Elijah Aloese
Lakisha Carson
Arielle Gonzales
Period 3
DEFINITION
A cultural movement in the 1920s during
which African American art, literature, and
music prospered as a result of newfound
pride. When African Americans opted to
move during the Great Migration , jazz,
poetry, painting, dance, blues and study of
folklore became popular forms of
expression within the black community.
A NEW MOVEMENT
• Cultural movement occurring between 1920-1930
• AKA the “New Negro Movement”
• The Great Migration can be referred to as the movement
of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern
United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West
• During the Harlem Renaissance, the roles of African
Americans began to become prominent in literature, art,
and music
• During this time period, the musical, writing, and artful
styles of blacks were becoming more and more attractive
to whites
POETIC TECHNIQUES
•
•
•
Common themes include African American
concerns and pride in their culture
Poems usually include repetitive structure similar to
those of blues lyrics or fragments like those of jazz
improvisation
Techniques include metaphors, similes, symbolism,
and syntax
CLAUDE MCKAY
• Born on September 15, 1890 in Jamaica
• Died on May 22, 1948 in Chicago,
Illinois
• Education received at Tuskegee
Institute, Kansas State Teachers
College
• Occupations: Children’s Activist, Civil
Rights Activist, Author, Poet
• Born with the name of Festus Claudius
McKay (AKA Eli Edwards)
NOTABLE WORKS
• Home to Harlem (1928)
• Best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature;
Banjo (1929)
• Banana Bottom (1933)
• Jamaican Institute of Arts and Sciences, gold medal, 1912, for
two volumes of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads;
• Harmon Foundation Award for distinguished literary
achievement, NAACP, 1929, for Harlem Shadows and Home
to Harlem;
• James Weldon Johnson Literary Guild Award, 1937.
IF WE MUST DIE
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
COUNTEE CULLEN
• Lived May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946
• Leading poet during the Harlem
Renaissance
• Attended both New York University and
Harvard University
• Cullen won a citywide poetry contest as a
schoolboy, and the Witter Bynner Poetry
Prize at NYU
• Close friends with Langston Hughes
• In 1928, he married the daughter of
W.E.B. Du Bois.
NOTABLE WORKS
Poetry
• I Have a Rendezvous With Life (1920s, poem)
• Color Harper & brothers, 1925
• Copper Sun, Harper & brothers, 1927
• Harlem Wine 1926
Prose
•One Way to Heaven (1931)
• The Lost Zoo (1940)
• My Lives and How I Lost Them (1942)
Drama
• St. Louis Woman (1946)
HARLEM WINE
This is not water running here,
These thick rebellious streams
That hurtle flesh and bone past fear
Down alleyways of dreams
This is a wine that must flow on
Not caring how or where
So it has ways to flow upon
Where song is in the air.
So it can woo an artful flute
With loose elastic lips
Its measurements of joy compute
With blithe, ecstatic hips.
LANGSTON HUGHES
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Feb 1, 1902- May 22, 1967
Born James Langston Hughes in Joplin,
Missouri
Grew up very insecure
His father wanted him to be an engineer
Attended Columbia University
Wrote novels, short stories, and plays about
African American life during the twenties
through sixties
First published work was “The Weary Blues” in
1926
used the rhythms of African American music,
specifically blues and jazz
Known as the Poet Laureate of the Negro
Race
Jazz and blues songs were played in his honor
at his funeral
NOTABLE WORKS
•Fine Clothes To The Jew
•The Weary Blues
•The Negro Speaks Of Rivers
•I Dream A World
I, TOO, SING AMERICA
I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me
“Eat in the kitchen”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
AP WRITING PROMPT 1
The following text is from Langston Hughes’ 1945
poem, “I, Too, Sing America”. Read the poem carefully
and annotate the text, then write a thesis statement
relating to how the author uses literary devices to
foreshadow the rise of African Americans in society.
AP PROMPT 2
The following text is from Countee Cullen’s 1926 poem,
“Harlem Wine”. Read the poem carefully and then write
a response on how you think the Harlem Renaissance
had an impact on American culture.
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did the great migration contribute to the rise of
African American culture?
2. What became popular within the black community
during the Harlem renaissance?
3. What is another name for the Harlem renaissance?
4. Did the white people appreciate the poetry that the
negroes proposed?
5. How do the rhythms of blues’ songs relate to the poems
of the Harlem Renaissance?
6. What forms of art did African Americans begin to
blossom in?
LINKS
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-too/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177020
http://www.kansasheritage.org/crossingboundaries/page6e1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countee_Cullen
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/harlem-wine/
http://www.shmoop.com/if-we-must-die/analysis.html
http://www.biography.com/people/claude-mckay-9392654
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTmckay.htm
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15250