Harlem Renaissance 1920-1940 – serie

Black writers and intellectuals struggled to articulate an aesthetic for African American literature and to define the appropriate relationship between an African American literary movement and the racial politics of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. This volume contains examples of the literature of the 1920s-one element of a black cultural movement that included music, art, and theater. These critics explored the Southern and African roots of black culture, and the impact of race and urbanization on the African American experience.

First Published in 1996. One of the most interesting features of the Harlem Renaissance was the degree to which black writers and poets were involved in promoting and analyzing their own literary movement. One of its formative events was the 1926 attempt by Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes and other young writers to publish a literary magazine, FIRE!! This was the first of several efforts by black writers to establish literary journals. While these efforts failed, the magazine Opportunity employed a series of black poets as columnists to analyze and review black literary efforts. This volume collects the writings of this important literary journal as well as including many autobiographical and historical sketches.

This volume tracks the many surveys of black literature created during the Harlem Renaissance. Noted works by such authors as Sterling Brown, Benjamin Brawley, and Langston Hughes are covered. Retrospectives also appeared in the journal Phylon , and many of those also appear in this collection.