The search for black identity in selected Harlem renaissance poetry and prose 1919-1930

This study examines the Black writer's quest for affirmative image during the Harlem Renaissance. It is based primarily on four major writers, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston and Langstol Hughes. Since a literary work cannot be fully assessed without some knowledge of the man or woman who wrote it and of the milieu that shaped and molded the writer's experience, the study includes a brief presentation of the background of the authors and the historical ovew of the period. The study therefore uses an integrated approach that simultaneously evaluates aesthetic and sociocultural impulses. Chapter one describes the Black American problem of identification after the great migration to the city. The chapter reviews the related literature and opinion of scholars regarding the Renaissance. It attempts to link the importance of the literary Renaissance with the quest for a usable image among the Black people of the world. Chapter two looks at the Black American and why there was a need during the Renaissance to portray a positive Black image, analyzing at length the movement by looking at the writers who participated in the movement as well as the role played by the White writers and patrons. Chapter three discusses two selected authors at length, James Weldon Johnson and Jean Toomer. The chapter establishes the perspective of the authors through a critical analysis of their published autobiographies, biographies and Renaissance works. It shows that both Johnson and Toomer sought to dignify the folk world as a source for Black identity, but that they also embraced contradictory middle-class values in their personal lives and to a certain extent in their literature. Chapter four discusses Zora Neale Hurston and Langston 'Hughes. Through a critical analysis of the authors' autobiographies, biographies and Renaissance works the chapter establishes their uncompromising acceptance of the Black folk image, rural and urban, during the Renaissance. The discussion of the four selected authors also includes comparisons with other Renaissance writers; works by Jessie Fausset, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen are mentioned to show similarities and differences regarding their views on Black identity in relation to the four major authors examined. The Epilogue concludes the study by pointing out the writer's general observation and the success and significance of the Harlem Renaissance to the Black people of the world.