How did Modernism affect the literature of the Harlem Renaissance?
Modernism affected the literature of the Harlem Renaissance in that it gave somewhat of a new freedom to writers of this place and time. Modernism promoted freedom of expression by way of more experimentation, which included "stream of consciousness" writing. Modernism was all about change and this applied to many...
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areas of life, and by extension it filtered into the arts and the writing discipline more specifically.
Therefore, writers from the early 20th century to approximately the time-period around and just after World War II heavily engaged in Modernism. Its effects have affected the works of writers to this day. Its effects certainly affected the output of writers and others who were associated with Harlem in New York City.
Writers explored their black heritage and manifested their explorations and knowledge into their writings. The Harlem Renaissance developed even more through the aforementioned experimentation and the desire to push the envelope so to speak concerning artistic expression - to say new things in new and innovative ways.
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How did the Harlem Renaissance change African American literature?
I would suggest that one distinct way in which African- American literature changed because of the Harlem Renaissance was in how issues of race and ethnicity could be openly discussed. The issue of race and racial difference in American society had not been so openly broached until the Harlem Renaissance. The idea that the topic could be so prevalent in literature and in consciousness was a distinct change in African- American literature due to the Harlem Renaissance.
African- American literature was able to openly discuss and analyze the question as to what it meant to be a person of color in a predominantly White society. The ability to explore race in a multitude of manners and generate more questions about the complexity of racial composition in America is where the greatest impact of the movement on African -American literature lies. It is in this development where African- American literature changed as a result of the Harlem Renaissance. Race and ethnicity became a topic that involved introspection, competing modes of thought, and open thought that might not generate easy answers but would tug at the fabric of all American literature and help to define African- American literature.
How did the Harlem Renaissance impact African American literature?
In short, the Harlem Renaissance was the burgeoning of the "New Negroe," the young black who moved from rural areas to New York City and associated with other artisits of his ilk, as opposed to the "Old Negroe" who felt a sense of inferiority. The "New Negro" was assertive, articulate, racially conscious, and very aware of their individual identities and what they produced. Some of these young writers, such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, wrote in Standard English while others employed dialect and criticized Cullen for his lack of dialect and conventional style. At any rate, blacks claimed a new identity, throwing off the psychological chains of the past. Thus, Harlem became "the City of Refuge," the "Mecca."
Within this environment in which there was a growing sophistication and urbanity in the African-American, then, the black writers and muscians, and artisits became more confident and assertive. Nevertheless, many fell back upon the rich oral tradition of Africans and incorporated it into their narratives.
Themes such as alienation and marginality were explored. For instance, in his "Theme for English B," Hughes explores the alienation that the single black student feels, and his doubt that his white professor can understand him,
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
Some writers were concerned whether their work should be a means of protest against racism because it could, then, beome an agent of propaganda, rather than art. For instance, Countee Cullen wondered in his poem "Yet Do I Marvel" if a black artist could be devoted to beauty and protest simultaneously:
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
There was also a new mood in the "New Negro" literature: a political activism. In his autobiographical novel, Black Boy, Richard Wright embraces Communism when he goes North as a young man. However, he becomes disillusioned by this ideology, and Ralph Ellis's Invisible Man, finds himself exploited.
Certainly, Zora Neale Hurston, who was interested in anthropology, became very interested in black folk traditions, using her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, a town that had self-government by blacks, as a source for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, an avant-garde work in which a young black woman reaches self-discovery and fulfillment.Through the recovery of her cultural heritage by her return home in the end, she discovers her truest self. One critic writes,
Their Eyes Were Watching God may be said to fulfill the promise of the Harlem Renaissance.
A prolific period, the Harlem Renaissance, was a period of exciting new ideas and persons. It was, indeed, the "rebirth" of an identity for blacks.
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