Harlem Renaissance Literary Productions: Context, Role, Philosophy and Objective In “The Negro’s Tragedy”

Beugre Zouankouan Stéphane

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v8i8.10738

Abstract

This paper aims to show and analyze how through “an outstanding poetic creation”, Claude McKay describes clearly the context, role, philosophy and objective of the Harlem Renaissance literary productions while describing his own role and vocation as an African American writer. Indeed by describing his own role as a pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance Movement, “this assertive poem” is actually a précis and paradigm of the motives and chart gathering all those black pioneer writers engaged in this literary movement. This paper provides, through the hermeneutic study of this symptomatic sonnet about the Negro’s tragedy; an analysis of the context in which the Harlem Renaissance literary productions had been produced, the role of those literary productions, the main philosophy surrounding the literary productions of this Black Movement and finally the objective targeted by those literary productions. The hermeneutic approach is sustained by the socio-criticism, African American criticisms and stylistics theories to better characterize the semantic and social scope of this poem.

Highlights

The poem entitled “The Negro’s Tragedy” is a sonnet written by Claude McKay (1889-1948) a pioneering-poet of Harlem Renaissance
Being part of Harlem Renaissance Movement, producing and promoting an ethnic literature, the simple fact to explain his own role as an African American writer and the objective/role of his writings in this poem; Claude McKay sheds light indirectly or directly on the major role and vocation of the entire group of black writers composing the Harlem Renaissance Movement
Extraordinarily, in these fourteen lines, and with a subtle title, the poet Claude McKay informs the reader about the context, the role, the philosophy guiding and the objective of the Harlem Renaissance literary productions symbolized by the expression or semantic unit “what I write” in the poem

Summary

Introduction

The poem entitled “The Negro’s Tragedy” is a sonnet written by Claude McKay (1889-1948) a pioneering-poet of Harlem Renaissance This poem is a symptomatic testimony about his role and vocation as an African American writer namely in terms of ethnic literature. Using this brief poetic form which is the sonnet to express himself, Claude McKay rapidly and directly in his first stanza states both the context which obliges and encourages him to write as a pioneering-poet of Harlem Renaissance He states bluntly his role and the role he deserves to his writing as well as the role he deserves to their writings as a group of Negroes writers composing the Harlem Renaissance by saying: (V3“It is the Negro’s wounds I want to heal / V4 Because I know the keenness of his pain”). After this analysis concerning the role of both the writers and the literary productions of the Harlem Renaissance, it will be very interesting according to the evolution of the poem source to tackle with the philosophy which had underpinned the Harlem Renaissance writers and their literary productions

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE LITERARY PRODUCTIONS

OBJECTIVE

CONCLUSION