Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance

899 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The Harlem Renaissance focus

Countee Cullen, was one amongst many in a life of accomplishments. He received many awards and was recognized for much of his work. Cullen was a very good writer during his career. Cullen was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement associated with African American writers in New York City in the 1920's. Though primarily a poet who wrote in standards forms, Cullen also wrote a novel, plays, and children's literature.
Countee Cullen was born on May 30,1903.Countee Cullen was very secretive about his life. According to sources he was born in Louisville Kentucky or Baltimre, and given the name Countee Leroy Lucas at birth. Cullen’s mother name was Elizabeth Lucas. In 1918 Cullen was sent to live with his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Porter in Harlem, New York. Countee Cullen was unofficially adopted by Frederick Asbury Cullen, a minister of Harlem’s Salem Methodist Episcopal Church and his wife Carolyn Belle Cullen. Cullen attended De Witt Clinton High School. He was the chairman of the senior publications committee. In High school he edited the school’s weekly newspaper, The Clinton News, The schools literary magazine, and The Magpie. (Cullen 1).
Countee Cullen attended the University of new York receiving his bachelor’s degree in literature from 1922 to 1925. He was also elected to Phi Betta Kappa. From 1925 to 1926 Cullen earned his master’s degree in English from Harvard University. In 1928, Countee Cullen married Yolande Du Bois, the daughter of W.E.B. Du Bois. They lived in France on a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1930, Countee Cullen and Yolande separated and eventually divorced. The marriage lasted only a year. In 1934, Cullen took a position as a French and English teacher at Frederick Douglass Junior Hig...

... middle of paper ...

...e. For many years after his death, Countee Cullen's Reputation was eclipsed by that of other Harlem Renaissance writers, particularly Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and his work had gone out of print. In the last few years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in cullen's life and work and his writings are being reissued.

Works Cited

Beetz Kirk H. "Countee Cullen". Research Guide to Biography & Criticism 5. (1991): 202. Biography collection complete. web 7 May 2014.
"Cullen Countee." World Book Online Info Finder. World Book, 2014. web. 28 April 2014.
Cullen, Countee."The too-brief career of Countee Cullen" The New Criterion. April 2013. 24.
Lawlor, William T. Countee Cullen. Salem: Salem Press, September 2006.
"Williams, Jasmine." Countee Cullen: A Renaissance Poet." The New York Amsterdam News 1 Apr. 2012, SEC. In the Classroom: 28 Print.

Show More
Related

  • How Did Countee Cullen Impact The Harlem Renaissance

    276 Words  | 1 Pages

    Countee Cullen is recognized as perhaps one of the most influential African American figures during the Harlem Renaissance, and is known for adopting a style of writing known as Negritude. Cullen believed that poetry and writing should not be subject by race, so his work was emphasized on the idea of equality for African Americans.

    Read More

  • How Does Countee Cullen Use Folk Art?

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    Countee Cullen used quite an amount of poetic styles and words such as: “What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black. Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?” (Doc.A). In these lines, the poet characterized the geographical features of Africa and the mood as well as the people there. Countee used the language of a white man but used it to show African-American

    Read More

  • Langston Hughes Biography Essay

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...can writers, a guardian of traditional African-American culture, a civil rights activist through his writing and and as the face of the Harlem Renaissance. His importance to not only the Harlem Renaissance but the African-American identity is immeasurable and for that we should be forever grateful and pay him the highest regard.

    Read More

  • Countee Cullen: The Poetic’s Struggle within Race and Sexuality

    559 Words  | 2 Pages

    Countee Cullen's poetry illustrates a man who is torn between being born in the African American world, his career as a raceless poetic and dealing with his sexuality during the Harlem Renaissance period. Five of the seven volumes of poetry that bears Cullen's name have, in their titles, a basis for racial themes that comes out in the poetry itself.

    Read More

  • Richard Wright’s Misperception of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

    2452 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than Wright. When she did write politically, she was very subtle about stating her beliefs.

    Read More

  • Analysis: The Harlem Renaissance

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro Movement

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    That’s when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artist, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers”(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). African Americans writers during this time was capturing the beauty of black lives. Blacks were discovering many reasons to have pride in their race. Racial pride was helping them achieve equality in society. People were starting to write the way they wanted, instead of the ways whites wanted. Creating their

    Read More

  • Albert Pike

    909 Words  | 2 Pages

    Albert Pike was born December 29, 1809, child of Ben and Sarah Pike, and spent his childhood in Byfield and Newburyport, Massachusetts. He attended school at Newburyport and Framingham until he was 15. In August 1825, at the age of 16 he was accepted at Harvard University, because of a dispute over tuition fees he did not attend . He would receive an Honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard in 1859, in recognition of his prose as a poet. In 1831, Pike left Massachusetts to journey west, joining a hunting expedition to New Mexico. During the trip he lost his horse and walked the remaining 500 miles to New Mexico. His travels ultimately led him to Fort Smith Arkansas. He taught school and went to work for the newspaper the Arkansas Advocate. He used a portion of the dowry he received when he married Mary Ann Hamilton 10 October 1834 to buy the newspaper. Under P...

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was a time of racism, injustice, and importance. Somewhere in between the 1920s and 1930s an African American movement occurred in Harlem, New York City. The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. It was the result of Blacks migrating in the North, mostly Chicago and New York. There were many significant figures, both male and female, that had taken part in the Harlem Renaissance. Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes exemplify the like and work of this movement.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance, originally known as “the New Negro Movement”, was a cultural, social, and artistic movement during the 1920’s that took place in Harlem. This movement occurred after the World War I and drew in many African Americans who wanted to escape from the South to the North where they could freely express their artistic abilities. This movement was known as The Great Migration. During the 1920’s, many black writers, singers, musicians, artists, and poets gained success including Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. These creative black artists made an influence to society in the 1920’s and an impact on the Harlem Renaissance.

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Essay

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance gave African American women new opportunities in literature. “The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War 1 and the middle of the 1930s.” (Wormser) It was a challenge for women poets during the Harlem Renaissance because they were both black and women. (Walton) Jessie Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Regina Anderson, and Nella Larson all played important roles in the Harlem Renaissance. (Lewis) These women inspired many generations of women to come. (Walton)

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Essay

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harlem Renaissance was a period where the black intellectuals comprised of the poets, writers, and musicians explored their cultural identity. This paper will explain what the Harlem Renaissance period was really about , as well as the artists that were associated with this practice including Marian Anderson, James Weldon Johnson, and Romare Bearden.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1572 Words  | 4 Pages

    Occurring in the 1920’s and into the 1930’s, the Harlem Renaissance was an important movement for African-Americans all across America. This movement allowed the black culture to be heard and accepted by white citizens. The movement was expressed through art, music, and literature. These things were also the most known, and remembered things of the renaissance. Also this movement, because of some very strong, moving and inspiring people changed political views for African-Americans. Compared to before, The Harlem Renaissance had major effects on America during and after its time.

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance refers to a prolific period of unique works of African-American expression from about the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Although it is most commonly associated with the literary works produced during those years, the Harlem Renaissance was much more than a literary movement; similarly, it was not simply a reaction against and criticism of racism. The Harlem Renaissance inspired, cultivated, and, most importantly, legitimated the very idea of an African-American cultural consciousness. Concerned with a wide range of issues and possessing different interpretations and solutions of these issues affecting the Black population, the writers, artists, performers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance had one important commonality: "they dealt with Black life from a Black perspective." This included the use of Black folklore in fiction, the use of African-inspired iconography in visual arts, and the introduction of jazz to the North.[i] In order to fully understand the lasting legacies of the Harlem Renaissance, it is important to examine the key events that led to its beginnings as well as the diversity of influences that flourished during its time.

    Read More

  • Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

    1620 Words  | 4 Pages

    It also helped get recognition due to some situations because these two talented and respected authors expressed what they were seeing and what was happening during that time. Expressing how it hurt us as a culture with some of the things that were happening but they stood up and expressed themselves in poetry, songs, dance and everything. The Harlem Renaissance had an explosive impact on the culture and made a trademark in history. Taking everything into account, the Harlem Renaissance was extremely noteworthy in light of the fact that it denoted a minute when white America began perceiving the scholarly commitments of Blacks and then again African Americans stated their personality mentally and connected their battle to that of blacks the world over and planted the seeds for what might later turn into the Civil Rights development and out of the blue gave us sure and excellent pictures of dark folks. It helped the world understand black African American culture. The Harlem Renaissance was an African American development that happened amid the time of after war America, from the finish of World War I to the center of the dejection in the 1930s. The gathering of African American scholars that made up the development delivered huge amounts of verse, fiction, show, and expositions. The blast in industry realized by World War I caused the development of African Americans from the southern cultivating society toward the northern modern culture of. The social focus of this relocation moved toward becoming Harlem. African Americans felt the feeling of chance that described the 1920s. Despite the fact that they experienced protection from the white group, numerous African American creators flourished amid this time. Claude McKay was the main Harlem author to distribute, and his verse and fiction took a stand in opposition to the shameful acts done to blacks. Jean Toomer praised the legacy of blacks and

    Read More

More about Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance

Open Document