Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African-American social thought and culture based in the African-American community forming in Harlem in New York City (USA). This period, extending from roughly 1920 to 1940, was expressed through every cultural medium—visual art, dance, music, theatre, literature, poetry, history and politics. Instead of using direct political means, African-American artists, writers, and musicians employed culture to work for goals of civil rights and equality. Its lasting legacy is that for the first time (and across racial lines), African-American paintings, writings, and jazz became absorbed into mainstream culture. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after an anthology of notable African-American works entitled The New Negro and published by philosopher Alain Locke in 1925.

Diverse and Common Themes

No common literary style, artistic style or political ideology defined the Harlem Renaissance. What united participants was their sense of taking part in a common endeavor and their commitment to giving artistic expression to the African-American experience. Some common themes existed, such as an interest in the roots of the 20th-century African-American experience in Africa and the American South, and a strong sense of racial pride and desire for social and political equality. But the most characteristic aspect of the Harlem Renaissance was the diversity of its expression.

Related Topics:
Political ideology - Africa - Equality - Diversity

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Some common themes presented in the Harlem Renaissance are: alienation; marginality of blacks through institutional racism and the attempt to integrate into a diverse community; the use of African folk material; the blues tradition; and the paradox of writing or performing for elite audiences. However, the Renaissance was more than a literary or artistic movement; it possessed a certain sociological development—particularly through a new racial consciousness—through racial pride, as seen the efforts of Marcus Garvey. However, W.E.B DuBois's notion of "twoness", first introduced in The Souls of Black Folks (1903), explored a divided awareness of one's identity which provided a unique critique of the social ramifications of this racial consciousness.

Related Topics:
Marcus Garvey - W.E.B DuBois's - 1903

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The diverse literary expression of the Harlem Renaissance ranged from Langston Hughes's weaving of the rhythms of African-American music into his poems of ghetto life, as in The Weary Blues (1926), to Claude McKay's use of the sonnet form as the vehicle for his impassioned poems attacking racial violence, as in If We Must Die (1919). McKay also presented glimpses of the glamour and the grit of Harlem life in the abovementioned Harlem Shadows. Countee Cullen used both African and European images to explore the African roots of black American life. In the poem Heritage (1925), for example, Cullen discusses being both a Christian and an African, yet not belonging fully to either tradition. Quicksand (1928), by novelist Nella Larsen, offered a powerful psychological study of an African American woman's loss of identity.

Related Topics:
Langston Hughes's - Music - Ghetto - 1926 - Claude McKay's - Sonnet - 1919 - Countee Cullen - African - European - 1925 - Christian - 1928 - Nella Larsen - Psychological

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Diversity and experimentation also flourished in the performing arts and were reflected in the blues singing of Bessie Smith and in jazz music. Jazz ranged from the marriage of blues and ragtime by pianist Jelly Roll Morton to the instrumentation of bandleader Louis Armstrong and the orchestration of composer Duke Ellington. In the visual arts, Aaron Douglas adopted a deliberately "primitive" style and incorporated African images in his paintings and illustrations.

Related Topics:
Diversity - Experimentation - Performing arts - Bessie Smith - Music - Jazz - Blues - Ragtime - Pianist - Jelly Roll Morton - Louis Armstrong - Duke Ellington - Visual arts - Aaron Douglas - Primitive

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