by A. B. Christa Schwarz - £16.99 Indiana University Press (2003)
paperback
ISBN 13: 9780253216076 | ISBN 10: 0253216079
This groundbreaking study explores the Harlem Renaissance as a literary phenomenon fundamentally shaped by same-sex-interested men. Christa Schwarz focuses on Countée Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Richard Bruce Nugent and explores these writers’ sexually dissident or gay literary voices. The portrayals of men-loving men in these writers’ works vary significantly. Schwarz locates in the poetry of Cullen, Hughes, and McKay the employment of contemporary gay code words, deriving from the Greek discourse of homosexuality and from Walt Whitman. By contrast, Nugent—the only “out” gay Harlem Renaissance artist—portrayed men-loving men without reference to racial concepts or Whitmanesque codes. Schwarz argues for contemporary readings attuned to the complex relation between race, gender, and sexual orientation in Harlem Renaissance writing.
"Heretofore scholars have not been willing—perhaps, even been unable for many reasons both academic and personal—to identify much of the Harlem Renaissance work as same-sex oriented. . . . An important book."
(Jim Elledge)
(Price & availability last checked: September 2018)
In booklists: LGBTQ+ Writers and Poets, LGBTQ+ Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority People, Black & Asian Writers & Literature, Gay Lives & Histories,
In categories: Poetry & Writing, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuality & Transgender, Black, Asian & Other Diasporas, Men & Masculinity,
© News From Nowhere Co-operative Ltd IP24524R 2004-2024 | Privacy policy | Contact | return to top of page