Two Chicago Renaissances with Harlem between Them

Abstract

In American literary history “renaissance” retains the sense of innovation, institutionalization of learning, and patronage of the arts associated with the European Renaissance but almost reverses the meaning of the term in other ways. Movements such as the New York Little Renaissance, Southern Renaissance, Chicago Renaissance, and Harlem Renaissance were short-lived, limited to a small region or demographic group, sometimes involved only a few of the arts, and often represented a first flowering, rather than a “rebirth.”1 The use of “renaissance” in Chicago’s literary history is further complicated by Robert Bone’s landmark essay, “Richard Wright and the Chicago Renaissance,” in which he argues that, if scholars of African-American literature are going to call the period from 1920 to 1935 the “Harlem Renaissance,” then we must call the years from 1935 to 1950 the “Chicago Renaissance.”2 Following Bone, “Chicago Renaissance” now refers to two different periods, separated by a decade or less. One includes developments in American journalism, realism, naturalism, and the new poetry, and the other is thus far mainly the province of African-American literary study. What does this situation say about the use of “renaissance” in American literary studies, about the possibilities and limits of designating literary periods, and about the contradictions involved in studying place-based movements?