LITS3001 MODERN POETRY

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WEEK 12: THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE (1919-1940): LANGSTON HUGHES (1902 - 1967)

Required Readings:

Seminar 1: Philosophical Context:

  • W. E. B. Du Bois

    • The Souls of Black Folk:

      • "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" [1897]

      • "The Conservation of Races" [1897]

    • "Criteria of Negro Art" [1926] (also pp. 980-986 in Leitch)

    • "The Concept of Race" [1940]

All selections by Du Bois may be found in W. E. B. Du Bois: a Reader (ed. David Levering Lewis)

Seminar 2: Langston Hughes' Aesthetics / Critical Theory and Poetry

  • "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (also pp. 1313-1316 in Leitch)

  • "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" / "Danse Africaine" / "Jazzonia" / "Dream Variations" / "The Wary Blues" / "I, Too" / "Homesick Blues" / "Po' Boy Blues" / "Gypsy Man" / "Lament Over Love" / "Song for a Dark Girl" / "Gal's Cry for a Dying Lover" / "Hard Daddy" / "Ballad of the Landlord" / "Dream Boogie" / "Harlem"

All selections by Hughes may be found in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (ed. Henry Louis Gates, et al.)
[in Reference Section of the Library]

Recommended Readings:
  • Baker, Houston A.  Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance
  • Carter, Donald, ed.  Modern Black Poets
  • Perkins, David.  A History of Modern Poetry (Vol. 1): "Black Poets of America: the First Phase"
  • Perkins, David.  A History of Modern Poetry (Vol. 2): "Black Poets of America"
  • Wagner, Jean.  Black Poets of the United States

PhilWeb:

Notes:

Questions:

  1.