HARLEM in SHAKESPEARE and SHAKESPEARE in HARLEM: the SONNETS of CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, and GWENDOLYN BROOKS David J
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 5-1-2015 HARLEM IN SHAKESPEARE AND SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM: THE SONNETS OF CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND GWENDOLYN BROOKS David J. Leitner Southern Illinois University Carbondale, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Leitner, David J., "HARLEM IN SHAKESPEARE AND SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM: THE SONNETS OF CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND GWENDOLYN BROOKS" (2015). Dissertations. Paper 1012. This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HARLEM IN SHAKESPEARE AND SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM: THE SONNETS OF CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND GWENDOLYN BROOKS by David Leitner B.A., University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, 1999 M.A., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2005 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Department of English in the Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale May 2015 DISSERTATION APPROVAL HARLEM IN SHAKESPEARE AND SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM: THE SONNETS OF CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND GWENDOLYN BROOKS By David Leitner A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of English Approved by: Edward Brunner, Chair Robert Fox Mary Ellen Lamb Novotny Lawrence Ryan Netzley Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale April 10, 2015 AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF DAVID LEITNER, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in ENGLISH, presented on April 10, 2015, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: HARLEM IN SHAKESPEARE AND SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM: THE SONNETS OF CLAUDE MCKAY, COUNTEE CULLEN, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND GWENDOLYN BROOKS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Edward Brunner This study responds to the need for an understanding of the relation of form and political critique within the sonnet form, and hopes to demonstrate that the sonnet can be used to effectively articulate the experience of racism, especially the Du Boisian concept of “double- consciousness,” a sense of two-ness born of being both black and American. The fundamental structure of the sonnet (octave, volta, sestet) is dialectical; it “contests the idea it just introduced” (Caplan, Poetic Form: An Introduction 75). The sonnet’s self-reflexive structure has been adopted and adapted by poets such as McKay, Cullen, Hughes, and Brooks. The formal and social characteristics of sonnets by African-Americans function synergistically: the way that the octave and the sestet respond to each other in a single poem is also similar to the “call-and- response” movement of African American oral culture. Its tendency to mix two unlike things is like Harlem itself: a compressed space where the street sweeper rubs shoulders with the business tycoon. Perhaps most importantly, the sonnet can be a Trojan horse, a genteel container that conceals a potentially subversive message. This study is constructed around related lines of questioning: First, why did African American poets, in an era usually associated with free verse, choose to adopt a traditional form? Second, how do African American poets adapt a European form as a lens into African American experience? Sonnets by African Americans reflect the complexity of a seemingly simple triangulation between the traditional requirements of form, the promise of equality, and the i reality of racism. African American poets infuse “Harlem in Shakespeare,” pouring black consciousness into the European form, and they raise “Shakespeare in Harlem,” elevating the status of African American forms to the highest levels of literary art. At the same time, this study demonstrates the value of a prosody-based approach for examining how small formal details contribute substantially to the reader’s impression of the sonnet. These poets deploy the “rules” of the sonnet ingeniously and unexpectedly. Additionally, the sonnet is a way to separate from and simultaneously be a part of the dominant culture by writing a critical message in a recognizable form. Black culture can criticize white culture, while at the same time acknowledging the mutual, inescapable relationship that binds blacks and white Americans together. Additionally, the sonnet is a way to separate from and simultaneously be a part of the dominant culture by writing a critical message in a recognizable form. Black culture can criticize white culture, while at the same time acknowledging the mutual, inescapable relationship that binds blacks and white Americans together. ii DEDICATION To my family, without whom nothing else matters. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While completing this project, I have accumulated more debts than I will ever be able to repay. Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Edward Brunner for his guidance and for getting me interested in this. Through the many, many revisions of this work, he has been a committed and generous guide. The hours I spent in his office discussing poetry were among the happiest times of my education. He taught me how to listen to and write about poetry. My professional mission is to pass on that ability. Thank you to Professor Robert Fox for showing me the importance of Claude McKay, one of the poets who are a subject of this work. Thank you to Professor Lisa McClure who taught me that learning required a heart and a mind. Thank you Professor Lamb for showing me that scholarship should be a joy and not a job. Thank you to Professor Novotny Lawrence and Professor Ryan Netzley for their suggestions and challenges. Thanks also to the tenacious Indiana Jones of librarians, Scott Ebbing at Lincoln Land Community College. From a young age, my parents Dennis and Sandra Leitner instilled a love of education and a desire to serve. The continued love of Julieta Leitner, my dear mother, has taught me that the important things never die. Thank you to my freshman high school English teacher Mrs. Anna Jackson, whose kind spirit inspired me to become a teacher. Kathy and Howard Hood graciously minded my daughter and allowed me to write in their basement. The friendship and lunches with my colleagues Jason Dockter and Ryan Roberts sustained my body and mind. To the poets who are the subject of this work, I am grateful for their work. I hope I do not disappoint their memories. Finally and most importantly, I would like to thank my wife Carrie for her ideas and support. Without her dauntless love and encouragement, this project would not be finished. The longest way round is sometimes the shortest way home. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................ iv CHAPTERS INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................................39 CHAPTER 2 ......................................................................................................................56 CHAPTER 3 ......................................................................................................................96 CHAPTER 4 ....................................................................................................................149 EPILOGUE ......................................................................................................................180 REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................187 VITA ..........................................................................................................................................210 v 1 INTRODUCTION Overview: Adopt and Adapt African American poets from the period between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II found a resonant space for black experience within the seemingly narrow fourteen lines of the sonnet form. This study charts the development of the poetics and tradition of four African American sonneteers from 1917-1949. Some sonnets written after that time will also be considered in order to contrast against that thirty-two-year timeframe. Most artists who work in familiar forms such as the sonnet attempt to defamiliarize and personalize the form by modifying structure, style, or content. The work of these poets can be delineated according to how they make the sonnet new. Claude McKay (1889-1948) wrote formal, militant sonnets of racial protest. Countee Cullen (1903-1946) modeled his work after the English Romantics and wrote formal sonnets of the problems of race and religion. Of all the poets analyzed in this study, Langston Hughes (1902-1969) diverged the most strongly from the standard sonnet form, although he wrote at least three strict sonnets. I will look most closely at his sonnet sequence “Seven