Jazz Age Culture

"Aspirations"

by Aaron Douglas

"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. . . . We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves." (from Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain")

"It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white". . . to "I am a Negro--and beautiful." (from Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain")

• Sterling Brown:
  
  • Brown's Life and Career--biographies.
  • 3 poems--biography, plus e-texts for "Riverbank Blues,"  "Slim Greer in Hell," and "Southern Road."
  • Scholarly Criticism on Brown--valuable excerpts.
  • Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to several jazz poems by Brown.

• Countee Cullen:
  
  • Scholarly Criticism on Cullen--valuable excerpts.
  • The Singing Man Who Must be Reckoned With: Private Desire and Public Responsibility in the Poetry of Countee Cullen--scholarly article.

• Frank Marshall Davis:
  
  • Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to a jazz poem by Davis.
  • Four Glimpses of Night --e-text.
  • Livin' the Blues --selection, including two poems, from Davis' memoir.
  • Frank Marshall Davis --biography.
  • Writings of Frank Marshall Davis --short book review.

• Rudolph Fisher:
  
  • The South Lingers On--e-text
  • The Psychology of Uncertainty--article on Fisher's The Conjure Man Dies.

• Langston Hughes:
  
  • Langston Hughes & the Harlem Renaissance--good introduction.
  • Hughes--a helpful biography
  • Hughes as Poet Hero
  • The Story of Hughes Meeting--end of Harlem Renaissance; Hughes' visit to Haiti.

Hughes: Texts

• The Weary Blues --11 poems from Hughes' first poetry collection.
• The Weary Blues (annotated)--also includes instructor's analysis.
• The Weary Blues/Mingus Accompaniment --Hughes reading his poem, accompanied by jazz musician Charles Mingus.
• Weary Blues Lecture --click on the links to hear this poem read, to hear a brief history of Hughes and this poem, and to hear how to analyze the "blues" elements in the poem (the last section shows a great picture of Lennox Avenue also).
• On 'The Weary Blues' --excerpts from scholarly studies.
• Biography/13 Poems--includes "The Weary Blues," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "I, too, Sing America," and "Dream Variations."
• A Dream Deferred--e-text. Alternate title: A Raisin in the Sun --with brief commentary; also known as Harlem.
• The Blues I'm Playing--e-text of short story by Hughes.
• Works by Langston Hughes--"Cora Unashamed"; "The Blues I'm Playing"; "Father and Son"; "I, Too."
• Langston Hughes on Scottsboro--several poems (more on the infamous Scottsboro Trials)
• The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain--Hughes' famous essay. Alternate copy: The Negro Artist . . . (2).
• When the Negro Was in Vogue--selections from Hughes' autobiography.
• The Negro Speaks of Rivers--if you have speakers, listen to Hughes read this poem and "Trumpet Player."
• Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s--scoll down this page to several jazz poems by Hughes.

Study Aids, Student Essays on Hughes' Poetry

• Not a Black and White Answer: Analyzing the Dual Perspective of 'The Weary Blues'--student paper.
• Teaching Hughes--lesson plans
• Charting the Impetus, Development, and Aftermath of the Harlem Renaissance in the Literature of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison --student essay.
• Drifting Blues and Jazz Hues: Duality and & "Double-Consciousness" in the Early Poetry of Langston Hughes--graduate student article
• The Influence of Musical Folk Traditions in the Poetry of Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillen--teaching unit.

Scholarly Articles on Hughes' Poetry

• On 'The Weary Blues' --excerpts from scholarly studies.
• Scholarly Criticism on Hughes--scholarly excerpts.
• Langston Hughes' Harlem Poetry--scholarly paper.
• Langston Hughes's Radical Poetry and the "End of Race"--scholarly article.
• Scott's Langston Hughes Page--abstract summaries of several scholarly articles on Hughes' jazz poetry.

• Zora Neale Hurston:
  
  • Hurston biography--with links.
  • E-texts and Criticism--many links to scholarly articles on Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  • 'Member Youse a Nigger--selection from Mules and Men
  • Sweat--e-text.
  • Narrative Strategy in "Sweat"--helpful student essay
  • Gilded Six-bits--e-text.
  • Harlem Renaissance: Zora Neale Hurston ['Spunk']--e-text.
  • Close Reading of 'Spunk'--helpful comments.
  • Hurston's 'Spunk' and Hamlet-- scholarly article.
  • Black Death--e-text.

• Helene Johnson
  
  • This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance--book review with some biography and criticism.
  • Poems--three e-texts.
  • Summer Matures--e-text.

• James Weldon Johnson:
  
  • Preface--Johnson's introduction to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922).
  • Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson--biography of Johnson, with emphasis on his classical and ragtime/jazz musical background.
  • Introduction--discussion of some themes in Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
  • Art, Literature, and the Harlem Renaissance: The Messages of God's Trombones-- scholarly articles.
  • Passing as autobiography: James Weldon Johnson's 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man' --scholarly article.

• Nella Larsen:
  
  • Larsen's 'Passing' and the Fading Subject--Sullivan's scholarly article
  • The Intertextual Geography of Quicksand--Brickhouse's scholarly article.
  • Foreign Exotic or Domestic Drudge? The African American Woman in Quicksand and Tar Baby--Rayson's scholarly article
  • Domestic violence in the Harlem Renaissance: Remaking the Record in Nella Larsen's Passing and Toni Morrison's Jazz --scholarly article.

• Claude McKay:
  
  • McKay biography--has many links.
  • McKay biography/3 poems
  • Claude McKay and the New Negro of the 1920's --biography and commentary on his poems and novels.
  • If We Must Die--McKay's most famous poem
  • Harlem Shadows--74 poems and biography here
  • 8 McKay poems--from Harlem Shadows.
  • From Home to Harlem (1928), chapter four, "Congo Rose"--e-text
  • Scholarly Criticism on McKay--also links to a biography and to an essay on the Caribbean immigrants' reactions to the violent discrimination against blacks in the U.S.
  • Representations of Jazz in McKay's Novels--scholarly article.  (NOTE to PSU Students:  Full text of this article is available via Axe Library database--valid PSU ID needed.)
  • The Contagious Fever of the Jungle: Primitivism in Claude McKay's Home to Harlem--scholarly article.
  • Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of Home to Harlem--scholarly article. 
  • Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s Inspired Novelist Claude McKay--RealPlayer or QuickTime needed to listen (and see) Haitian professor talking about McKay.
  • Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude McKay and Paule Marshall--scholarly book review.
  • Sonnet vs Sonnet: The Fourteen Lines in African American Poetry --scholarly article on McKay's sonnets.

• Wallace Thurman:
  
  • When the Negro Was in Vogue--selections from Hughes' and Thurman's autobiographies.
  • The Negro Artist and the Racial Manor: Infants of the Spring and the Conundrum of Publicity--scholarly article.
  • Decadence, Sexuality, and the Bohemian Vision of Wallace Thurman--scholarly article.

• Jean Toomer:
  
  • Jean Toomer-- biography, plus links to three poems.
  • Jean Toomer --short introduction to Cane.
  • Scholarly Criticism on Toomer--valuable excerpts.
  • Parallel Studies of American/Afro-American Literature--teaching unit; plantation tradition (Harris and Cable) subverted by Chestnutt and reworked by Toomer in Cane.
  • In the Land of Cotton:  Economics and Violence in Jean Toomer's Cane--Foley's scholarly article.
  • To "Flash White Light from Ebony": The Problem of Modernism in Cane--Kodat's scholarly article.
  • "Always your heart": The "Great Design" of Toomer's Cane--Dow's scholarly article.

• Carl Van Vechten:
  
  • Nigger Heaven and the Harlem Renaissance--scholarly article on this controversial novel.

• General:
  
  • Harlem Renaissance-- good introduction to major and minor writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and the significant issues issues and controversies of the era.
  • African American Phat Library (Bonvibre)--several poems by Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Georgia W. Johnson, Claude McKay, et al. Check dates--some contemporary writers are also listed.
  • Jazz-Poetry and Jazz/Blues Music: 1920s-30s:. Read poetry incorporating jazz elements into its form (some jazz-art included) and listen to audio-files of some great jazz music (requires RealPlayer and speakers).
  • The Survey Graphic Harlem--important black journal from 1920s, with many essays on the Harlem Renaissance; often features the highly regarded writer Alain Locke and others. See, for instance, Jazz at Home--article on meaning of jazz, with Hughes' poems in right column or The Tropics in New York (about West Indian Black immigrants.
  • African American and Francophone Black Intellectuals during the Harlem Renaissance--scholarly article.
  • Racial Violence and Representation: Performance Strategies in Lynching Dramas of the 1920s--Stephens' scholarly article .
  • "And Yet They Paused" and "A Bill to be Passed": Newly Recovered Lynching Dramas by Georgia Douglas Johnson--scholarly article
  • Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism--scholarly book review
  • Heibling's The Harlem Renaissance: The One and the Many--book review by Scruggs; covers MacKay, Hurston, Toomer, Locke, etc.
  • The Blue Devils of Nada: A Contemporary American Approach to Aesthetic Statement--scholarly book review on the "blues hero" and the "blues idiom."
  • "Who Set You Flowin'?: The African-American Migration Narrative--review of scholarly book on Harlem Renaissance migration literature (rural south to urban north and back again). Includes the paintings of William H. Johnson.

"Celestial Eyes" by Francis Cugat

Book cover for The Great Gatsby

"Ernest Hemingway, echoing Gertrude Stein, labeled the generation 'lost,' and catalogued the deaths of many of its illusions, chief among them, perhaps, the death of romantic love." (from Bryant Mangum, course description for "Early American Twentieth Century Literature")

"Here was a new generation . . . dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. . . ." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 1920)

"That's the whole burden of this novel [The Great Gatsby]--the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world so that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald letter, 1924)

• F. Scott Fitzgerald:
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Home Page--wonderful site. See especially Brief Life, Fitzgerald Collection (dust jackets), interesting Facts about Fitzgerald, Writing by Fitzgerald (includes e-texts for a number of his short stories), What's New (more about that famous dust jacket--"celestial eyes"--and creator), and Romantic Egoists (a photo album that includes Zelda's paintings). Includes some information on Zelda also.
  • Fitzgerald Biographies--covers both Scottie and Zelda.
  • More Fitzgerald links.
  • Echoes of the Jazz Age--Fitzgerald's retrospective assessment of the Jazz Age (hard to read, but worthwhile).
  • Bernice Bobs her Hair--e-text
  • Winter Dreams--e-text
  • This Side of Paradise and other stories--e-text
  • May Day--e-text.
  • Heath Guide to F.S. Fitzgerald --study aid for "May Day" and "Babylon Revisited."
  • May Day --commentary.
  • Workers, Maypoles and War --historical information about May Day.
  • The Use of Imagery in Fitzgerald's 'May Day' and Faulkner's 'The Sound and the Fury' --student paper.

Great Gatsby: Study Aids & Student Papers

• Study Questions--has links to other Fitzgerald pages.
• Discussion questions.
• Nick as Flawed Narrator--short, helpful student essay.
• Metaphor Analysis

Great Gatsby: Professional Reviews/Scholarly Articles

• Great Gatsby and Modern Times--helpful lecture notes.
• Fitzgerald.
• Scholarly essay--Mangum reviews the trends in Fitzgerald criticism for the last 75 years. Final paragraphs have interesting comments on Fitzgerald's women characters.
• Celestial Eyes--from Metamorphosis to Masterpiece--interesting essay on the eye symbolism on the original famous book cover and in the novel.
• The Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word --scholarly article.
• From the Dream to the Womb: Visionary Impulse and Political Ambivalence in The Great Gatsby--scholarly essay
• The Migrant in New York: In Pursuit of an American Dream in Rudolph Fisher's "The City of Refuge" and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby--good honors thesis on the missing Black culture in Fitzgerald's jazz age novel.
• Was Gatsby Black?--whether you agree or not, there are interesting observations about Buchanen's attitudes on race.
• Fitzgerald's Radiant World--excellent review/literary biography of Fitzgerald's Gatsby years.
• Gatsby and the Dynamics of Dialogue--Coleman's scholarly article.
• Love and Homicide in the Jazz Age Novel --scholarly article.
• Three Film Versions of The Great Gatsby: A Vision Deferred --good analysis of the movie versions.

• Zelda Fitzgerald:
  
  • Zelda Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age--good introduction
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • The Last Flapper--Mangum essay on Zelda (and on Scotty's "invention" of Zelda).
  • Zelda Fitzgerald: Alice in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales--view some artwork by Zelda.
  • Zelda: By Herself. And more on Zelda's art: Zelda: By Herself (2)--images.
  • Creative Voices--from Sally Cline's book Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise.
  • Vampire to Victim--book review of Cline's Her Voice in Paradise.
  • The Zelda Fitzgerald Gallery--scroll down to the Zelda section; links to many images.
  • Zelda--musical to debut 2002, with a great Chronology of the Fitzgeralds (many links to images)--click on the "Forward" button at bottom of page to continue.
  • Chapter One (excerpt)--from the The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald.
  • Letter--from Zelda to Scottie (another copy of the same letter, with link to their "love story.")

• Ernest Hemingway:
  
  • Hemingway Adventure--click on each box for a different place/stage in Hemingway's life.
  • Picturing Hemingway--this excellent Centennial exhibit presents Hemingway's life and times with many photos.
  • Kansas City Star--where Hemingway learned his famous style.
  • Hemingway-Pfeifer Center--learn more about his second wife and their Arkansas home.
  • The Hemingway Resource Center--good links to Hemigway material.
  • Hemingway's Paris--good description of the literary "lost generation" in Paris.
  • Aftermath: The Lost Generation--read about a different WWI "lost" generation.

Hemingway's Short Fiction and Style:

• Soldier's Home--e-text
• A Clean, Well-lighted Place--e-text
• Hemingway Writing Style--short commentary
• Hemingway as Modernist--short commentary
• Lost Generation in 'Soldier's Home'--short commentary
• Light Symbolism in 'Clean Well-lighted Place'--short commentary
• The Blue Devils of Nada: A Contemporary American Approach to Aesthetic Statement--scholarly book review on the "blues hero" and the "blues idiom;" includes Hemingway's "Clean, Well-lighted Place."
• Nada Philosophy--short commentary
• Mountain Symbolism in 'Kilimanjaro'--short commentary
• Vaudeville Philosophers: "The Killers"--Berman's scholarly article
• Snows of Kilimanjaro Immortalized by Hemingway 'Will Have Melted by 2020' --an ecological update on Hemingway's famous mountain.

Hemingway's In Our Time

• In Our Time--e-text.
• Big Two-Hearted River--e-text
• In Our Time--study questions for each story and section of the collection.
• Theme in Indian Camp--short commentary.
• Plot in 'Three-Day Blow'--short commentary
• Symbolism in 'End of Something'--short commentary
• 'Nick in 'A Way You'll Never Be'--short commentary
• Character in 'In Another Country'--short commentary
• Symbolism in 'Cat in the Rain'--short commentary
• Plot in 'Big Two-Hearted River'--short commentary
• Masculinity in Hemingway's Fiction--short commentary
• Landscapes Real and Imagined in 'Big Two-Hearted River''--essay on historical context, setting, themes
• Hemingway in Seney-- local history used and changed in "Big Two-Hearted River."
• Scared Sick Looking at It: A Reading of Nick Adams--Hannun's scholarly article.
• To Write like Cezanne Painted--deleted section of Big Two-Hearted River covered.
• Hemingway's Debt to Cezanne--Gaillard's scholarly article. View examples of Cezanne's paintings.
• Hemingway's In our Time: Cubism, Conservation, and the Suspension of Identification --scholarly article.

Hemingway's Farewell to Arms:

• Thematic Analysis--helpful commentaries
• Symbolism and Motifs--helpful commentaries
• Writing Style and Structure--helpful commentaries
• Hemingway as Ambulance Driver and Agnes Kurowsky--biographical information

Hemingway's Sun Also Rises

• The Lost Generation--short commentary.
• Code Hero--short commentary
• Robert Cohn in Sun--short commentary
• Jake's Injury in Sun--short commentary
• Symbolism of Policeman's Raised Baton in Sun--short commentary
• Lecture Notes--good questions about modernism, the New Woman, and jazz/race in Sun Also Rises
• Essay Topics/Commentary on Sun Also Rises--very helpful excerpts from literary critics; points out some key theme/issues associated with plot, setting, themes, point-of-view, etc.
• Spanish Fiesta Brava--history/meaning of bullfighting; see also Pamplona and Fiesta of San Fermin
• Hemingway and the Beasts--more about hunting and bullfights, violence and death.
• The Sun Also Rises: A Memory of War--Adair's scholarly article
• 'But Bryant? What of Bryant in Bryan?': The Religious Implications of the Allusion to "A Forest Hymn" in The Sun Also Rises-- scholarly article.
• Expatriate Lifestyle as Tourist Destination: The Sun also Rises and Experiential Travelogues of the Twenties --scholarly article.
• Hemingway among the Bohemians: A Generational Reading of The Sun Also Rises --scholarly article.
• Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and James's The Ambassadors --scholarly article.
• 'How People Go to Hell": Pessimism, Tragedy, and Affinity to Schopenhauer in The Sun also Rises --scholarly article.
• 'In New York it'd mean I was a...': Masculinity Anxiety and Period Discourses of Sexuality in The Sun Also Rises --scholarly article.
• Melancholy Modernism: Gender and the Politics of Mourning in The Sun Also Rises --scholarly article.
• Protestant, Catholic, Jew: The Sun Also Rises --scholarly article.
• Reading around Jake's Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun also Rises --scholarly article.
• Reading The Sun Also Rises: Hemingway's Political Unconscious --scholarly article.
• Who Was That Black Man?: A Note on Eugene Bullard and The Sun Also Rises --scholarly article.
• Yes, That Is a Roll of Bills in my Pocket: The Economy of Masculinity in The Sun also Rises --scholarly article.
• Ernest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism-- interesting review of a book on female sexual dominance in The Sun Also Rises and other Hemingway fiction.
• The 'Whine' of Jewish Manhood: Re-reading Hemingway's Anti-semitism, Reimaging Robert Cohn-- scholarly article.

Hemingway's Other Writings

• Rabbit stew and Blowing Dorothy's bridges: Love, Aggression, and Fetishism in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'--scholarly article.
• Hemingway, Malraux and Spain: For Whom the Bell Tolls and L'espoir--Stoltzfus' scholarly article.

• Gertrude Stein:
  
  • Stein biography--with great links, including to Hemingway, Picasso, et al.
  • Gertrude Stein Online.
  • Biography/poem .
  • Tender Buttons--e-text
  • Three Lives--e-text

Stein: Commentary and Scholarly Articles

• On "Patriarchal Poetry"--valuable excerpts from scholarly articles on Stein's poem.
• An Essay on Patriarch Poetry--scholarly essay.
• The Talking Being Listening: Stein's "Patriarchal Poetry" and the Sound of Reading--scholarly article.
• Contemporary Dada Art: Patriarchal Poetry--a bit of modernist whimsy.
• Gertrude Stein: A Rose is a Rose . . .--helpful comments.
• Tender Buttons (scholarly excerpts)
• Repetition as a stylistic device in the writing of Gertrude Stein--helpful comments, illustrated; Stein and Dr. Seuss??
• Gertrude Stein and the Natural World--scholarly article
• Time Sense No. 2--a number of articles on Stein; more articles listed here.
• Hemingway's Paris: Gertrude Stein--commentary/links to artists.
• Americans in Paris--information on Gertrude and others in Paris.
• Subjectivity and the Aesthetics of National Identity in Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas"--Davis' scholarly article.
• Iteration as a Form of Narrative Control in Stein's "The Good Anna"--Fahy's scholarly article

Stein and Picasso

• A New Perspective--good student essay on the expatriates, especially Stein and her relationship with Picasso.
• Picasso biography (2)
• Cubism--brief explanation of it.
• African Art and Cubism--short essay on the connection.
• Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (alternate copy: Les Demoiselles (2))--the Picasso painting that marks the beginning of modern art. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (commentary). Here is an analysis of Les Demoiselles and a scholarly excerpt on gender and modernism in this painting.
• The New Negro--connection between Picasso's art and the New Negro artists, from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance.
• Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler--note the angular, rectangular, and cone shapes, plus multiple perspectives viewed simultaneously--typical cubist traits.
• Many Picasso images--excellent links to Picasso paintings, arranged by periods.
• If I Told Him--e-text (Gertrude Stein's verbal portrait of Picasso).
• Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein
• Man Ray's photo of Stein and Picasso painting--interesting juxtaposition and interpretation.