Jazz Age Culture

"We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. . . . If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves." (from Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain")

"It was the period when the Negro was in vogue. I was there. I had a swell time while it lasted. But I thought it wouldn't last long." (from The Big Sea by Langston Hughes, 1940)

• Sterling Brown:
  
  • Brown's Life and Career--biographies.
  • 3 poems--biography, plus e-texts for "Riverbank Blues,"  "Slim Greer in Hell," and "Southern Road."
  • Scholarly Criticism on Brown--valuable excerpts.
  • Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to several jazz poems by Brown.
  • Sterling Brown's Poetic Voice: A Living Legacy--scholarly article.
  • Authenticity and Elevation: Sterling Brown's Theory of the Blues--scholarly article.

• Countee Cullen:
  
  • Scholarly Criticism on Cullen--valuable excerpts.
  • "The Singing Man Who Must be Reckoned With": Private Desire and Public Responsibility in the Poetry of Countee Cullen--scholarly article.

• Frank Marshall Davis:
  
  • Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to a jazz poem by Davis.
  • Livin' the Blues --selection, including two poems, from Davis' memoir.
  • Frank Marshall Davis --biography.
  • Writings of Frank Marshall Davis --short book review.

• Rudolph Fisher:
  
  • The Mystery Man of the Harlem Renaissance: Novelist Rudolph Fisher was a Forerunner of Walter Mosley--some biographical information and a quick survey of his work.
  • The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem--online copy.
  • The Psychology of Uncertainty--article on Fisher's The Conjure Man Dies.

• Langston Hughes:
  
  • Hughes--a helpful biography
  • Hughes as Poet Hero
  • The Story of Hughes Meeting--end of Harlem Renaissance; Hughes' visit to Haiti.
  • Heroic "hussies" and "brilliant queers": Genderracial Resistance in the Works of Langston Hughes--scholarly articles.

Hughes: Texts

• The Weary Blues --11 poems from Hughes' first poetry collection.
• The Weary Blues (annotated)--also includes instructor's analysis.
• Weary Blues Lecture --click on the links to hear this poem read, to hear a brief history of Hughes and this poem, and to hear how to analyze the "blues" elements in the poem (the last section shows a great picture of Lennox Avenue also).
• On 'The Weary Blues' --excerpts from scholarly studies.
• Biography/13 Poems--includes "The Weary Blues," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "I, too, Sing America," and "Dream Variations."
• A Dream Deferred--e-text. Alternate title: A Raisin in the Sun --with brief commentary; also known as Harlem.
• The Blues I'm Playing--e-text of short story by Hughes.
• Works by Langston Hughes--"Cora Unashamed"; "The Blues I'm Playing"; "Father and Son"; "I, Too."
• Langston Hughes on Scottsboro--several poems (more on the infamous Scottsboro Trials)
• The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain--Hughes' famous essay. Alternate copy: The Negro Artist . . . (2).
• When the Negro Was in Vogue--selections from Hughes' autobiography.
• The Negro Speaks of Rivers--if you have speakers, listen to Hughes read this poem and "Trumpet Player."
• Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to several jazz poems by Hughes.
• The Influence of Musical Folk Traditions in the Poetry of Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillen--teaching unit.

Scholarly Articles on Hughes' Poetry

• On 'The Weary Blues' --excerpts from scholarly studies.
• Scholarly Criticism on Hughes--scholarly excerpts.
• Wandering Aesthetic, Wandering consciousness: Langston Hughes's Early Jazz Poetry--scholarly article.
• Scott's Langston Hughes Page--abstract summaries of several scholarly articles on Hughes' jazz poetry.
• Movies, Modernity, and All that Jazz: Langston Hughes's Montage of a Dream Deferred--scholarly article.
• Blues in Stereo: The Texts of Langston Hughes in Jazz Music--scholarly article.
• "Like a violin for the wind to play": Lyrical Approaches to Lynching by Hughes, Du Bois, and Toomer--scholarly article.

• Zora Neale Hurston:
  
  • Hurston biography--with links.
  • E-texts and Criticism--many links to scholarly articles on Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  • 'Member Youse a Nigger--selection from Mules and Men
  • Sweat--e-text.
  • Gilded Six-bits--e-text.
  • Harlem Renaissance: Zora Neale Hurston ['Spunk']--e-text.
  • Black Death--e-text.
  • Other stories--scroll down to table of contents.
  • "The Kiss of Memory": The Problem of Love in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God--scholarly article.
  • "Papa Legba, ouvrier barriere por moi passer": Esu in Their Eyes & Zora Neale Hurston's Diasporic Modernism--scholarly article.
  • "The porch couldn't talk for looking": Voice and Vision in 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'--scholarly article.
  • "The world in a jug and the stopper in (her) hand": 'Their Eyes' as Blues Performance--scholarly article.
  • "Love me like I like to be": The Sexual Politics of Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God,' the Classic Blues and the Black Women's Club movement--scholarly article.
  • Should Their Eyes Have Been Watching God? Hurston's Use of Religious Experience and Gothic Horror--scholarly article.

• Georgia Douglas Johnson
  
  • Art, Activism, and Uncompromising Attitude in Georgia Douglas Johnson's Lynching Plays--scholarly article.
  • Cosmopolitanism in Georgia Douglas Johnson's Anti-lynching Literature--scholarly article.

• Helene Johnson
  
  • This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance--book review/critical article. Scroll down the page to the Table of Contents.
  • Poems--three e-texts.
  • Summer Matures--e-text.

• James Weldon Johnson:
  
  • Preface--Johnson's introduction to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922).
  • Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson--biography of Johnson, with emphasis on his classical and ragtime/jazz musical background.
  • American Dreams: 1912, ‘The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man’--helpful book review.
  • A Negro's Chance: Ontological Luck in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man--scholarly article.
  • Art, Literature, and the Harlem Renaissance: The Messages of God's Trombones-- scholarly review.
  • Introduction--good reading guide to 'Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man"
  • The City as Refuge: Constructing Urban Blackness in Paul Laurence Dunbar's 'The Sport of the Gods' and James Weldon Johnson's 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man'--scholarly article.
  • Chronopolitics and Race, Rag-time and Symphonic Time in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man--scholarly article.
  • James Weldon Johnson's 'Black Manhattan' and the Kingdom of American Culture--scholarly article.
  • On Becoming an Ex-man: Postmodern Irony and the Extinguishing of Certainties in the Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man--scholarly article.

• Nella Larsen:
  
  • Paranoid Interpretation, Desire’s Nonobject,and Nella Larsen’s Passing--scholarly article.
  • Passing: Race, Identification, and Desire--scholarly article in Criticism.
  • "Recoil" or "Seize"?: Passing, Ekphrasis and "Exact Expression" in Nella Larsen's Passing--scholarly article.
  • "Black Was White" : Urbanity, Passing and the Spectacle of Harlem--scholarly article.
  • Nella Larsen and the Intertextual Geography of Quicksand--scholarly article.
  • (Be)Longing in Quicksand: Framing Kinship and Desire More Queerly--scholarly article.
  • Self-delusion and Self-sacrifice in Nella Larsen's 'Quicksand'--scholarly article.
  • Nella Larsen's 'Quicksand': Untangling the Webs of Exoticism--scholarly article.
  • Race, Modernism, and Plagiarism: The Case of Nella Larsen's "Sanctuary"--scholarly article.
  • Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and the Fading Subject--scholarly article.

• Claude McKay:
  
  • McKay biography--has many links.
  • McKay biography/3 poems
  • Claude McKay and the New Negro of the 1920's --biography and commentary on his poems and novels.
  • Harlem Shadows--74 poems and biography here
  • Teaching Guide: Reading Migration, Sexuality, and the Urban Folk: Discussion Questions for Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem--very helpful resources, especially on blues music. Click on a number of pages at the bottom of each web page.
  • Scholarly Criticism on McKay--also links to a biography and to an essay on the Caribbean immigrants' reactions to the violent discrimination against blacks in the U.S.
  • The Contagious Fever of the Jungle: Primitivism in Claude McKay's Home to Harlem--scholarly article.
  • Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of Home to Harlem--scholarly article.
  • Writing from the Margins of the Margins: Michael Gold's Jews Without Money and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem--scholarly article.
  • Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s Inspired Novelist Claude McKay--RealPlayer or QuickTime needed to listen (and see) Haitian professor talking about McKay.
  • Sonnet vs Sonnet: The Fourteen Lines in African American Poetry --scholarly article on McKay's sonnets.

• Wallace Thurman:
  
  • When the Negro Was in Vogue--selections from Hughes' and Thurman's autobiographies.
  • The Negro Artist and the Racial Manor: Infants of the Spring and the Conundrum of Publicity--scholarly article.

• Jean Toomer:
  
  • Jean Toomer-- biography, plus links to three poems.
  • Jean Toomer --short introduction to Cane.
  • On "Reapers"--scholarly excerpts.
  • Scholarly Criticism on Toomer--valuable excerpts.
  • Parallel Studies of American/Afro-American Literature--teaching unit; plantation tradition (Harris and Cable) subverted by Chestnutt and reworked by Toomer in Cane.
  • Mary Turner's Blues--scholarly article.
  • Race, Manhood, and Modernism in America; The Short Story Cycles of Sherwood Anderson and Jean Toomer--scholarly article.
  • "The people ... took exception to her remarks": Meta Warrick Fuller, Angelina Weld Grimke, and the Lynching of Mary Turner--scholarly article.
  • "In the land of cotton": Economics and Violence in Jean Toomer's 'Cane'--scholarly article.

• Carl Van Vechten:
  
  • Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance--scholarly article on this controversial novel.

• General:
  
  • Harlem Renaissance-- good introduction to major and minor writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and the significant issues issues and controversies of the era.
  • African American Phat Library (Bonvibre)--several poems by Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Georgia W. Johnson, Claude McKay, et al. Check dates--some contemporary writers are also listed.
  • Jazz-Poetry and Jazz/Blues Music: 1920s-30s:. Read poetry incorporating jazz elements into its form (some jazz-art included) and listen to audio-files of some great jazz music (requires RealPlayer and speakers).
  • The Survey Graphic Harlem--important black journal from 1920s, with many essays on the Harlem Renaissance; often features the highly regarded writer Alain Locke and others. See, for instance, Roger's 'Jazz at Home' or alternate source Jazz at Home--excellent article on meaning of jazz, or The Tropics in New York (about West Indian Black immigrants. Here is a discussion of J.A. Rogers' "Jazz at Home": Afro-American Jazz in Paris during the Jazz Age.
  • Enter the New Negro--Alain Locke's well-known essay from the Survey Graphic.
  • Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination--informative book review.

"Ernest Hemingway, echoing Gertrude Stein, labeled the generation 'lost,' and catalogued the deaths of many of its illusions, chief among them, perhaps, the death of romantic love." (from Bryant Mangum, course description for "Early American Twentieth Century Literature")

"Here was a new generation . . . dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. . . ." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 1920)

"That's the whole burden of this novel [The Great Gatsby]--the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world so that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald letter, 1924)

• F. Scott Fitzgerald:
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Home Page--wonderful site. See especially Brief Life, Fitzgerald Collection (dust jackets), interesting Facts about Fitzgerald, Writing by Fitzgerald (includes e-texts for a number of his short stories), What's New (more about that famous dust jacket--"celestial eyes"--and creator), and Romantic Egoists (a photo album that includes Zelda's paintings). Includes some information on Zelda also.
  • Fitzgerald Biographies--covers both Scottie and Zelda.
  • Echoes of the Jazz Age--Fitzgerald's retrospective assessment of the Jazz Age.
  • Bernice Bobs her Hair--e-text
  • Winter Dreams--e-text
  • This Side of Paradise and other stories--e-text
  • May Day--introduction and e-text.
  • Heath Guide to F.S. Fitzgerald --study aid for "May Day" and "Babylon Revisited."
  • May Day --commentary.
  • Workers, Maypoles and War --historical information about May Day.
  • The Use of Imagery in Fitzgerald's 'May Day' and Faulkner's 'The Sound and the Fury' --student paper.

Great Gatsby: Study Aids & Student Papers

• Study Questions--has links to other Fitzgerald pages.
• Discussion questions.
• Nick as Flawed Narrator--short, helpful student essay, plus two other student essays.
• Metaphor Analysis
• The Migrant in New York: In Pursuit of an American Dream in Rudolph Fisher's "The City of Refuge" and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby--good honors thesis on the missing Black culture in Fitzgerald's jazz age novel.

Great Gatsby: Professional Reviews/Scholarly Articles

• Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: The Great Gatsby--collection of 10 critical articles on Gatsby; excellent scholarly resource.
• Literary Criticism--excerts from a number of critical articles.
• Celestial Eyes--from Metamorphosis to Masterpiece--interesting essay on the eye symbolism on the original famous book cover and in the novel.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald: American Novelist and Short Story Writer--review of scholarship.
• The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby--scholarly article.
• From the Dream to the Womb: Visionary Impulse and Political Ambivalence in The Great Gatsby--scholarly essay
• The Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word--scholarly article.
• Jordan Baker, Gender Dissent, and Homosexual Passing in The Great Gatsby--scholarly article.
• Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream--scholarly article.
• Was Gatsby Black?--whether you agree or not, there are interesting observations about Buchanen's attitudes on race.
• Fitzgerald's Radiant World--excellent review/literary biography of Fitzgerald's Gatsby years.
• Love and Homicide in the Jazz Age Novel --scholarly article.

• Zelda Fitzgerald:
  
  • Zelda Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age--good introduction
  • The Last Flapper--Mangum essay on Zelda (and on Scotty's "invention" of Zelda).
  • Save Me the Waltz--e-text of Zelda's autobiographical novel.
  • Zelda Fitzgerald: Alice in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales--view some artwork by Zelda.
  • Preface to Save me the Waltz--defense of Zelda's writing experiments.
  • An Essay Studying Decay and Destruction in Zelda Fitzgerald's Save Me the Waltz--good essay on Zelda's novel.
  • Zelda: By Herself.
  • Creative Voices--from Sally Cline's book Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise.
  • Vampire to Victim--book review of Cline's Her Voice in Paradise.
  • Zelda--musical to debut 2002, with a great Chronology of the Fitzgeralds (many links to images)--click on the "Forward" button at bottom of page to continue.
  • Letter--from Zelda to Scottie

• Ernest Hemingway:
  
  • Hemingway Adventure--click on each box for a different place/stage in Hemingway's life.
  • Picturing Hemingway--this excellent Centennial exhibit presents Hemingway's life and times with many photos.
  • Kansas City Star--where Hemingway learned his famous style.
  • Hemingway-Pfeifer Center--learn more about his second wife and their Arkansas home.
  • The Hemingway Resource Center--good links to Hemigway material.
  • Hemingway's Paris--good description of the literary "lost generation" in Paris.
  • Aftermath: The Lost Generation--read about a different WWI "lost" generation.
  • Frequently Asked Questions--helpful short answers to a series of questions about Hemingway's life, loves, beliefs, literary relationships,death. legacy, legend, plot, influences, symbolism, themes, characters, style, and such matters.
  • Snows of Kilimanjaro Immortalized by Hemingway 'Will Have Melted by 2020' --an ecological update on Hemingway's famous mountain.
  • "Hemingway's In Our Time: Cubism, Conservation, and the Suspension of Identification--scholarly article.
  • Hemingway's 'In Our Time': A Cubist Anatomy--scholarly article.

Hemingway's Sun Also Rises

• Themes, Motifs, Symbols--study guide notes.
• Analysis of Major Characters--study guide notes.
• Study Questions and Essay Topics--study guide notes.
• "A Very Sinister Book": The Sun Also Rises as Critique of Pastoral--scholarly article.
• Expatriate Lifestyle as Tourist Destination: The Sun Also Rises and Experiential Travelogues of the Twenties--scholarly article.
• The Radical Structure of The Sun Also Rises--critical essay.
• The Hemingway Character--short critical essay.
• The Hemingway Style--short critical essay.
• Essay Questions--helpful ideas for papers.
• The Select [The Sun Also Rises]--excerpts from a stage production of the novel. Does it capture the novel?
• The Textual History of The Sun Also Rises--informative essay.
• Hemingway among the Bohemians: A Generational Reading of 'The Sun Also Rises'--scholarly article.
• Melancholy Modernism: Gender and the Politics of Mourning in The Sun Also Rises--scholarly article.
• "In New York It'd Mean I was a ...": Masculinity Ansiety and Period Discourses of Sexuality in The Sun Also Rises--scholarly article.
• Who was that Black Man?: A Note on Eugene Bullard and 'The Sun Also Rises'--scholarly article.
• Alcoholism in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises--insightful article.
• A review of "Brett Ashley as the New Woman in The Sun Also Rises"--student summary/evaluation.
• The Rules of Magic: Hemingway as Ellison's Ancestor--scholarly article.

• Gertrude Stein:
  
  • Stein biography--with great links, including to Hemingway, Picasso, et al.
  • Biography/poem .
  • Tender Buttons--e-text
  • Three Lives--e-text

Stein: Commentary and Scholarly Articles

• Patriarchal Poetry--interesting student performance/interpretation.
• On "Patriarchal Poetry"--valuable excerpts from scholarly articles on Stein's poem.
• An Essay on Patriarchal Poetry--scholarly essay.
• Iteration as a Form of Narrative Control in Gertrude Stein's "The Good Anna"--scholarly article.

Stein and Picasso

• Cubism--brief explanation of it.
• Les Demoiselles d'Avignon--Picasso's cubist masterpiece and accompanying discussion/interpretation.
• Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: Breaking with Tradition--more detailed discussion/analysis of Picasso's famous painting.
• The New Negro--connection between Picasso's art and the New Negro artists, from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance.
• Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler--note the angular, rectangular, and cone shapes, plus multiple perspectives viewed simultaneously--typical cubist traits.
• Many Picasso images--excellent links to Picasso paintings, arranged by periods.
• If I Told Him--e-text (Gertrude Stein's verbal portrait of Picasso).
• Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein
• Man Ray's photo of Stein and Picasso painting--interesting juxtaposition and interpretation.