An Analysis Of Harlem Renaissance Poetry

603 Words3 Pages

Harlem Renaissance ran through the years of 1919-1934. James Weldon Johnson called it the, “flowering of Negro literature.” During the Renaissance blacks wrote, sung, and painted about how their lives and how it was actually depicted. The Harlem Renaissance started off as a part of the Great Migration. African Americans moved from the South to the North and Midwest. Many African Americans were trying to find better lives. From the renaissance emerged new cultural experiences such as new forms of music, literature, and themes such as Modernism. Overall, African American artists brought to the attention of conflicts of black intelligentsia and issues with black deception. Artists like Langston Hughes wrote varies things such as black identity, …show more content…

In the poem, the speaker tells us how they have told him to eat in the kitchen when company comes. However, because he also represents America, in the last stanza, our speaker states that he will no longer eat in the kitchen. This poem uses varies elements of tone and refrain to put into perspective of how blacks are Americans to. The speakers says, “They'll see how beautiful I am/and be ashamed--/I, too, am America (“I, Too” 16-18)”. These particular lines state that no matter what color he is, he is also beautiful and filled with …show more content…

The speaker is writing a paper from the heart that is due for his English class. He talks about how he likes certain types of music and describes the area around him. He says in stanza three that the instructor and he are a part of each other and says “That’s American ” (“Theme for English B” 33) He also said, “I guess being colored doesn't make me not like/the same things other folks like who are other races./So will my page be colored that I write? (“Theme for English B” 25-27)” He said this to state that because he is colored does not mean that everything he does is colored. He bring to light that because he is black living in NY going to an all-white school does not make him no less black than the next person. It also does not make him no less American