Langston Hughes |
Claude McKay |
Literature dominated the Harlem Renaissance and was one of the most powerful tools African Americans used to develop their own culture. The most famous writer to emerge from the period was Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He is known as one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. He was a novelist, poet and playwright. He wanted to accurately portray the lives of working-class blacks in Harlem without using stereotypes or sentimentality. One of the best known poems is "Harlem." Read the Poem Below
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Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay OJ was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was the first important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Jamaica, McKay first traveled to the United States to attend college. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. In his poem, If We Must Die below, McKay illustrates the growing sense of militancy that began to take shape during the Harlem Renaissance
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QUESTIONS ON MAIN POINT AND MEANING
l. Who is speaking? 2. Who is the audience? 3. What is a deferred dream? What does the speaker mean by "dream"? 4. According to the speaker, what are the possible outcomes of a deferred dream? Provide an example of each of these outcomes. These examples may be historical, literary, personal, or imaginary. 5. In some publications the title has been changed to "A Dream Deferred." Which title is more effective? Why? Jessie Redmon FausetJessie Redmon Fauset was an African-American editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. Her literary work helped sculpt African-American literature in the 1920s as she focused on portraying a true image of African-American life and history
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1. Who is the speaker?
2. Who is the Audience? 3. According to the speaker we must not die like hogs. Identify two historical events or processes that are causing African American deaths during the period the poem is written. 4. What is the speaker’s message? Explain your thinking by providing examples from the poem. |
2 QUOTES FROM JESSIE REDMON FAUSET
"To be a colored [wo]man in America... and enjoy it, you must be greatly daring, greatly stolid, greatly humorous and greatly sensitive. And at all times a philosopher."
"I like Paris because I find something here, something of integrity, which I seem to have strangely lost in my own country. It is simplest of all to say that I like to live among people and surroundings where I am not always conscious of 'thou shall not.' I am colored and wish to be known as colored, but sometimes I have felt that my growth as a writer has been hampered in my own country. And so--but only temporarily--I have fled from it."
"To be a colored [wo]man in America... and enjoy it, you must be greatly daring, greatly stolid, greatly humorous and greatly sensitive. And at all times a philosopher."
"I like Paris because I find something here, something of integrity, which I seem to have strangely lost in my own country. It is simplest of all to say that I like to live among people and surroundings where I am not always conscious of 'thou shall not.' I am colored and wish to be known as colored, but sometimes I have felt that my growth as a writer has been hampered in my own country. And so--but only temporarily--I have fled from it."