Post-1900 African-American Literature

Last Update: April 7, 1996

from Bernard Bell, African American Novel and Its Tradition, 1987 and Frank Magill, Masterpieces of African American Literature,1992.

This handout contains only a few of the many works written by African American since 1990 with only the barest of comments. Most of the comments come from the sources above; the rest are mine - Richard Varron

  1. The Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935)
  2. Growth of Naturalism (1935-1945)
  3. Myth, Legend and Ritual(1945-1960)
  4. Contemporary African American Literature(1960-present)
  5. Historical Time Line (1900-present)
  6. Definitions

  1. The Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935)

    2.
    1. Poetic Realism and Historical Romances
      1. Jean Toomer - Cane 1923
        Modernist collection of poems and short stories. The picture in this work is built up by a collection of images from the various stories and poems in a similar way as in The Wasteland . Its development of an overall image of Southern life is similar to the build up of life in Joyce's Dubliners. Each story or poem builds the image. Read "Fern" in the text.

      2. Arna Bontemps - Black Thunder -1936
        Impressionistic; influenced by the slave narrative form; deals with the disire to be free

    2. Genteel Realism: Nationalism/Multiculturalism
      1. Nella Larson
        • Quicksand -1928
          A study of the mulatto women; "Irene Regfield,the heroine who occasionally passes for convenience, is equally tragic in her misguided sense of values." (Bell 110)
        • Passing -1929
          Story of the consequences of a mulatto women "passing" for white. Helga Crane is a "lonely, sexually repressed, intelligent black women with no family" who escapes from her white birth place to the "peace and contentment" of Harlem (Bell 110)

      2. Jessie Fauset
        • Plum Bun -1929
          Deals with being black in a white middle class society
        • Chinaberry Tree
          Story of "adultery and illegitimicy" of three black women in a small New Jersey town (Bell 107)

  2. Folk Romance: Primitivism
    1. Claude McKay - Home in Harlem -1928 & Poems
      Most of his poems are written in standard sonnet form; born and educated in Jamaica; See "If We Must Die" and "Harlem Dancer" in text

    2. Zora Neale Hurston
      Hurston was know for her collection and study of folk tales.
      See: African American Literature Handout for samples

      • Jonah's Gourd Vine -1934; biographical sketch of her parents
      • The Eyes of God are Watching - 1937
      • Moses Man at the Mountain -1938; religious allegory using the Old Testament
      • Dust Tracks on the Road -1942; autobiographical

  3. Folk Realism
    1. Langston Hughes
      See "The Negro Speaks of Rivers". Look at A Raisin in the Sun" and compare with "Harlem" in our text to see where the title comes from. Hughes is the best known writer of this period.

    2. Countee Cullen -poems; see examples in our text.

  4. Satiric Realism
    1. Rudolph Fisher - Walls of Jericho -1928
    2. George Samuel Schuyler - Black No More
    3. Wallace Turman - The Blacker in the Berry - 1929

  • Growth of Naturalism (1935-1945)

    1. Richard Wright
    2. Chester Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go 1945;
      social criticism; story of a black man working in a defense plant

    3. Ann Perry Narrows 1953; New England setting

  • Myth, Legend, and Ritual (1945-1960)

    •
    1. Ralph Walden Ellison- Invisible Man 1952
      influenced by The Wasteland ; deals with how the black man is invisible in white society; existential in nature. See chapter 1 ("Battle Royal") in our text to get some flavor of his writing.

    2. James Baldwin (See: "Sonny's Blues" in our text)

  • Contemporary African American Literature (1960-present)

    •
    1. Neorealism
      1. Critical Realism
        1. Alice Walker
          • Meridian -1976; autobiographical
          • The Color Purple -1982;
            written in epistolary (letter) form; made into a movie; deals with issues of being a black women. Her latest work deals with female circumcision in Africa

      2. Poetic Realism
        1. Toni Morrison
          • The Bluest Eye - 1970; psychological
          • Sula -1973; physiological
          • Song of Solomon 1977; impressionistic; religious allegory
          • Tar Baby 1981; social criticism
          • Beloved 1987; historical realism

      3. Postmodern
        1. Neoslave Narrative
          1. Margret Walker- Jubilee -1966
            traces her parents' family in the 19th century. See our text for other works.

          2. Ernest Grains- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman -1971
            made into a movie; deals with a woman growing up in the South during the period 1860 to 1960.

          3. Alex Haley - Roots -1976
            traces the search of a man trying to find his African origins; made into a mini-series which became the highest rated mini-series up to that time; wide crossover appeal; historical work

          4. Maya Angelou- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -1970
            autobiography about growing up in Arkansas; read her work at the Clinton inaugural; her works have again become best sellers after the readings.

          5. Charles Johnson Middle Passage -1990
            the term "Middle Passage" refers to the path that the slave ships took in going from Africa to North America.

        2. Romance Fantasy
          1. John Edgar Wideman- Brothers and Keepers -1984
          2. Clarence Major- Painted Turtle -1988

        3. Satire
          1. Ishmael Reed- Mumbo Jumbo 1972; mystery
          2. Hal Bennett- A Wilderness of Wines

        4. Social Realism
          1. Social Criticism
            1. Claude Brown- Man Child in the Promised Land 1966
            2. Eldridge Cleaver- Soul On Ice 1968;
            3. Malcolm X- The Autobiography of Malcolm X -1965
              made into a movie; written with Alex Haley

        5. Social Realism
          1. Lorraine Hansbery- A Rasin in the Sun 1959 (play)
            story of middle class blacks in Chicago; title comes from a line from Langston Hughes's work, "Harlem". See textbook for work for both "Harlem" and A Rasin in the Sun.

          2. Gloria Naylor-The Women of Bruster Place 1982 (movie)
            made into a movie; deals with the lives of various women in a densely packed neighborhood. A chapter of this book, "Etta Mae Johnson" is in our textbook.

          3. August Wilson-Fences 1985 (play)

          4. Ntozaka Shange-
            For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/when the rainbow is enuf- 1976; play; see textbook to get an idea of how she uses the language; (she spells her words the way they are pronounced

      4. Poetry
        1. Amiri Baraka (former LeRoi Jones) social criticism; see "Beautiful Black Women" in our text"
        2. Gwendolyn Brooks - See "We Real Cool" in text
        3. Lucille Clifton - See "the thirty eighth year of my life" in text
        4. Rita Dove-poet - laureate of the U.S. 1995
        5. Nikki Giovanni - See "Women Poem" in text
        6. June Jordan - See "Free Flight" in text
        7. Sonia Sanchez
        8. Maya Angelou See other works

      5. Anthologies

        Brotherman: the Odyssey of Black Men in America
        Herb Boyd and Robert Allen. eds. New York: Ballantine, 1995.

        This book contains writing by African American men ranging from Du Bois, Douglas, Washington and Garvey to Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson to Ice T and Louis Farrakhan. All types of writing are covered from essays to short stories to poems. It is now out in paperback. 900 pages.

        Daughters of Africa
        Margaret Busby. ed. New York:Ballantine, 1992.

        This work contains writings by women of African decent from all over the world and spans the period from ancient Egypt to the present. One of the interesting features of this book is that it puts African American women's writing into a context of writing by women of African desent in other parts of the world as well as those in Africa itself. All types of writing are covered in this 1088 page book.

  • Historical Reference Dates

    •

  • Definitions

    • Existentialism
    "Existentialist writers are characterized by their concern with 'being,' which contrasts not only with knowing but also with abstract concepts, which cannot fully capture what is individual and specific." They point out that "the individual is not a detatched observer of the world, but" is in fact "'in the world'" and thus part of it. ( Encyclopedia of Literature Jean-Paul Satre, in his existentialist text, Being and Nothingness, points out that "we are not free to cease being free" (567) and that we are "fully conscious of the choice which we are" (597). He also points out that it is impossible to lie to oneself since at the momment the lie is created we are aware that it is a lie (87). One of the frequent related themes is a sense of alienation from the world (as was seen in Kafka's writings). It often deals with the meaninglessness of life in which the character has no choices Cf. Naturalism. In practice, Existentialism is used in different ways by different people using different aspects of the term.

    Impressionism
    "The depiction of a scene, emotion, or character by details intended to achieve a vividness of effectiveness more by evoking subjective and sensorey impressions than by re-creating or representing an objective reality." This is often found with writers who use "stream-of-consciousness" as was seen in Joyce and to some degree in Eliot and Kafka( Encyclopedia of Literature)

    Naturalism
    "A theory in Literature emphasizing the role of heredity and environment upon human life and character development." Characters are "presented without moral judgement" and are "seen as helpless products of heredity and environment" who are " motivated by strong instinctual drives from within, and harassed by social and economic pressures from without." (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, 1995) In the way this term is used here, it reflects the view of the writer that their characters have little control over what is happening to them.

    Primitivism
    "Proposed a belief in man's natural goodness, and in the inevitable corruption of civilization." It represents a belief in "the noble savage", who is more purer than the civilized world.(The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature) In terms of the works discussed here, it may reflect the greater importance on the lower class African Americans who had not become part of the elite as a source for understanding the African American. Bell points out that writers, such as McKay, emphasized "the exotic aspects of Harlem."(113) Look at "Harlem Dancer" in the textbook.

    By Richard Varron
    Last Updated: April 09, 1996