Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft

Wintersemester 2006/2007

Proseminar II ,,Tales of the Jazz Age"

Hanns Christoph Ellßel

Political aspects in The New Negro

---

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction 3

2. Political aspects of

The New Negro

3

2.1. Defining the term "political aspect of literature" 3

2.2. The aim of political aspects 5

2.3. Reasons for a political aspect of literature 6

2.4. Political aspects in

The New Negro

7

2.4.1.

The Negro′s Americanism

by Melville J. Herskovits 7

2.4.1.1.

The biography of Herskovits 7

2.4.1.2.

Political aspects in

The Negro′s Americanism

7

2.4.2.

The Negro Mind reaches out

by W.E.B. Du Bois 9

2.4.2.1.

The biography of Du Bois 9

2.4.2.2.

Political aspects in

The Negro Mind reaches out

9

3. The political aspect of

The New Negro

and its effects 12

4. Bibliography 14

5. Copyright Note 15

6. Disclaimer 16

2

---

1. Introduction

The "Roaring Twenties" ­ a chapter of history which burst out with the extremes:

On the one hand fascinating improvements in daily life, stunning inventions, new

ideas about social systems ­ and on the other hand still a very strong racism, the

widespread feeling of being lost and the beginning of the isolationism as a

political solution to the problems of the world. New York was one of the

strongholds of the movement, with especially the Harlem Renaissance, the

movement of black art and culture taking place. But the movement was not only

an eruption of artistic thoughts and works, but had also a political imagination.

Due to the vast amount of literature, paintings and other works, I am going to

focus only on "The New Negro", edited by Alain Locke. This book "had the effects

of a manifesto"1 and so is an acceptable basis for the search for the political face

of the Harlem Renaissance or the New Negro Movement ­ two items which can

easily be exchanged2. Although it would be very interesting to go through

The

New Negro

piece by piece and try to find political aspects of the single parts, due

to the limited space of this

Hausarbeit

that must be left to future attempts. This

limitation is further explained later on3.

A very interesting study has been done by Robert E. Washington in

The

Ideologies of African American Literature4

, which is dealing with the political

aspect of African American literature and not only the Harlem Renaissance.

The central question of this

Hausarbeit

searches for political aspects of the

Harlem Renaissance at the example of

The New Negro

.

2. Political aspects of

The New Negro

2.1. Defining the term "political aspect of literature"

Although Robert Hayden in his preface to the Atheneum edition of

The New

Negro

negates the existence of a political aspect5 in the book, in my opinion

1 Robert Hayden,

Preface to the Atheneum Edition

in Alain Locke (ed.),

The New Negro

(New York:

Atheneum, 1977), IX.

2 Robert Hayden,

Preface to the Atheneum Edition

in Alain Locke (ed.),

The New Negro

(New York:

Atheneum, 1977), IX.

3 see 2.4 for detailed description.

4 Robert E. Washington.

The Ideologies of African American Literature.

Lanham/Maryland,

Rowman&Littlefield, 2001.

3

---

such a face exists: It is a question of a narrow or a wide definition of the

political aspect of literature6.

As the term

politics

in common English is used in a very broad sense, it is

very difficult to find a clear definition. For example, the Encyclopædia

Britannica says:

Politics: The set of formal legal institutions that constitute a

"government" or a "state." This is the definition adopted by many studies

of the legal or constitutional arrangements of advanced political orders.

More broadly defined [...] the political system is seen as a set of

"processes of interaction" or as a subsystem of the social system

interacting with other nonpolitical subsystems, such as the economic

system. This points to the importance of informal sociopolitical

processes and emphasizes the study of political development.7

In comparison to the Britannica article I would like to mention the definition

published by the Wikipedia in order to mention a non-scientific work:

Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. Although the

term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is

observed in all human (and many non-human) group interactions,

including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. In general,

politics can be considered the art of navigating through tensions among

multiple "I"s and the "we" to achieve collectively desired ends.8

As it may be concluded out of these two definitions, it is almost impossible to

make a clear distinction between politics and non-politics. In case of

The

New

Negro

I have decided to use a quite broad definition of politics, as with art

politics usually is a hidden agenda and not major plan.

5 Robert Hayden,

Preface to the Atheneum Edition

in Alain Locke (ed.),

The New Negro

(New York:

Atheneum, 1977), IX.

6 Most parts of this argumentation are based on the book by Robert E. Washington.

The Ideologies of
African American Literature.

Lanham/Maryland, Rowman&Littlefield, 2001.

7

Political System.

Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, London,

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 2005.

8

Politics ­ Wikipedia

, 2007, 12.02.2007, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics>.

4

---