非洲美国文学8、African American Literature

1. Why must we stick to our dreams? 2. What images does the poet employ to describe the life once we lose our dreams?
• Dreams • • • • Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.
1. If God is not the first move in our life, surely our dreams are the same. 2. Without dreams our life will be a broken bird and a barren field. I think without dream our life will be a grand ship drifting on the vast ocean, never knowing its destination.
[Grocery store, Harlem, 1940] Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.; LC-USZC44737
A. Several factors laid the groundwork for the movement.
Main Works
• • • • • • • • • Poetry collections The Weary Blues, 1926 Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927 The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, 1932 Shakespeare in Harlem, 1942 Novels and short story collections Not Without Laughter, 1930 Non-fiction books I Wonder as I Wander, 1956
The diverse literary expression of the Harlem Renaissance was demonstrated through Langston Hughes’s weaving of the rhythms of African American music into his poems of ghetto life, as in The Weary Blues (1926).
II. Literary Development
• Oral tradition The earliest black literature was oral in the form of songs, ballads, and spirituals. • Literature in written form A. poetry It was not until the 1760s that Blacks began to produce literature in written form. Black poetry had its beginning in the late 18th century in “Bars Fight,August 28,1746” by Lucy Terry and in “An Evening though—salvation by Christ”(1761) by Jupiter Hammon.
D. Comments:
The
Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that mainstream publishers and critics took African American literature seriously and African American arts attracted significant attention from the nation at large.
B. African American literature and arts surged in the early 1900s.
In
the autumn of 1926, a group of young African American writers produced Fire!, a literary magazine.
N
S
Jacob Lawrence, “Brownstones,” from “The Migration Series”
Increased
பைடு நூலகம்
education and employment opportunities following World War I led to the development of an African American middle class.
• 梦想 • • • • • • • • 紧随梦想 一旦梦想迷失 生命就如折翅小鸟 无法翱翔 紧随梦想 一旦梦想丢失 生命将是一片荒土 霜雪交加
• • • •
Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.
With
Fire! a new generation of young writers and artists, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, took ownership of the literary Renaissance.
James Mercer Langston Hughes
• poet, playwright, novelist, song writer, biographer, editor, news paper columnist, translator, and lecturer • "Poet Laureate of Harlem" and "O. Henry of Harlem"
Jean Toomer
• poet and novelist • Jean Toomer was born in 1894 in Washington, D.C, the son of a Georgian farmer. • His experience inspired his book Cane, a book of prose poetry describing the Georgian people and landscape. • He saw himself as an individual living above the boundaries of race. • Cane
C. Features
common literary style or political ideology defined the Harlem Renaissance. What united the participants was the sense of taking part in a common endeavor and their commitment to giving artistic expression to the African American experience. Some common themes did exist, however. An interest in the roots of the twentieth- century African American experience in Africa and the American South was one such theme.
No
There
was a strong sense of racial pride and a desire for social and political equality among the participants.
The
most characteristic aspect of the Harlem Renaissance was the diversity of its expression.
As
more and more educated and socially conscious African Americans settled in New York’s neighborhood of Harlem, it developed into the political and cultural center of black America.
During
a phenomenon known as the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved from the economically depressed rural South to the industrial cities of the North, taking advantage of employment opportunities created by World War I.
African American Literature
I. Background
1619 negroes
1863 colored
1960s black
• Black literature was once a neglected area of American literary scholarship. The rising interest in it has come about mainly for two reasons: Blacks have made significant contribution to all aspects of American life,and black writers have produced literature of impressive scope and quality; Black literature constitute a major force changing the earlier American literary monolith of the white middle class.It has become an indispensable part of American literature now.