DOCSLIB.ORG

Title of Thesis Or Dissertation, Worded Exactly As

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Title of Thesis Or Dissertation, Worded Exactly As EXTENDING THE LINE: EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN WOMEN’S SONNETS by ELEANOR GRACE WAKEFIELD A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2017 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Eleanor Grace Wakefield Title: Extending the Line: Early Twentieth Century American Women’s Sonnets This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Paul Peppis Chairperson John Gage Core Member Henry Wonham Core Member Veronica Alfano Core Member Helen Southworth Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2017. ii © 2017 Eleanor Grace Wakefield iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Eleanor Grace Wakefield Doctor of Philosophy Department of English June 2017 Title: Extending the Line: Early Twentieth Century American Women’s Sonnets This dissertation rereads sonnets by three crucial but misunderstood early twentieth-century women poets at the intersection of the study of American literary history and scholarship of the sonnet as a genre, exposing and correcting a problematic loss of nuance in both narratives. Genre scholarship of the sonnet rarely extends into the twentieth century, while early twentieth-century studies tend to focus on nontraditional poem types. But in fact, as I show, formal poetry, the sonnet in particular, engaged deeply with the contemporary social issues of the period, and proved especially useful for women writers to consider the ways their identities as women and poets functioned in a world that was changing rapidly. Using the sonnet’s dialectical form, which creates tension with an internal turn, and which engages inherently with its own history, these women writers demonstrated the enduring power of the sonnet as well as their own positions as women and poets. Tying together genre and period scholarship, my dissertation corrects misreadings of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sarah Teasdale, and Helene Johnson; of the period we often refer to as “modernism”; and of the sonnet form. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Eleanor Grace Wakefield GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Gonzaga University, Spokane DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, English, 2017, University of Oregon Master of Arts, English, 2011, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, English and Philosophy, 2007, Gonzaga University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Poetry and Poetics Twentieth Century Poetry Modernisms African American Literature American Literature PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Employee, University of Oregon, 2010-present Adjunct Instructor of Composition, Tacoma Community College, 2008, 2011, 2012 Adjunct Instructor of Composition, Muckleshoot Tribal College, 2009 Research Assistant, Mary Moody Emerson Almanacks, 2011-2013 Writing and English Tutor, U. Washington, Tacoma, 2009 AP Literature Exam Reader, College Board, 2016-present v GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Fulbright Teaching Assistantship, Fulbright Commission, 2007-2008 Horn Travel Award, University of Oregon Department of English, 2015 PUBLICATIONS: Wakefield, Eleanor. “Helene Johnson.” Scribner’s American Writers Series Supplement XXVI, 2016, pp. 163-76. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee first and foremost for their time, energy, and dedication during this dissertation writing process: Paul Peppis, Veronica Alfano, John Gage, Henry Wonham, and Helen Southworth. The years and hours Dr. Peppis especially has committed to this project have enabled me to grow as a writer, thinker, and scholar. I also owe thanks to Karen Ford and Corbett Upton, among many others in the department of English. Our department administrators Kathy Furrer and Mike Stamm also deserve unending praise for their diligent management of my progress and paperwork. For their consistent, cheerful, enthusiastic assistance analyzing and finding poems, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Modern and Contemporary Poetry Reading Group (MoCoPo): Paul Bellew, Jeni Rinner, Lizzy LeRud, Bill Fogarty, Rob Zandstra, Kate Huber, and others who so often let me select our readings so we could discuss Millay, Teasdale, and Johnson. Their insights have improved these interpretations immeasurably. My other tireless peers who worked with me and, often, listened to me when we ought to have been working, include Karl McKimpson, Meaghan Wetherell, Annie Caruso, Dina Muhic, and others. I would additionally like to thank Aletta Biersack and her dissertation workshop of 2016: Cary Fontana, Rose Maier, Anna Moore, Deb Parker, Rupa Pillai, Anna Sloan, and Rory Walsh. This group read more iterations of this dissertation than anyone else, and their feedback was both positive and valuable. More importantly, the camaraderie of this group consistently renewed my enthusiasm for my project. My parents, Catherine and Richard Wakefield, gave me a lifetime of support, encouragement, and assistance to try anything; without them, I am certain I would not be vii here. My interest in poetry comes from my dad, whose commitments to literature and teaching have long guided me, and whose own work on Robert Frost inspired the initial version of this dissertation. My sister, Mary, and her husband Chris, have been tireless cheerleaders during this process, and their curiosity and enthusiasm for my work have been invaluable. Above all, I want to thank my husband, Dave Nyland. He has been by my side— sometimes only figuratively—the entirety of my time in this doctoral program. I am motivated to work harder, be more thoughtful, and take more care because of him. I was able to spend these years thinking about poetry in large part because Dave committed himself so tirelessly to building our shared life: while I wrote my exams, he painted our apartment; while I worked on this dissertation, he single-handedly moved us; while I read poetry or revised conference papers, he made us meals, cleaned house, drove between Eugene and Portland, and much, much more. He only rarely helped me to interpret poems, but he has done almost everything else to make this possible. viii To Dave and to my parents. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 The Pulitzer Prize in 1918...................................................................................... 6 Poetry at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century ................................................ 13 Women and Women’s Writing at the Turn of the Twentieth Century .................. 18 Chapters ................................................................................................................. 31 II. SARA TEASDALE’S SONNETS TO DUSE AND THE VISION OF THE NEW WOMAN ................................................................................................................. 37 “To L.R.E.”: The Search for a Female Role Model ............................................... 44 Sonnets to Duse and Performing the Self .............................................................. 49 Poetic Role Models ................................................................................................ 66 Teasdale’s Poetic Self Fashioning ......................................................................... 83 III. TIME IN SEQUENCE: EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY’S SONNETS OF MOURNING ...................................................................................................... 109 The Ungrafted Tree Sonnets in Context ................................................................ 114 “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” and New Womanhood ........................ 128 Moderner Love....................................................................................................... 140 The Female Speaker and Cyclical Time ................................................................ 148 Gender in Sequence and Cycle .............................................................................. 167 IV. “WAITING FOR THE LIGHT”: MULTIPLE IDENTITIES IN HELENE JOHNSON’S HARLEM RENAISSANCE SONNETS ....................................... 197 Biographical Overview .......................................................................................... 204 “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem” and Sonnets about Race....................................... 214 Christian Faith in “A Missionary” and “Magula” .................................................. 232 x Chapter Page Abstraction and Concreteness in Two “Sonnets” from Opportunity ..................... 243 V. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 264 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 268 Chapter I................................................................................................................. 268 Chapter II ............................................................................................................... 269 Chapter III .............................................................................................................. 270 Chapter IV .............................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Harlem Renaissance: a Handbook
    .1,::! THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: A HANDBOOK A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF ARTS IN HUMANITIES BY ELLA 0. WILLIAMS DEPARTMENT OF AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES ATLANTA, GEORGIA JULY 1987 3 ABSTRACT HUMANITIES WILLIAMS, ELLA 0. M.A. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 1957 THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: A HANDBOOK Advisor: Professor Richard A. Long Dissertation dated July, 1987 The object of this study is to help instructors articulate and communicate the value of the arts created during the Harlem Renaissance. It focuses on earlier events such as W. E. B. Du Bois’ editorship of The Crisis and some follow-up of major discussions beyond the period. The handbook also investigates and compiles a large segment of scholarship devoted to the historical and cultural activities of the Harlem Renaissance (1910—1940). The study discusses the “New Negro” and the use of the term. The men who lived and wrote during the era identified themselves as intellectuals and called the rapid growth of literary talent the “Harlem Renaissance.” Alain Locke’s The New Negro (1925) and James Weldon Johnson’s Black Manhattan (1930) documented the activities of the intellectuals as they lived through the era and as they themselves were developing the history of Afro-American culture. Theatre, music and drama flourished, but in the fields of prose and poetry names such as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston typify the Harlem Renaissance movement. (C) 1987 Ella 0. Williams All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special recognition must be given to several individuals whose assistance was invaluable to the presentation of this study.
    [Show full text]
  • The Works and Critical Reception of Dorothy West
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2005 Renaissance Woman: The Works and Critical Reception of Dorothy West Tamara Jenelle Williamson University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Williamson, Tamara Jenelle, "Renaissance Woman: The Works and Critical Reception of Dorothy West. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2005. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/2538 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Tamara Jenelle Williamson entitled "Renaissance Woman: The Works and Critical Reception of Dorothy West." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Miriam Thaggert, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Mary E. Papke, Nancy Goslee Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Tamara Jenelle Williamson entitled “Renaissance Woman: The Works and Critical Reception of Dorothy West.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English.
    [Show full text]
  • A Performance Analysis of Dorothy Rudd Moore's Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and Death
    UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones December 2016 A Performance Analysis of Dorothy Rudd Moore's Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and Death Cordelia Elizabeth Anderson University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the African American Studies Commons, American Studies Commons, Music Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Repository Citation Anderson, Cordelia Elizabeth, "A Performance Analysis of Dorothy Rudd Moore's Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and Death" (2016). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 2848. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/10083122 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF DOROTHY RUDD MOORE’S SONNETS ON LOVE, ROSEBUDS, AND DEATH By Cordelia Elizabeth Anderson Bachelor of Arts Alabama State University 2007 Master of Music Southern Illinois University at Carbondale 2010 A document submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirments for the Doctor of Musical Arts School of Music College of Fine Arts The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas December 2016 Copyright by Cordelia E.
    [Show full text]
  • African-American Writers
    AFRICAN-AMERICAN WRITERS Philip Bader Note on Photos Many of the illustrations and photographs used in this book are old, historical images. The quality of the prints is not always up to current standards, as in some cases the originals are from old or poor-quality negatives or are damaged. The content of the illustrations, however, made their inclusion important despite problems in reproduction. African-American Writers Copyright © 2004 by Philip Bader All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bader, Philip, 1969– African-American writers / Philip Bader. p. cm.—(A to Z of African Americans) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 0-8160-4860-6 (acid-free paper) 1. American literature—African American authors—Bio-bibliography—Dictionaries. 2. African American authors—Biography—Dictionaries. 3. African Americans in literature—Dictionaries. 4. Authors, American—Biography—Dictionaries. I. Title. II. Series. PS153.N5B214 2004 810.9’96073’003—dc21 2003008699 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Joan M.
    [Show full text]
  • Politics, Identity and Humor in the Work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Sholem Aleichem and Mordkhe Spector
    The Artist and the Folk: Politics, Identity and Humor in the Work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Sholem Aleichem and Mordkhe Spector by Alexandra Hoffman A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in The University of Michigan 2012 Doctoral Committee: Professor Anita Norich, Chair Professor Sandra Gunning Associate Professor Mikhail Krutikov Associate Professor Christi Merrill Associate Professor Joshua Miller Acknowledgements I am delighted that the writing process was only occasionally a lonely affair, since I’ve had the privilege of having a generous committee, a great range of inspiring instructors and fellow graduate students, and intelligent students. The burden of producing an original piece of scholarship was made less daunting through collaboration with these wonderful people. In many ways this text is a web I weaved out of the combination of our thoughts, expressions, arguments and conversations. I thank Professor Sandra Gunning for her encouragement, her commitment to interdisciplinarity, and her practical guidance; she never made me doubt that what I’m doing is important. I thank Professor Mikhail Krutikov for his seemingly boundless references, broad vision, for introducing me to the oral history project in Ukraine, and for his laughter. I thank Professor Christi Merrill for challenging as well as reassuring me in reading and writing theory, for being interested in humor, and for being creative in not only the academic sphere. I thank Professor Joshua Miller for his kind and engaged reading, his comparative work, and his supportive advice. Professor Anita Norich has been a reliable and encouraging mentor from the start; I thank her for her careful reading and challenging comments, and for making Ann Arbor feel more like home.
    [Show full text]
  • I Beg Your Pardon, Please Part These Pages: Why the Black Magazine Needed Harlem’S Literary Scene
    I BEG YOUR PARDON, PLEASE PART THESE PAGES: WHY THE BLACK MAGAZINE NEEDED HARLEM’S LITERARY SCENE A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE HAVERFORD COLLEGE FACULTY OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE BACHELORS OF ARTS DEGREE IN HISTORY MATTHEW LUTHER RIDLEY ‘19 HAVERFORD COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENT SENIOR THESIS SUBMITTED TO PROFESSORS ANDREW FRIEDMAN AND ALEXANDER KITROEFF APRIL 26, 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..……. 2 ​ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………….…... 3 ​ SECTION I: “ONLY WE CAN TELL THE TALE” [INTRODUCTION]......................... 4 ​ The Harlem Renaissance and “The New Negro”............................................................. 4 ​ The Black Press…………………………………………………………………………... 8 ​ Literary Contests & Dinner Networking Events……………………………………….. 10 ​ Why the Black Magazine Needed Harlem (Thesis).......................................................... 16 ​ SECTION II: THE MANY FACES OF THE SAME BODY [POETRY]............................ 19 ​ Prayer and Devotion………………………………………………………………….…... 19 ​ The Transformation of Struggle…………………………………………………………. 25 ​ The Passions Between Sleeping and Waking……………………………………………. 31 ​ Youth and Aging…………………………………………………………………………... 35 ​ SECTION III: CRYING OUT FOR A REVOLUTION [ONE-ACT PLAYS]..................... 42 ​ SECTION IV: “YOU WILL CARE.” [FRAGMENTED SHORT STORIES]..................... 62 ​ SECTION V: IT ALL COMES TOGETHER [THE PAGE]................................................. 78 ​ The Crisis Poems on the Page…………………………………………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • Voices from the Harlem Renaissance
    VOICES FROM THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE Edited by NATHAN IRVIN HUGGINS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Oxford TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, 3 1. "NEW NEGRO" RADICALISM, 13 From The Messenger: The Negro—A Menace to Radicalism, 16 A. Philip Randolph: A New Crowd—A New Negro, 18 W. A. Domingo: "If We Must Die," 21; Defense of Negro Rioters, 22; The New Negro—What Is He? 23; Africa for the Africans, 25 A. Philip Randolph: Garveyism, 27 Marcus A. Garvey: Africa for the Africans, 35; The Future as I See It, 38 W. E. B. DuBois: Race Pride, 42 2. HARLEM RENAISSANCE: THE URBAN SETTING, 43 Harlem Directory from Harlem, 46 Alain Locke: The New Negro, 47 James Weldon Johnson: from Black Manhattan, 56; My City, 72 Wallace Thurman: Editorial from Harlem, 72 Rudolph Fisher: The Caucasian Storms Harlem, 74 Claude McKay: from A Long Way From Home, 82; The Tropics in New York, 83; Harlem Shadows, 84 Eric Walrond: City Love, 84 Langston Hughes: from The Big Sea, 90; Esthete in Harlem, 98; Railroad Avenue, 98 Richard Bruce: Smoke, Lilies and Jade, 99 Rudolph Fisher: Blades of Steel, 110 Countee Cullen: Harlem Wine, 121 Nancy Cunard: Harlem Reviewed, 122 Claude McKay: A Negro Extravaganza, 132 AFRO-AMERICAN IDENTITY—WHO AM I? 135 Alain Locke: The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts, 137 Countee Cullen: Heritage, 142; Uncle Jim, 145; Tableau, 145; Saturday's Child, 146 Langston Hughes: Afro-American Fragment, 146; Luani of the Jungles, 147; Danse Africaine, 153; Negro, 153; Cross, 154; I Too Sing America, 154; The Negro Speaks of Rivers, 155 Claude McKay: from Banjo, 155; Africa, 182; Mulatto, 182 Helene Johnson: Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem, 182; Poem, 183 Jean Toomer: Bona and Paul, 184 Gwendolyn Bennett: To A Dark Girl, 191; Wedding Day, 191 Sterling Brown: Odyssey of Big Boy, 197 Zora Neale Hurston: Sweat, 199 W.
    [Show full text]
  • “New Negro” V. “Niggeratti”: Defining and Defiling the Black Messiah
    “New Negro” v. “Niggeratti”: Defining and Defiling the Black Messiah Steve Pinkerton Modernism/modernity, Volume 20, Number 3, September 2013, pp. 539-555 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mod.2013.0070 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/525171 [ Access provided at 28 Sep 2021 01:58 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] “New Negro” v. “Niggeratti”: Defining and Defiling the Black Messiah Steve Pinkerton Allow me to propose two visual bookends to the Harlem MODERNISM / modernity Renaissance: Winold Reiss’s “The Brown Madonna,” which VOLUME TWENTY, served as frontispiece to Alain Locke’s landmark anthology The NUMBER THREE, New Negro (1925), and “Mary Madonna,” a 1930 drawing by PP 539–555. © 2013 Richard Bruce Nugent (figs. 1–2). Despite their similar titles, JOHNS HOPKINS these pictures could hardly be more different. Reiss’s Madonna UNIVERSITY PRESS wears blue, in keeping with traditional iconography of the Vir- gin; a pale nimbus radiates from her figure, contributing to the portrait’s sacramental valence. She gazes chastely to one side, holding in her arms the (Christ) child who seems to incarnate that “New Negro” announced in large letters on the adjacent title page—herald of the race’s cultural renascence in and through art. (Locke himself likely chose the image’s typological caption.)1 In contrast, Nugent’s Mary stares directly at us with weary, licentious Steve Pinkerton is a eyes. This racially indeterminate nude seems more Magdalene postdoctoral
    [Show full text]
  • Strong Women in the Poetry of Helene Johnson
    ALH Online Review, Series XIX 1 Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Gwendolyn Bennett’s Selected Writings, eds. Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), 249 pp. Reviewed by Verner D. Mitchell, University of Memphis In January 1926 upon the publication of Color, Countee Cullen’s first volume of verse, Gwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981) sent the poet a warm, admiring letter: “I do like your book! I fondle its covers at times being glad that it is you who have done this beautiful thing and wondering a bit wistful-eyed whether or not I shall ever have a book published” (201). With Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola provide the first ever collection of Gwendolyn Bennett’s work. It therefore fulfills, after nearly a century, Bennett’s long desire for a book of her own. Bennett is of course no longer with us, but I am certain she would have been thrilled with this landmark volume. Wheeler and Parascandola’s ambitious, much-needed anthology adds to recent scholarship on Bennett by literary critics including Sandra Govan, Maureen Honey, Cheryl A. Wall, Nina Miller, Mark A. Sanders, and Wheeler herself. Indeed, interest in Bennett has never been keener since her heyday during the 1920s and 30s in Harlem and Paris. At her death in 1981, however, Bennett—like most of the female artists of the Harlem Renaissance—was almost completely forgotten. Even after scholars began recovering the lives and legacies of her contemporaries, including Zora Neale Hurston, Helene Johnson, Nella Larsen, Anita Scott Coleman, Marita Bonner, and Dorothy West, Bennett remained underexamined.
    [Show full text]
  • Reinhard Sander PED 105B Tel.: 787-764-0000 X 89646 Office Hours: M 4-5, Tth 3:00-4:30Pm and by Appointment
    Reinhard Sander PED 105B Tel.: 787-764-0000 x 89646 Office Hours: M 4-5, TTh 3:00-4:30pm and by appointment English 4056 Special Topics in American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance PED 106, TTh 1:00-2:20pm Course Description A study of the work of some of the major writers of the Harlem Renaissance of the interwar years (the 1920s and 1930s). Requirements In order to complete this course successfully, students are expected to do the following: attend class regularly and punctually (students with more than 3 absences should not expect to pass the course); complete the assigned readings (there will be several quizzes/tests: 20% of course grade); participate in class discussions (10% of course grade); divide in small groups to present an oral report (20% of course grade); prepare one short (3-5 pp.) paper (20% of course grade) and one substantial (5-8 pp.) paper (30% of course grade). Papers should be word processed; they should be double-spaced and must be handed in at the beginning of the class period during which they are due. I will not accept late papers, unless you have a doctor’s note. The following required texts are available for purchase as paperbacks at Librería Mágica/Econolibros or Líbreria Norberto González or online from amazon.com. 1) The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. David Lewis, Penguin Books 978- 0140170368 2) Claude McKay, Home to Harlem, Northeastern UP 978-1555530242 3) Nella Larsen, Passing, Dover 978-0486437132 4) George Schuyler, Black No More, Dover 978-0486480404 5) Arna Bontemps, Black Thunder, Beacon Press 978-0807063378 6) Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Harper Perennial Modern Classics 978-0061120060 Other course materials will be distributed in class.
    [Show full text]
  • Helene Johnson
    Helene Johnson Ah my race, Hungry race, Quick Facts Throbbing and young- Ah, my race, * 1906-1995 Wonder race, * African- Sobbing with song, American poet, Ah, my race, and a key “Careless in mirth participant in Ah, my veiled race, the Harlem Fumbling in birth Renaissance — “My Race” Biography Helen (Helene) Johnson was born to William and Ella Johnson in Bos- ton, Massachusetts, on July 7, 1906.” Her father left shortly after her birth, leaving her to be raised by her mother and her grandfather, Benjamin Benson. Benson and his wife were born into slavery in Camden, South Carolina, and had three daughters together, Ella, Minnie, and Rachel. Johnson grew up with her two aunts, Minnie and Rachel (one of whom gave her the nickname Helene), along with their children, in a four-story house in the Brookline section of Boston. She grew up surrounded by strong women, the influence of which shows up in her poetry. While living in Brookline, Johnson participated in the Saturday Evening Quill Club and won a short story contest sponsored by the Boston Chronicle. She also attended classes at Boston University, though she never earned This page was researched and a degree. submitted by Crystal Esparza, Caroline Klohs, and Camille Cyprian on 12/16/05. 1 © 2009 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Helene Johnson Biography continued During the Harlem Renaissance, Helene Johnson’s primary sources for publication were magazines and journals. Having not published a book, she published her poetry in African American magazines such as the NAACP’s Crisis, founded in 1910 and edited by W.E.B.
    [Show full text]
  • Place, Culture, and Representation: the Art and Politics of the Harlem Renaissance Place, Culture, and Representation: the Art and Politics of the Harlem Renaissance
    Place, Culture, and Representation: the Art and Politics of the Harlem Renaissance Place, Culture, and Representation: the Art and Politics of the Harlem Renaissance Standards U.S. History Standards Curriculum Era 7: The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930) Snapshot • How the United States changed from the end of World War I to the The Harlem Renaissance eve of the Great Depression Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1935) Grade Level • The causes of the Great Depression and how it affected Middle school and high school American society Historical Thinking Standard 2: Historical Comprehension Historical Thinking Standard 3: Historical Analysis and Interpretation Classroom Historical Thinking Standard 5: Historical Issues Connections Social Studies, U.S. History, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2 American Literature, and • Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary English Language Arts source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6 • Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.4 • Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.4 • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
    [Show full text]