¶ … Harlem Dancer" and "The Weary Blues"
Times Change, but the Struggle is Still the Same
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and political movement during the 1920s and 1930s that sought to celebrate African-American culture through literary and intellectual means. Two of the era's prominent poets were Claude McKay and Langston Hughes. Their poetry helped to highlight the struggles that African-Americans were faced with. In "The Harlem Dancer," written by McKay, and "The Weary Blues," written by Hughes, the poets use music as a backdrop for the narratives of their poems. Although the blues, as music, are not limited to African-Americans, the style emerged from the experiences of African-Americans. Furthermore, the Harlem Renaissance sought to celebrate these experiences by bringing together the struggles of past generations and juxtaposing them with the struggles that younger generations were going through. "The Harlem Dancer" and "The Weary Blues" are depictions of the struggles that African-Americans underwent, although each poem's narrative is told from a different generational perspective.
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American poet and writer who immigrated to the United States in 1912 ("Claude McKay"). It was during this time that McKay was exposed to the extreme racism that Blacks were being subjected to. Some of McKay's political views can be found in his poetry. In "The Harlem Dancer," McKay illustrates the disparity between social classes through the comparison of the singer and dancer and her audience. While the "[a]pplauding youths laughed at young prostitutes/And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway," the subject of the poem is must sing and dance for their amusement (McKay, lines 1-2). In the poem, the singer/dancer is objectified and sexualized by her audience, however she does not seem to notice because she has learned to cope with the situation. For instance, the narrator notes that "[t]he wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,/Devoured her with eager, passionate gaze" (lines 11-12). Her coping mechanism allows her to escape the confines of the nightclub...
The park is clearly preferable to a railway station, not only because it is more idyllic for the scene of an erotic encounter, but also because it is a Dionysian setting, preferable to the crude, structured Apollonian setting of a railway station. In a park, one may readily lose oneself in the eroticism of nature and become one with the natural environment. This is surely preferable to hanging around
In "Do not go gentle into that good night," Thomas argues that "old age should burn and rave at close of day," implying that individuals should not give in to death easily (Thomas line 2). In order to prove his point, and convince his father to fight for his life, Thomas provides various examples of men from all walks of life, who regardless of their past fought to live
Illiad Argue whether the poetry/text presents the author as pilgrim or as tourist on a wartime journey The distinction between the tourist and the pilgrim is one that invariably arises when analyzing texts that address war. While it is common for the hero (or author) to discuss war as a theme, a distinction must be made with regard to the way in which the author relates to the war and to the
.. They are neither man nor woman- They are neither brute nor human- They are Ghouls..." Graham's (2003) analysis of "Bells" show that Poe intentionally creates different categories of bells in order to illustrate the various emotional states individuals have had experienced in their life. She argues that the poem "not only...powerfully convey emotional effects to...readers, but also makes readers subconsciously convey those effects with facial expressions...," a characteristic found more
Chinese Cultural Revolution in Literature There are a number of stark images found in the works of literature reviewed by Dao, Cheng, and Hua in this assignment. Specifically, this paper details the imagery evinced in Bei Dao's "Resume," Gu Cheng's "Curriculum Vitae," and Yu Hua's "On the Road at Eighteen." That imagery and those works in general are thinly veiled allusions to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which took places in the
Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop" by WB Yeats This is one of the shortest poems by WB Yeats though has a lot of consistency with the other poems that he wrote before and even after this poem. He is known to be preoccupied by the conflicts and the frictions that exist between cultures, religions, races, classes and the several other categorizations that exist among human beings. He has often
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