Harlem Renaissance Literature Flashcards

Grade 11 · English · Flashcards

Key authors, works, concepts, and historical context of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement.

Flashcards

Harlem Renaissance

An African American cultural and literary movement in Harlem, New York (1920s–1930s) that celebrated Black identity, art, music, and literature during a period of racial oppression

Langston Hughes

Poet and central voice of the Harlem Renaissance; blended jazz/blues rhythms with social commentary; major works: 'The Weary Blues,' 'I, Too,' 'Harlem (A Dream Deferred)'

Zora Neale Hurston

Novelist and anthropologist; 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937) is her masterwork; collected African American folklore in the South; rediscovered in the 1970s

Claude McKay

Jamaican-American poet and novelist; 'If We Must Die' (1919) is a defiant sonnet against racial violence; wrote 'Home to Harlem' (1928)

Countee Cullen

Harlem Renaissance poet known for classical forms; 'Heritage' asks what Africa means to an American-born Black man; 'Incident' depicts a childhood encounter with racism

Jean Toomer

Author of the experimental 'Cane' (1923), blending poetry and prose to depict Black life in Georgia and Washington D.C.; a forerunner of literary modernism

Alain Locke

Philosopher and first African American Rhodes Scholar; edited 'The New Negro' (1925), the defining anthology of the Harlem Renaissance

W.E.B. Du Bois

Scholar, activist, and NAACP co-founder; coined 'double consciousness' in 'The Souls of Black Folk' (1903); edited The Crisis magazine

Double Consciousness

Du Bois's term for the sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others — the tension between being Black and being American

The New Negro (1925)

Alain Locke's landmark anthology that collected Harlem Renaissance literature and art, serving as the movement's cultural manifesto

Great Migration

The movement of roughly 6 million African Americans from the South to northern and western cities (1910–1970), creating the conditions for the Harlem Renaissance

Fire!! (1926)

A radical literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance, co-founded by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, which pushed boundaries on race, sexuality, and artistic form

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hurston's 1937 novel following Janie Crawford's quest for love and self-discovery; celebrated for its use of Black Southern dialect and feminist themes

Opportunity Magazine

The Urban League's literary magazine that, along with The Crisis, was a key publication platform for Harlem Renaissance writers and sponsored literary contests

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