Probe on Literary Features of the Harlem Renaissance

Abstract: Harlem Renaissance refers exclusively to the African-American literature which flourished in Harlem， a predominantly black area of New York City， in the 1920s. The paper focuses on the analysis of literary features of the Harlem Renaissance from theme， language and writing style aspects.

Key word: Literary features；Harlem Renaissance

作者簡介：蘇琴（1983-），女，陜西府谷縣人，西北大學外國語學院專業碩士，延安大學西安創新學院教師，研究方向：英語語言文學。

[中圖分類號]：I106 [文獻標識碼]：A

[文章編號]：1002-2139(2011)-24-0077-01

I.Introduction

The time of African American’s Harlem Renaissance was a time of modernism literature for the whites， European whites and American whites， such as James Joyce， T S Eliot and Ezra Pound. But the black writers were more influenced by their own literary tradition， such as folk and classical literature such as John Milton and William.

II.Literary features of the Harlem Renaissance

2.1 From the aspect of theme

One of the themes of the Harlem Renaissance was to describe the life as the blacks， to relate their own experience， especially in the ghettoes in the north and the backcountry in the south. The images of the black and colored people in American literature were made by the white writers. For instance， in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales， the good Indians always be those who help the British against the French; and Cooper himself admitted that he had really never seen an Indian himself but only heard people talk about them or read about them. The same thing happened in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; Jim is an important character because he helps the growth of the social consciousness of the white boy. In Margaret Mitchell’s (1900-1949) Gone with the Wind， the southern slaves are were living a happy and easy life. The author is a southern white woman so the life of the black is far from truth. Even Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not free from the white people’s prejudice. In the Harlem Renaissance， for the first time， black writers wrote about their own life， even it’s lowly; and the description of their life was very different from the white writers.

2.2 From the aspect of language

In fact there was not an agreement on the language issue among these African American writers. Some writers like Alain Locke received very good education so they tend to use long and learned words; some writers like Langston Hughes used common and easy words; some writers like Zora Neale Hurston used the colloquial Black English to produce a unique flavor of black identity; there also some writers like Countee Cullen used traditional poetic words which made his poems “too white” for some black writers and readers. Their different choices of language show their different aesthetic even political tastes.

2.3 From the aspect of writing style

In genre， poetry was main form of the Harlem Renaissance. Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem was the only bestselling novel in the time， even he also wrote poetry. Most Renaissance writers were actually poets. Because poetry is more brief， more emotional， more powerful way than fiction. On writing poems Langston Hughes wrote free verse and used simple diction; Claude McKay wrote sonnets and Countee Cullen wrote poems with traditional and classical form and poetical words.

The Harlem Renaissance was one of primarily African-American literature movement. It rested on a support system of black patrons， black-owned businesses and publications. However， it also depended on the patronage of white Americans， such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte Osgood Mason， who provided various forms of assistance， opening doors which otherwise would have remained closed to the publication of work outside the black American community. This support often took the form of patronage or publication. The white patronage was double-edged sword for those black writers. For one thing they could be free of money problems but at the same time they often needed to get the permission of their patrons before publish their works， so they could not be totally free to express themselves; and sometimes they must try to avoid being “too harsh”， for their frankness could enrage the whites.

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