Harlem Renaissance Analysis

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Recommended: Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

1. Describes each author’s role and importance within the Harlem Renaissance.

The poets I choose are Claude McKay (1889-1948) who wrote the poem “If We Must Die” and Langston Hughes (1902-1967) who wrote the poem “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret”. Each Poet had a really important role and importance in the Harlem Renaissance. Claude McKay is a poet who was born in Jamaica and left for the U.S in 1912. McKay generally published in white avant-garde magazines and occasionally in magazines like The Crisis. His Poem “If We Must Die” was inspired by the race riots that exploded in the summer and fall of 1919 in a number of cities in both the North and South. His poem triggers the violent episodes of white people attacking them, but getting stunned …show more content…

Claude McKay helped to launch the burst of creative energy that was the Harlem Renaissance. Also Langston Hughes a leader of the Harlem Renaissance famously published, “Negro was in vogue” which mean, “Harlem was in vogue” as a sign of gaining popularity and becoming a mainstream for jazz and poetry. At twenty-two years of age in 1924 he had gone to Paris seeking a freedom he could not find at home. Langston Hughes was one of the many African American who had been drawn to Paris by reports of black soldiers who had served in the World War I; in so call Negro division like the 92nd and 93rd infantries. And soon he was writing poems inspired by Jazz rhythms he was hearing played by the African American bands in the clubs where worked as a busboy and dishwasher. When in Harlem, Hughes quickly became one of the most powerful voices; His poem “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” narrates the lives of his people, capturing the inflections, and cadences of their speech. And his poem specifically illustrates the African American culture, especially with its music and its language. Hughes understood that his cultural identity rested on the …show more content…

Fully describe at least two (2) primary themes you see in the poetry written during this time period, referring to specific lines in each of the poems.

In Claude McKay “If we must die” the primary theme is death, but not on how you’re going to die, but how you’re going to face death in certain ways. We get the idea that the speaker of "If We Must Die" isn 't thinking about death in the theoretical sense; he 's actually facing it. It 's not a question of whether he will die or what will happen when he dies, it about how he will meet death. “Pressed to the wall, Dying, But fighting back!” and “ though far outnumbered, let us show us brave, and for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!” show how they will fight back before death occurs as a sign of influence.
Also in Langston Hughes “Jazz Band in a Parisian Caberet” the main theme is he touts the universal appeal of jazz to convey ideas of national unity. Langston says, “Play that thing, Jazz Band! Play it for the lords and ladies, for the whores and gigolos…” he is talking about everyone as a whole in unity in he plays music for them and sings to them from jazz

4. Write your own poem that expresses these identified themes of the Harlem

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