lecture notes oct 24 2018

1. Literature of the
Harlem Renaissance
Themes, Motifs, Objectives

2. Major Objectives of Harlem Renaissance
Literature
1) To challenge stereotypes of African-Americans
2) To tell stories by us, near us, for us
3) To uplift the race
4) To address race/racism problems
5) To show African-Americans more realistically; to document
6) To enlighten
7) To address problems of intersectionality of Black Women (racism, sexism, and women’s lives and
issues in general).
8) To entertain
9) To rebel against Victorian values
10) Establish autonomy from White traditions

3. Negro Characters as Seen by White Authors
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2292236?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Stereotypes according to Sterling Brown, 1933:
1) The Contented Slave (Uncle Tom, The Mammy type, Happy Servant)
2) The Wretched Freeman (Tastee in Orange is the New Black)
3) The Comic Negro (Minstrel caricatures, Sambo, Black sidekicks)
4) The Brute Negro (Training Day, Nat Turner)
5) The Tragic Mulatto (Imitation of Life, DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation)
6) The Local Color Negro (Django)
7) The Exotic Primitive (Josephine Baker, Venus Hottentot, Bushman)

4. List of Early Literary Black Stereotypes
(Paraphrased quick definitions)
Use document reader or visit:
https://penandthepad.com/list-early-literary-black-stereotypes-8231364.html

5. Brainstorming Stereotypes
Can you think of some stereotypes of the following groups and give some
examples of stereotyped characters from popular culture?
1) Working class Blacks
2) Urban middle class Whites
3) Jamaicans
4) Koreans
5) Mexicans
6) Africans
7) Native Americans

6. Themes & Subjects of Harlem Renaissance Writing:
● Black life, race, racism, lynching, Black women’s issues, otherness, class,
classism, identity, colorism, passing, africa, travel, The South, Harlem,
migration, adaptation, Black history…
Tropes & Aesthetic Concerns
● Folklore, The Vernacular (melding of folk motifs and standard literary voice
and the antidote to Black Professional class’s “Bougie” assimilationism. Also,
it was often collected by the writers), Music (Jazz & Blues), Romanticism
(Africa), Eyptomania, Double Consciousness, parody, notion of
home/homeland/promised land.

7. Types of Harlem Renaissance Writing:
1) Literature (novels, short stories, Children’s books, poetry)
2) Entertainment/Dramatic writing (plays, musicals, songwriting, narrative dance,
film/screenwriting).
3) Non-fiction (books, papers/essays, collected folklore, newspapers, magazines
and journals, letters).

8. What Harlem Renaissance Literature Accomplished;
1) Presented diversity of real and complex “Black Experiences” and “Black
characters)
2) Laid a strong foundation for the subsequent development of “Modern” Black
Literature.
3) Set the stage for arguments and debates around Black Literature (aesthetics
and objectives) for decades to come.
4) Presented “The New Negro” as a collective intellectual and creative force “to
be reckoned with”

9. Responding to some Sample Literature
1) Within breakout groups, read the stories posted on O-space and read for the
objectives and themes of the Harlem Renaissance.
2) Enjoy the stories.
3) Reflect on the imagery that moves you and be prepared to share those
reflections.
Read on Wednesday October 24th
● Gwendolyn Bennett, Marita Bonner, Rudolph Fisher, Willis Richardson