Harlem Renaissance Poets: Essays on Langston Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” and Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” and Harlem Renaissance-Inspired Poem
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Harlem Renaissance Poets: Essay on Langston Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” and Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” and Harlem Renaissance-Inspired Poem
According to David Chioni Moore (1996), there “exists and existed in this century a black culture that is neither African, Caribbean, American, nor European, but is rather all of these at once and more” (p. 49). The previously mentioned statement encapsulates both the dilemma and the benefit of being born in the New World as a black person. During the period of the Harlem Renaissance, the poets, essayists, and other black artists have done much to express and provide meaning to the black experience within the New World. Two of these artists include Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. This desire to articulate the black individual’s experience through poetry is exemplified in Cullen’s “Heritage” and Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret.” Cullen’s writings are significant in the Harlem Renaissance because they articulate the need for the black individual who was born in the New World to not be defined solely by his race, but by what he does. Emily Bernard (2009) mentions in her article that Cullen confided in Hughes by stating that he “wanted to be known as a ‘poet—not a Negro poet’” (as cited in Bernard, 2009, p. 165). On the other hand, Hughes interpreted, or, some might argue, misinterpreted, the “sentiment” expressed by the poet as a “lamentable self-loathing” and a “pitiable hankering for whiteness” (Bernard, 2009, p. 165). Therefore, it can be argued that Cullen’s “Heritage” not only represents the black individual’s internal struggle with reconciling the part of himself that is associated with the New World and the part of himself that is connected with the African ancestry, but it also represents the poet’s desire to liberated from the label “‘Negro poet’” (Bernard, 2009, p. 166). On the other hand, it appears as if Hughes’s writings show that he also “experienced his own ambivalence about such labels,” as demonstrated by the poem, “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret.” In this poem, the black persona has to reconcile her African American self with multiple nationalities so as to learn to how accept her identity as a black person living in the African Diaspora. Therefore, it can be argued that although Cullen and Hughes both play different roles in the Harlem Renaissance, both Cullen and Hughes play share similarities in using their poetry to articulate the struggles that an individual living in the African Diaspora experiences. This is demonstrated when Cullen and Hughes use their poems to highlight the dominance of the white culture and its impact on the cultural expression of the black individual and use their works to express the internal conflict experienced by an African American as it relates to race and identity.
Cullen plays a central role in the Harlem Renaissance both literally and figuratively in that he married the daughter of W.E.B. Dubois, one of the pioneers of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition, Cullen played a significant role during this era from the standpoint of black literary critics, such as Alain Locke. Locke praised Cullen’s first volume of poetry, Color, for having an “unquestionably high literary standard” (Lomax, 1974, p. 39). In addition, “[w]hite reviewers,” such as Clement Wood, noted that Cullen’s first volume “heralded a new and higher epoch in black American Literature” (Lomax, 1974, p. 39). Cullen was thought to have been Harlem’s “‘poet laureate’” since his work was “‘more palatable to the middle class’” (as cited in Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 50). Cullen’s work is known to showcase his skills in “classical European forms such as epigrams, sonnets, and villanelles” (Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 51).
On the other hand, Hughes was referred to as the “‘poet low-rate of Harlem’” since he focuses on mostly “‘Negro themes’” (as cited in Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 51). Cullen himself commented on the fact that Hughes’s preoccupation with Harlem’s jazz club scene allowed the poet to create poetry that act as “‘interlopers in the company of true in the company of truly beautiful poems’” (as cited in Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 51). Hughes believed in using modern poetry techniques in his work, which includes “free verse” and “improvisation” (Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 51). Therefore, Hughes was a pioneering writer in the Harlem Renaissance who saw the significance of integrating elements of the African American folk culture with modern poetry techniques that allowed him to emphasize both the “present” and “the future of African Americans” (Millanes Vaquero, 2007, p. 52).
Nevertheless, Hughes and Cullen shared similarities in that their works highlighted the “double consciousness” (as expounded on by W.E.B. Dubois, who is highly regarded by both poets) that recognizes the internal conflict experienced by a black individual living within the African Diaspora (Westover, 2002, p. 1208). Cullen shows how the black persona battles with being identified with both the culture of the New World and the African culture in the following lines: “although I speak/ With my mouth thus, in my heart/ Do I play a double part” (ll. 96-98). In addition, the persona asks repeatedly, “What is Africa to me?” (ll.1,10,33). It can be argued that the persona has a difficult time relating to the experiences on the continent of Africa (the natural home of the black race) because he has to show allegiance to another culture with his words. Furthermore, it is suggested that the persona desires to “make a clean break” with the “historical past” (Kuenz, 2007, p. 508).
Similarly, in Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret,” the double consciousness is highlighted, as depicted by the following: “Play it,/ Jazz band!/ You know that tune/ That laughs and cries at the same time” (ll. 9-12). Jazz music, which has been created by African Americans, reflects the “double consciousness” of the black individual living in the African Diaspora, who is accepts while simultaneously rejecting the place that society has given him (Westover, 2002, p. 1208). The African American has to learn how to relate to “lords and ladies,” who represent the European traditions and way of life and the “whores and gigolos,” who represent the lowest of the African American experience (ll. 3, 5). Therefore, it can be argued that the African American uses his cultural expression to engage in a “performance of double consciousness” (Westover, 2002, p. 1208).
As a result of the analysis of the poems, it can be said that the two primary themes dealt with by Hughes’s and Cullen’s poetry include the following: internal conflict about race and identity and the dominance of white culture and its influence on the creative expression of the black individual. Cullen’s poetry underscores the internal conflict experienced by the black individual and is illustrated by the following: “Wishing He I served were black/Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, / Daring even to give You / Dark despairing features” (ll. 100, 106-108). Although the black persona is willing to accept the white man’s God, he still secretly wishes that this God was as black as he is. This desire has then led him in creating “dark gods” that resemble him (l. 100). The white man’s God, who is fashioned to have the same features as the white man, causes the black persona to struggle with his racial identity. It is implied that the creative process, as depicted by the African American cultural expression, leads the black individual to create an image that resembles himself and his African background; thereby, responding to the dominance of the white culture. Likewise, Hughes depicts this similar struggle in the following lines: “Play it, / Jazz band! / You know that tune/ That laughs and cries at the same time” (ll. 9-12). These lines underscore the internal struggles of the black individual living in the African Diaspora, who has to outwardly comply with and laugh at his situation that he has to be black in a predominantly white society while he serves the whites and is secretly saddened by the situation. Ali Brox (2010) notes that Hughes was aware of the “role humor can play in racial matters” (p. 15). Brox (2010) explains that humor was the African American’s way of dealing with racism. However, the above mentioned lines highlight the point that it was not beyond the African American to weep “‘profoundly’” over situations involving racial discrimination (as cited in Brox, 2010, p. 15). Instead of openly weeping about racism, the African American chooses to use cultural expressions, such as jazz music, to respond to the dominating white culture, which not only allows her to expressive herself creatively, but also emotionally.
Nowhere
I knew that I came from somewhere,
But I’m not sure what this somewhere should be.
I struggle between finding meaning and finding reason to care.
I fight with what I shouldn’t or shouldn’t be.
I wonder why I should be attack
Since in a white world I choose to be stubbornly black.
But I have decided to listen to the music of my heart.
I have learned to use my emotions as my art.
I teach myself to allow it to create a path for me.
I allow it to navigate what going from nowhere to somewhere should be.
References
Bernard, E. (2009). Familiar Strangeness: The Spectre of Whiteness in the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. In H. Bloom (Ed.), African-American Poets (Vol. 1, pp. 165-183). New York: Infobase Publishing.
Brox, A. (2010, January 1). Simple on Satire: Langston Hughes, Gender, and Satiric Double-Consciousness. Studies in American Humor, 3(21), 15-28. Retrieved August 27, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42573584
Chioni Moore, D. (1996, January 1). Local Color, Global "Color" : Langston Hughes, the Black Atlantic, and Soviet Central Asia, 1932. Research in African literatures, 27(4), 49-70. Retrieved August 27, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3819984
Kuenz, J. (2007). Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Harlem Renaissance: The Case of Countee Cullen. Modernism/modernity, 14(3), 507-515. doi:10.1353/mod.2007.0064
Lomax, M. L. (1974). Countee Cullen: A Key to the Puzzle. Studies in the Literary Imagination, 7(2), 39.
Millanes Vaquero, M. (2007). 'Poet on Poet': Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes (Two Versions of an Aesthetic Literary Theory). Anglogermanica Online: Revista electrónica periódica de filología Alemana e Inglesa, 5, 50-55. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
Sayre, H. M. (2015). Humanities: Culture, continuity and change, volume II (3rd ed.). New York: Pearson.
Westover, J. (2002). Africa/America: Fragmentation and Diaspora in the Work of Langston Hughes. Callaloo, 25(4), 1207-1223. doi:10.1353/cal.2002.0174
