Double Consciousness in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
This paper examines how two major Harlem Renaissance poets — Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes — approached the concept of racial double consciousness in their poetry. Through close readings of Cullen's "Simon the Cyrenian Speaks" and Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," the paper contrasts Cullen's embrace of Anglo-American poetic traditions and themes of martyrdom with Hughes's affirmation of Black identity and heritage. The analysis demonstrates how both poets used their art to confront structural inequality and institutionalized racism, while arriving at fundamentally different resolutions to the tension between Black and American identity. The paper concludes with an original student poem engaging the same themes in a contemporary context.
- Introduction: The Harlem Renaissance and Double Consciousness: Introduces Cullen, Hughes, and double consciousness
- Countee Cullen and the Burden of Blackness: Close reading of Simon the Cyrenian Speaks
- Langston Hughes and the Affirmation of Black Identity: Close reading of The Negro Speaks of Rivers
- Collective Themes and the Role of Art: Synthesis of both poems and Harlem Renaissance art
- Original Poem: Speaking the Truth Today: Student original poem on double consciousness
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper establishes a clear comparative framework early, contrasting Cullen's Anglo-American poetic orientation with Hughes's affirmation of Black distinctiveness, and sustains that contrast throughout.
- Close textual analysis — quoting specific lines and interpreting their significance — grounds abstract claims about double consciousness in concrete poetic evidence.
- The original poem at the end demonstrates the student's personal engagement with the themes, connecting Harlem Renaissance ideas to contemporary issues such as police violence and systemic racism.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper models comparative literary analysis: two poems are read side by side not merely to list similarities and differences, but to show how contrasting approaches to the same central problem (double consciousness) illuminate something larger about African American identity and artistic expression during the Harlem Renaissance.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a contextualizing introduction that introduces both poets and states the thesis. Two body paragraphs then offer dedicated close readings of each poem. A synthesis paragraph draws the poems together around shared themes. The paper closes with an original poem that applies the same thematic concerns to a modern setting, followed by a Works Cited list.
Introduction: The Harlem Renaissance and Double Consciousness
African American culture flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Although often characterized by — and punctuated with — the "double consciousness" of being both Black and 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 English poetic traditions even more strongly 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 a belief in a blended identity, and yet the poem "Simon the Cyrenian Speaks" shows that Cullen did indeed struggle with the double consciousness.
Langston Hughes took a different approach than Cullen in terms of poetic style, subject matter, and attitudes toward 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"). In Hughes's poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes resolves the double consciousness not through reconciliation with whiteness, but through an affirmation of Blackness. 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.
Countee Cullen and the Burden of Blackness
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 Cyrene, 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 someone he does not know. He also 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 for 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 slavery. In this poem, Cullen shows how African Americans continue to bear the burden of the cross, the burden of Blackness, and the burden of brutality and slavery. He also implies that African Americans willingly continue to martyr themselves — and thus fail to fully resolve the double consciousness.
Langston Hughes and the Affirmation of Black Identity
On the contrary, Langston Hughes presents a transformative and empowering vision of African American identity in "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The speaker of this poem — also written in first person, as is Cullen's — declares that his soul has "grown deep like the rivers," rivers "older than the flow of human blood in human veins" (Hughes, lines 2–3). The blood that runs through the veins of African Americans is the blood of humanity itself, as all of humanity sprang from the cradle of civilization in Africa. The speaker refers to the Nile and the Congo, but also to the Mississippi, "when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans," invoking the abolition of slavery and the liberation of Black people in America (Hughes, line 7).
Unlike the contradictions between Black pride and martyrdom in Cullen's poem, Hughes speaks only of empowerment. For Hughes, resolving the double consciousness requires not martyrdom but pride in one's heritage, culture, and character.
Works Cited
Cullen, Countee. "Simon the Cyrenian Speaks." Poetry Magazine. Poetry Foundation.
"Harlem Renaissance: American Literature and Art." Encyclopedia Britannica. britannica.com/event/Harlem-Renaissance-American-literature-and-art/Poetry
Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Poetry Foundation. poetryfoundation.org/poems/44428/the-negro-speaks-of-rivers
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