Ernest Hemingway James Joyce Gertrude Stein John Steinbeck Virginia Woolf Some Famous modernist writers
10. Romanticism & realism vs. modernism (1890’S-1940’s) ROMANTICISM (1798-1832): REALISM (1830-1900):
11. "... the greatest single fact about our modern American writing is our writers' absorption in every last detail of their American world together with their deep and subtle alienation from it." - Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds, 1942 "Defining modernism is a difficult task. ... A historical definition would say that modernism is the artistic movement in which the artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure became uppermost. ... In brief, modernism asks us to consider what we normally understand by the center and the margins." - Heath Anthology, Vol. 2, 4th ed., 887-888. Modernism
12. Dramatization of the plight of women. Creation of a literature of the urban experience. Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit. Continuation of regionalism and local color. Literary Achievements of modernism
13. Stylistic innovations - disruption of traditional syntax and form Example from Modernist’s work: Writer's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure Example from Modernist’s work: Obsession with primitive material and attitudes Example from Modernist’s work: International perspective on cultural matters Example from Modernist’s work: The Centers of Modern writing
14. Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 9: Harlem Renaissance - An Introduction." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/9intro.html. 3 October 2011. Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 7: Early Twentieth Century: American Modernism - An Introduction." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/7intro.html (provide page date or date of your login).  Citation