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Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance

            The Harlem Renaissance was a very influential time period that took place in the United States during the 1920s. It was a period of outstanding literary creativity because of the many talented and overacheiving artists that contributed their hardwork that sometimes went on to earn many awards. Among these hardworking artists is a man named Countee Cullen who without knowing it had a major impact on this time period although his ideas usually differed with others.
             Countee Cullen was born Countee Leroy Porter on May 30,1903 in Louisville Kentucky and later raised by his grandmother in New York City. After her death in 1918 when Cullen was 15 Reverend Frederick Cullen and Carolyn Cullen unofficially adopted him. The Reverend lived in Harlem, New York where he was the minister of Salem M.L. Church one of the biggest congregations of Harlem. The Reverend Cullen had helped formed the National Urban League and served as president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (Goetz 780).
             Cullen's biological mother never tried to contact him until he became famous in the 1920's.while in school he won a citywide poetry contest and then saw his stanzas widely reprinted. He later won several other poetry contests as a young man in high school and throughout college. Among the prizes won by Cullen there were Phi Beta Kappa honors and the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize. This specifically encouraged him to pursue a literary career. (Cayne 210).
             When Cullen finally graduated from New York University in1925 his first collections of poems, COLOR, was published. The book was carefully written in a traditional style and celebrated black beauty but denounced the effects of racism. This book also included "Heritage" which was one of his most famous poems. While attending Harvard he worked as an assistant editor for Opportunity magazine where his column, The Dark Tower, boosted his literacy reputation.


Essays Related to Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance

1. HARLEM RENAISSANCE

... the Harlem Renaissance) emerged toward the end of World War I in 1918, blossomed in the mid- to late 1920's, and then faded in the mid- 1930's. The Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that mainstream publishers and critics took African American literature seriously, and African American literature and arts grasped attention from the nation at large. The Harlem Renaissance emerged amid social and intellectual upheaval in the African American community in the early twentieth century. A number of factors laid the groundwork for the ... oral tradition, and the problems with writing for...

  • Word Count: 925
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance The prose and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance was not as optimistic as the art movement of the same period. The writing of the period was usually very political. Much of it was talking about the bad conditions in which the blacks had to live in and all of the oppression they had to put with. In Countee Cullen's Incident, he is recalling an incident in Baltimore when he was called a racial term. Langston Hughes's Dream ... isn't optimistic, but is more of a prophecy of things to come. Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay all influenced me as an aspiring writer...

  • Word Count: 258
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Harlem Renaissance

... cultural movement became known as "The New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance elevated the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage. The main factors contributing to the development of the Harlem Renaissance were African-American urban migration, trends toward experimentation throughout the country, and the rise of radical African-American intellectuals. The Harlem Renaissance has long been considered by many ... . Joh...

  • Word Count: 824
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Literature in the Harlem Renaissance

... a lot of his writing expressed how hard black life was, "The Weary Blues" written in 1926. He published an essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," where he introduced to the people black literary identity. Another writer of the time that wrote poems about black experience was Countee Cullen. A lot of his writing was about the tradition and culture in African life. There were also female writers that represented ... and attention. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance was not limited to the United States but after it ended writers like Hughes and Cullen traveled to Europe to ...

  • Word Count: 2368
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. White Influences of the Harlem Renaissance

... writers and artists came during that decade, tooWhite's efforts on behalf of such writers as Langton Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude Mckay, and Nella Larsen were important to their careers" (Huggins 154). As we can see, Whites wrote two novels to promote the Harlem Renaissance and support blacks to express their thoughts. Therefore, the relationship between black intellectuals and white intellectuals were important, and whites' roles in the Harlem Renaissance were significant, too. Today, Harlem Renaissance ... is in the history and might be forgotten, however people still ... ...

  • Word Count: 1512
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. The Movement of the Harlem Renaissance

... in cities, "home" is no longer always managed by white society alone. In her article, she explains the similarities and differences between the Jewish and the blacks of the Lower East Side and Harlem. In the article, The Black Church and the Harlem Renaissance, Jon Michael Spencer explains the unhappiness and disagreement of black people towards the Christian church. He discusses Harry V. Richardson's views on this matter by saying "Richardson sarcastically argued that most ... cocktail" (Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance). He quotes Langston Hughes' comment on this movement, "...

  • Word Count: 876
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography

7. Harlem Renaissance

... the Harlem movement was over. But the writers of the Harlem Renaissance started out to do something about this desolate situation in America and they expressed their point of view with the help of literature. But in the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance, the people felt intimidated by the new restrictions and the fact that restaurants and schools were segregated and that workers only found work in the two worst categories, domestic - and personal service and unskilled labor, made the ... that there was no hope for an elevator boy to get rid of this miserable life. Another impression of...

  • Word Count: 4309
  • Approx Pages: 17
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

8. The effect of the Harlem Renaissance on American Literature

... discover and reveal the beauty which prejudice and caricature have overlaid." His essays also proposed "smashing" all the social and racial impediments that hindered black achievement. The diverse literary expression of the Harlem Renaissance ranged from the fiction of James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude Mckay which described the reality of black life in America and the struggle for racial identity. Mckay also presented glimpses of the glamour and the grit of Harlem life in Harlem Shadows. Countee Cullen used ... both African and European images to explore the African roots of...

  • Word Count: 1369
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

9. Poets of the Harlem Renaissance

... . Poetry has never celebrated pride in African-American culture more than that period in the 20"s. The reasons behind the outburst of artists, ways in which the written word was expressed, and the artist's lasting affect on today show how much the Harlem Renaissance was one of the most brilliant artistic movements in history. Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our ... poets that stand out in the Harlem Renaissance for writing about reality for the African-American. The most famous of those was Langston Hughes. He wrote of the difficu...

  • Word Count: 876
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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