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African-American culture flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Although often characterized by and punctuated with the “double consciousness” of being both black and an American, the work of Harlem Renaissance writers and poets was variable and diverse. Countee Cullen is unique among Harlem Renaissance poets. Many of his works reflect the English poetic traditions, even more so than American or African-American ones. “Cullen considered the Anglo-American poetic heritage to belong as much to him as to any white American of his age,” (“Harlem Renaissance: American Literature and Art”). Implicit in Cullen’s poetic styles and formats was the belief in a blended identity, and yet the poem “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks” shows that Cullen indeed did struggle with the double consciousness. Langston Hughes took a different approach than Cullen did, in terms of poetic style, subject matter, and approaches to race. Contrary to Cullen, Hughes believed “black poets should create a distinctive Negro art, combating what he called the “urge within the race toward whiteness,” (“Harlem Renaissance: American Literature and Art”1). In Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Hughes resolves the double consciousness not through reconciliation...
Taken together, “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” show how different Harlem Renaissance poets conceptualized the double consciousness of racialized identity in America.
In “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks,” Countee Cullen reveals the deep personal and collective conflicts within the African American soul. The speaker of the poem, Simon of Cyrenian, is called to carry the cross for Jesus. His calling is spiritual: “He never gave a sign to me / And yet I knew and came,” (Cullen lines 3-4). At first, Simon has far too much pride to assume the burdens of one who he does not know. Also, Simon believes that “He only seeks to place it there / Because my skin is black,” (Cullen lines 7-8). Yet Simon changes his mind, feeling an outpouring of pity on Jesus, who was “dying for a dream,” but in whose eyes “there shone a gleam / Men journey far to seek,” (lines 11-12). By agreeing to carry the cross, Simon essentially trades places with Jesus, becoming a martyr. “I did for Christ alone / What all of Rome could not have wrought / With bruise of lash or stone,” (lines 15-16). The last line refers directly and explicitly to the brutality of…
Harlem Renaissance was a noteworthy era in human history that was triggered immediately after the upheaval of World War 1. It is largely characterized as a period in which African-Americans searched for greater self-actualization, and struggled for racial equality in an America drowned in ethnic bias. The Black community deemed it absolutely necessary to realize their dreams of a world with no prejudice and equitable opportunities in all walks of
Harlem Renaissance is also known as the period of renaissance and development of Black art and writing in the United States. Literature was used as a means of promoting and projecting the realities of social oppression that African-Americans felt at the time. Literature was also one of the modes of expression that was used to articulate the complex emotions that many African-Americans felt in an oppressive society. On a related
Harlem Renaissance- Literature and Art The Harlem or Negro Renaissance marked the 20s and 30s as a period where the spirituality and potential of the African-American community was expressed in the most explosive way possible. Black art had been relatively unknown to the American public until then, at least to the urban communities. Centered in the Southern states and with a freedom of expression generally trampled with, black art expression was
Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes and his "Refugee in America," and Zora Neale Hurston and her "The Eatonville Anthology." Specifically, it will relate the thoughts of these two writers to the statement by W.E.B. Du Bois in "The Souls of Black Folk." "It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others...One ever feels his two-ness...An American, a Negro." THE HARLEM
Harlem Renaissance. Two Poet Writers from Harlem Renaissance Many people familiar with Langston Hughes' works refer to him as the literature Nobel laureate of Harlem because of the way he accurately captured Harlem's passions, moods and events. However, his works were never provincial. By telling the story of Harlem through his poems, he shed light on truths that were important to people from all backgrounds. Langston Hughes was without a doubt one
20th Century The Harlem Renaissance was an important aspect of American history and to African-American history specifically. The Harlem Renaissance took place during the first few decades of the 20th century, particularly after the first world war. Though it is named after Harlem, an area of New York City, Manhattan island, the spirit of this artistic, literary and cultural expansion spread across the United States and Europe. Some of the