Harlem Renaissance Flashcards
1
Q
Harlem Renaissance
1st phase. African- American Literature 1850s
A
- Genre developed mid-19th century, mainly slave narratives.
- Wanted to describe the cruelties of life under slavery + persistent humanity of persons as slaves.
Frederick Douglass
- “Narrative of the Life of Frederik Douglass, an American Slave
- “My Bondage and my Freedom”
Harriet Jacobs “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”
Harriet Beecher Stowe “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
2
Q
Harlem Renaissance
2nd phase (1920s-1930s)
A
- Defence of Black Popular Culture.
- Double consciousness turns into “Black, but also Modernist”
W.E.B DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Noelle, Hurston, Jean Toomer: first writers publishing about black literature.
- Wrote about African-American community + drama+ poetry.
- Political and social issues + fiction.
Alain Locke “The New Negro”
Nella Larsson
3
Q
Harlem Renaissance
Black modernism
A
- Less aesthetics less experimental, more thematic.
- Settings and characters about real issues in life (cities showing struggles in the Ghetto)
- Themes: money, alcohol, working urban life.
- Multi-generic.
- Frequently written in different styles (novels + poetry + drama+ short stories)
- Pessimistic genre.
- Experimentalism and innovation in a technical and conceptual way.
