Charles T. Davis lecture, "Summing Up: The Enduring Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance," at the University of Iowa, August 1970

Speaker 1: The following is the last in a series of nine lectures by Charles T. Davis delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro-American Culture held on the campus of the University of Iowa. The Institute held August 9th through the 21st focused on the culture of Black America, commonly referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. In this recording, Charles T. Davis Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, speaks on Summing Up: The Enduring Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. Charles T. Davi...: This is the last session, a concluding session on the Harlem Renaissance. And for that particular reasons, our conclusions are still amorphous. I approach the ideas that I present here with a certain tentativeness. Obviously these will be subject to change. Change even here, as a consequence of discussion. The Harlem Renaissance died, we are told, at one of several dates, 1929, when the Great Depression arrived and the crash of the stock market, 1932, where there are certain works that seem to meet to mark the end of an era, or 1935, when the Harlem riot indicated to many people, definitely that the gay Harlem of all was dead. Charles T. Davi...: One can, I think support any one of the three dates or another date as a matter of fact. As I have suggested to you, I favored 1932. This is because I see, in the publication of Hughes, Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play in Verse, a new preoccupation, a new tendency, a new development, a new kind of commitment suggesting that in the period of the '30s, we will approach the Proletarian Era; that is to last until the 1940s and the war. There are other things too. I would suggest that Hughes writing after Scottsboro Limited, The ways of White Folks. We have something which is very different from the kind of fiction he had written before, in Not Without Laughter. Charles T. Davi...: It seems to be also useful to employ Wallace Thurman's parody, Infants of the Spring in 1932, suggesting a kind of objectivity, a kind of criticism of the inadequacies of the Harlem Renaissance, and of the movement. That would seem to be apparent only to one, talking about a movement that was dying, a movement that was declining. At which time we remember, we see the inadequacies rather than remember the strengths, but even the state, is of course not a clean date. There are works by Zora Neale Hurston, who with typical perversity, writes works in the Renaissance tradition, well after 1932. You understand, no date really in this way is clean. Charles T. Davi...: But Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934 and Their Eyes Were Watching God, seemed to be in many ways typical Renaissance works, ill written in this way, beratedly. It just took her a long time to come up from Eatonville, Florida. Cullen, after The Black Christ and Other Poems, which would be thoroughly within the Renaissance tradition, moves, I think, to a greater reliance upon Western culture. The culture that we've already documented with some care, which we understand that Cullen admired so much, perhaps indeed, in terms of his originality as an artist, too much. But The Medea and Other Poems, which appears in the mid 1930s would seem too, to be fall from the Renaissance tradition in a rather different way; with I think, a loss of a certain amount of originality, which we saw in the Renaissance works. Charles T. Davi...: For those people who take a kind of political view of the Harlem Renaissance, the convenient date of course is 1935. In which we have the first of a series of Harlem riots. In which we can say definitely, that the gay, delightful, happy, syncopated Harlem is now finally dead. The physical vanishing of the old Harlem. The Harlem of good spirit. And I should say, just another word about it's vanishing, because it never returns. And the 1935 marks the end because after that, comes the really bad battering, which it received during the depression. And then the war. And though other areas in America recovered from the war, Harlem never did, really. Charles T. Davi...: And then in the 1950s, a new and strange plague, the plague of drugs. And so we seem to be sinking even greater, more deeply into nightmare in Harlem. And so we've not yet I think, ever recovered any of the gay Harlem that we remember from the 1920s. As I am here, intoning over the demise of the Harlem Renaissance, I'm always reminded of that great story about Mark Twain, who had heard a report of his own death and came to the conclusion that the announcement was somewhat premature. It is of course, premature because no real movement of this kind dies, obviously in this way. Charles T. Davi...: The movement lives on, particularly in those original talents that continue to function in an original way. And I'm thinking, especially of Hughes and McKay. I'm thinking obviously in this instance, not so much of that continued popularity in America, but of the grip popularity, which developed in Europe. The great interest, which was exhibited there in the works of Hughes and McKay. We've talked just a little bit, and conceivably Mr. Cook will talk more, about the fact that certain French West Africans became deeply interested in the work of Hughes and McKay. And more generally of the Harlem Renaissance. Senghor, of course, the fine poet, I should refer to him as poet-politician, because he is also president, is he not of the of the Republic? And Senghor, Cesaire and others built on conceptions, which they acquired for the Renaissance, developing in Paris chiefly and in other centers, Dakar, and others. And along the Ivory Coast. Charles T. Davi...: We find the development of the conception of Negritude, a phenomenon of the 1930s, coming immediately, the decade after the Harlem Renaissance itself. And the flowering of West African culture. Well, as we all know, a contribute in element to yet another Renaissance, and that is the one that emerges in the 1960s. And so, in a sense, we have a remarkably precise parabola, if I can use that geometric term. And as you know, all students of English love to use the mathematical or scientific phrases that they just barely understand. In which we have the development of the conception of the Renaissance of the 1920 days, and then their exportation into Europe, into Africa in the 1930s and the 1940s. Charles T. Davi...: And then at the end of the 1950s, a return in a rather different form of what we have exported to contribute to the development of a new set of writers that round, LeRoi Jones, Sonia Sanchez and others. This has happened so often in American literature that I don't need to really document it, but let me offer just one other example of this kind. And one just as dramatic, I think, is this one that I'm sketching for you. We find it the work of Edgar Allen Poe, especially the specific form of his decade in romanticism. Something that was extraordinary. And I'm thinking of Poe especially after 1831. The Poe who developed the ideas that he first launched in The City in the Sea. And developed further in Dream-Land and other works of that time. Charles T. Davi...: These and there is obviously in America, no immediate tradition that stems from Poe. He arrives at a dead end when he dies in 1849. The dominant tradition, as we all know, was the transcendental one coming out of New England. And they, in general had a certain amount of scorn for Poe. Emerson called him the jingle man, but the French didn't call him a jingle man. Baudelaire treated him seriously. So obviously, in Poe's work, a new conception for the position of the artist, the artist of maker; saw in some of his effects, revolutionary things that he could use himself. And so in the tradition, beginning with Baudelaire and extending from Baudelaire, through Melanie to Valerie, that great tradition of French symbolist poetry. That marks as I've indicated to you, the difference between 19th century and modern poetry.We have the continuation of Poe's influence. Charles T. Davi...: And from the French, we have at the turn of the century, in the first decade of the 20th century, Pound, and Eliot, and others learning from the French. We read the early poems of Eliot and they sound very much like [inaudible] and the continued influence in Baudelaire in Eliot's work. And we see obviously coming back to us and influence the influence that began with Poe. And so this kind of circuit or development is fascinating to watch. It's precisely the kind of thing that we have here in the Harlem Renaissance. Charles T. Davi...: I should deal now to some extent with what I might call the permanent achievement of the Renaissance. And there are many things that might be said. And I don't intend to be definitive in the statement. I suppose, the first achievement that seems to me to be important is the fact that it happened, that it represented, as I suggested to you earlier. A coming of age. This was a Black movement, a movement of not a development, of not a single writer, but of many writers, cooperating with each other. Establishing a major tendency in the development of art. And so this fact in itself, is important and should be remembered. Charles T. Davi...: The second thing that I want you to remember, is the fact that this is a true Renaissance. And it's a term, as I've suggested to you accurately applied. It's the Renaissance, the way in which we have artists realizing finally, the potential that has existed in their own halfly articulated culture. And I'm speaking of those elements that exist in the folk culture that had existed in a reasonably unformed, undeveloped state for Black people in the 19th century. It was in the 1920s that this potential was first realized, when models were taken from the folk art sermon, when spirituals, jazz, and the blues, not only gave us a unique experience in music of the 1920s, to which we wrote little respect, but presented to literary people, and to visual artists, models, that will be interesting to follow. We've, I think, followed with some care, the influence of these models upon Langston Hughes, in Hughes's jazz poems. The poems you recall that Cullen didn't like. Charles T. Davi...: Also let me refer to the use of the folk narrative. I have, unfortunately, not done as much as I should with how the folk narrative has been used in the Renaissance. It's probably because it's only Neale Hurston who uses it best. These narratives, these tales that she'd collected. She was an anthropologist. And, she had an unerring ear for these exotic and marvelous tales that she'd picked up in Florida. Charles T. Davi...: But the folk narrative too, is the part of that rich tradition, which was touched upon in the Harlem Renaissance. I must hasten to say that, not all of these things were exploited with the same success. It seems to me in Henrietta Hock, I think has made this point very well, though, perhaps she didn't really intend to make it by saying that she didn't find actually in the Harlem Renaissance, any fine, any well-developed attitude toward music. In a very real sense of what was genuinely original in the music. That seems to be a very perceptive statement on the part of Mrs. Huck, because it seems to me that we do not find used, exploited with the kind of success that we find that you say of the folk art sermon, the jazz elements in the Harlem Renaissance. Charles T. Davi...: And this is not to occur until I think the 1960s, when we have artists then looking very seriously at jazz and not the elements in jazz, which make it unique. And that element of course, is improvisation. One must hasten to say that a great support for this attitude toward improvisation, once again comes from where? Europe. In the no plot novel [inaudible] and people of that kind, who were trying to get out of the novel, the restricting structure of the narrative form; which they had encountered ended. And this seems to me, sustains and supports the interest in improvisation that we find artists, very sophisticated artists. Though, he represents himself as not being one like LeRoi Jones, looking at the materials of his own tradition. Charles T. Davi...: But I think the realization of the importance of these jazz elements, is something that has been right quite recent and something which the Renaissance did not know or discover. The Renaissance was better in handling more traditional folk elements, rather than the complicated jazz. The mixture of popular elements in our culture, as well as the continuation of a tradition, which is only partly perhaps a folk tradition. I want to say too, and you should remember, the Renaissance as a true cultural movement. And David Driskell is the one who's brought that fact home better than anyone else. And as a true cultural movement, as all through cultural movements. We find an involvement in a true cultural movement, of all the arts, not a single art. Charles T. Davi...: And as David Driskell has demonstrated, we are as involved as deeply in the visual arts as we have been, obviously in literature. As we look back over the 19th century say, which is the century in a sense, I know best, though, I won't tolerate any remarks from you about being a 19th century man. We see this correlation of the arts. One thinks especially of Impressionism. On which on one level we have here, the term received the initial definition in the visual arts, not in literature. It seems to be primarily the influence of the Harlem Renaissance begins as a literary one. It varies in terms of a cultural movement, but the definition there of Impressionism, it seems to me comes all with that great [inaudible] in 1860s in Paris, the exhibition there of the Impressionist painters. Charles T. Davi...: And then we have the development in the 19th century after that, of things in the other arts moving both to literature and then moving to music. And one would see obviously, as a high point in the Impressionism in literature, say perhaps what they work with, someone like Mallarmé and the manipulation of sensation there in the sense of creating something new by dealing with sensations that come to the real world. And one would see is obviously in terms of music, perhaps the great Impressionist [inaudible]. So these are things that one should examine at depth. I would like to see the time when a university is in studying movements, will go at a movement on multiple levels at which the movement in fact exists. Because it seems to me that one knows very little about Impressionism, If one simply knows Impressionism as a literary technique, that's practiced possibly say in Henry James, or is in Stephen Crane. Charles T. Davi...: We see evidences of the Impressionists technique. If you don't know anything about the art, don't only think about the music. But this is all to say, this elaborate aside, that we have many things developing in the Renaissance. David Driskell has talked with great precision about the visual arts. And we've had Henrietta Hock talk about the music. And this, as I've suggested, it's perhaps that part of the Renaissance achievement, which seems more amorphous than any other, the music, since we were not then really up to using or assessing the experimentation that occurred in jazz, or perhaps even in the blues in the 1920s. Charles T. Davi...: Now another prominent part of our achievement. This is a kind of wake, as I look over what we've done to try to note some things that I want you to remember, even though you've forgotten the particular intonation of my voice, It's the positive definition of Blackness that we find in the Renaissance. It's almost too obvious. And the positive definition is aligned to the discovery of a subterranean cultural tradition, which I've just described. And that positive definition emphasizes the uniqueness of the Black contribution to world culture. Charles T. Davi...: And the form that it took in the 1920s was one to suggest that the Black contribution was somehow more rhythmical, If you will. At the same time, more mystical. Someone here earlier used the term timelessness for it. I don't really quite know what that means timelessness, but I suspect I know how the term got to be used. It's a culture that does pay little attention to time. It is a culture obviously that we are dealing with here that thinks in terms of art types. And all I need to do is to refer to Toomer, in this respect. Remember the dealing may use of archetypes in that way. It's also a culture which is more central, more reliant on the experiences of the senses. Than upon the things that come out of the mind and things that come out of the intellect. Charles T. Davi...: These are all characteristics that are associated with Blackness. The definition of Blackness. I want you to remember that because white is going to give a very different definition of Blackness. One, which is in terms of sociology, one in terms of economic determinism and Wright would seem to mock of decided break with a Renaissance tradition. Because as we look at... I'll talk about that a little later. It is work we fail to see immediately any continuity at all between Wright and the Renaissance writers. The Black writers to come, not to forget the achievement of the Renaissance. And one of the ways of measuring permanence of course, is to measure, influence, speculate about influence. And I suppose the work that most immediately, the great novel that most immediately comes to mind as being related to the Renaissance would be Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain which appeared in 1953. Charles T. Davi...: Now the data I think is significant because what we have here in the death of the Renaissance in 1932, or there about, we have, I think the cutting off of the central lines of continuity here in American literature and American Black literature. And the literature that is written between '32 and the '50s does not continue the particular lines of development that we had in the '20s. But in Baldwin's novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain 1953, once again, we find the sorts of themes and the kind of approach to reality that you remember from Toomer's Cane. Charles T. Davi...: We confront the [inaudible] characters who seem to relate to each other in a timeless world. Now Baldwin's world very clearly, is much more precise than Toomer's suggested world, because as you remember, Baldwin talks in terms of two worlds. One, the sorted reality of 135th Street Lenox Avenue, where that storefront church, whose name, I can't remember now, Church of the Fire Baptized, wasn't it? Yes. The Church of the Fire Baptized was located, but that's only one reality. The second reality is biblical reality. Old Testament reality, because Gabriel is a prophet, in the Old Testament sense. With the deficiencies of such prophets by the way, too. Charles T. Davi...: And so we do have now the archetypes functioning here, we do sense in the little bit that we get, of the country of North Carolina. The sense of the hills and the valleys and the mountains of the Old Testament. Beautifully done in Go Tell It on the Mountain. And the model for this kind of thing comes out of the Renaissance. This is the technique that we've seen developing in Toomer. But the one that he uses here, similarly, it seems to me, we can discover in another novel and another great novel coming out of the early 50s. It's of course, Ellison's Invisible Man, 1952. And he relates, not so much to Toomer, as he relates to Hughes, as he uses, as people have pointed out already, the experimentation in jazz as a serious art form. Charles T. Davi...: When I said, you remember, that the Renaissance people didn't really exploit this in any kind of serious way. I had, of course, in mind, what Ellison did with it. In, especially, the prologue of Ellison's Invisible Man. The use obviously of jazz motifs there. And we see that the jazz motif there is implied in a quite extraordinary in virtual away. But once again, let me say the model for it comes out of Hughes, The Weary Blues that I cited for you earlier, read parts to you earlier. In which Hughes, not only tries to capture with some measure of accuracy, the nuances and the rhythm of the blues, but he attempts to remember to use these motifs, to state a physical and spiritual condition of man. And that's precisely obviously what Ellison is up to too, in the prologue of Invisible Man. Charles T. Davi...: He goes beyond Hughes in the sense of exploiting also jazz motifs to give structure to the novel. That's another matter. And I obviously don't intend to go into that if I expect to catch my plane for Pennsylvania tomorrow morning. But the person who comes immediately after, of course, the Renaissance, the great writer, is Richard Wright. And I have to spend a little time with him. Uncle Tom's Children was hailed as a new departure. And so it was, it was held in pot, I think, wildlings or enthusiastically, because it represented too many critics who remembered, and by that time, perhaps few dead. Charles T. Davi...: It represented a complete break with the Renaissance tradition in 1938, and it was more revealing. And if you read Uncle Tom's Children, then the fact that certain particular techniques are used in it, in a way very different from the way they were used, in a typical Renaissance work. Wright among other things, had a tin ear. He was a remarkable writer and he's not the first writer to have a tin ear for music. And he does use effort to define the character of the boys, for example, in the first story, in other terms music, you remember the way he uses the songs there. But it's the way in which it's used. Those songs in a sense, indicate to us a kind of undisturbed innocence on the part of these boys, which exists in defiance of a much more complicated, much more ruthless, much more terrible world. Charles T. Davi...: Now, in one way, this is adverted, obviously what the Renaissance has done. Because what the Renaissance has told us in using musical references of just the kind that Wright uses, that these are innovations as Toomer suggests, to a deeper, richer, larger, more comprehensive world than the superficial world, in which we live. I'm simply pointing to that inversion and the use of a literary technique, which suggests the complete break that Wright represents here. Which becomes obviously more clear really in Native Son. But our story, interestingly enough, doesn't end here. Because in the 1950s, something happened to Richard, Wright. I suppose really, what would be prefatory to this is Wright's departure from America in 1947. In which may I say, one part of Wright's career terminated, except for the publication of things like Lawd Today. Charles T. Davi...: But it was in Paris that Wright discovered Présence Africaine, well participated in the founding of Présence Africaine. He discovered French West African writers. He discovered European writers like Camus and Sartre, deeply interested in the developments in Africa. And he was forced, as a consequence of this, to reassess something. His attitudes toward Africa and for him, the European experience was mocked, especially by the discovery of Africa. And in this particular way, Wright returns to one of the things that occurred, of course, in the Harlem Renaissance. Because of the discovery of Africa, of course, was very willed, Cullen, Hughes, McKay, Locke, and all of the participants in the Harlem Renaissance. Charles T. Davi...: And what we've seen is that Africa as such would disappear, as a force of the mainstream of Black writing until the 1950s, when the contact was reestablished. And it was reestablished in a very different way. You remember, I described in much detail, the kind of interest that the Renaissance had in Africa. The interest that they displayed in Africa in the 1950s, is very different this time, because Wright became particularly interested in the political assertion occurring in Africa. The development of the new African States and the book, Black Power, which I hope some of you who have read, is devoted obviously to this emergence in Ghana. Charles T. Davi...: And this represents actually, for us, a model for the kind of interest that there would be in Africa in the 1950s beginning, once again, as a more political interest in Africa. And then gradually those things that were emphasized in the Renaissance, those things begin to reassert themselves once more, as we become deeply involved with African culture; African social structure, African social institutions, things of that kind. I may say, too, that the Harlem Renaissance, offered a model in terms of politics, too. I say a model in terms of politics, because as I demonstrated to you, in one of the lectures earlier, the Renaissance idea served a political necessity. And though, obviously the writers in the Renaissance did not have politics in mind when they were creating the shape of their creative endeavor. Charles T. Davi...: And the form of that creative achievement, constituted the best response to that vicious and extended attack upon the Black man in America, which began with Thomas Dixon's, the Leopard Spots. And continued through the early part of the 20th century. I suggested to you then, that the most adequate response to that whole tradition of rhetorical scholars, a half-prophet, half-scalawag, beginning, you see with Dixon and continued [inaudible]. The best response did not come from Du Bois, or from Washington, or from any of the periodicals devoted to making it. But from the fact that the Harlem Renaissance itself, the cultural achievement that the Harlem Renaissance. I say that constitutes the political model, because it seems to me that something that ought to be remembered at the 1960s, where obviously the political necessity seemed to be somehow upper bowls and not subordinate. And I would, in my lecture, you remember my controversial lecture of [inaudible]. I am suggesting that these factors need to be held in some sort of equilibrium, if we value the artistic achievement, which we get from it. Charles T. Davi...: The final thing I must say, in speaking of the Harlem Renaissance, is to speak less now with the Renaissance and to speak more of Harlem. It becomes a kind of nightmare alley in Harlem and greatly paining those of us. And I've lived long enough to know a little bit of the Harlem when it was not what it is now. Well, actually what it is now, is somewhat better than it was what it was in the 1950s. But what it is now is certainly bad enough. Harlem does change, and the changes, it seems to be a best documented by Langston Hughes. Charles T. Davi...: I want to read to you, not Hughes's bitterest poem on this change, because this is not a bitter of poem, it's just the kind of objective record that you remember seeing in Hughes earlier. Here it is in Lenox Avenue Mural that Hughes tells us something about the shifts that occur in Harlem, using, you remember, those colloquial rhythms that he mastered so well. We find them beautifully employed here. Those rhythms that obviously came into prominence at the time, initially of the Renaissance, when it became respectable to use them. Speaker 3: Good morning, daddy. I was born here, he said. Watched Harlem grow until colored folks spread from river to river, across the middle of Manhattan, out of Penn Station, dark tenth of a nation. Planes from Puerto Rico, and holds of boats, chico, up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica. In buses marked New York, from Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, to Harlem, Brooklyn the Bronx. But most of all, to Harlem dusky sash across Manhattan. I've seen them come dark, wondering, wide-eyed, dreaming, out of Penn Station. But the trains are late. The gates open, yet there're bars at each gate. What happens to a dream deferred? Daddy, ain't you heard? Charles T. Davi...: Ain't you heard? And in that is a threat, ain't you heard. Now what might happen, and which suggests obviously what has happened here in Harlem. At the same time, there's another poem. And this one by Gwendolyn Brooks, which seems to me to define much better than I can do it, what a cultural movement can do, and the influence that art has upon man. To state the principle that I value a great deal. And one that you should understand in coming to terms with the enduring influence of the Renaissance. This is the poem which is entitled, The Chicago Picasso, the occasion for this, of course, it's the setting up with the blessing of Mayor Daley in Congress of that larger statue of Picasso there in Chicago. Charles T. Davi...: At the time, that was a symphony orchestra playing and Ms. Brooke says that the mayor smiles and 50,000 see. Well, she raises very important questions to me. And I went you to listen to these very carefully indeed. Charles T. Davi...: Does man love art? Man visits art, but squirms. Art hurts. Art urges voyages. And it is easier to stay at home. The nice beer ready. In common rooms We belch, or sniff, or scratch. Are raw. But we must cook ourselves, and style ourselves for art, who is requiring courtesan. We squirm. We do not hug the Mona Lisa. We may touch or tolerate an astounding fountain, or a horse and rider. At most, another lion. Observed the tall cold flower, which is innocent and as guilty, as meaningful and as meaningless as any other flower in the Western field. Charles T. Davi...: The point is clear that she makes here. She suggests that art has a profound effect, upon the shaping of our destinies, the way we shape our lives. And what I would propose to you, is that the art of the Harlem Renaissance has had a profound effect, on the way, one; Negros look at their own destiny. And on the way, two; Which America in general interprets and looks at the destiny of the American Black. I suppose, in some ways, the real tribute to a movement of this kind, it's the fact that it still lives in some form. And that of course is true, because the real tribute to the Harlem Renaissance, is the art of the 1960s. Charles T. Davi...: Thank you. Speaker 1: That was Charles T. Davis, Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University with Summing Up: The Enduring Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, a lecture delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro-American Culture. This is the final in a series of nine lectures by Professor Davis on the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. This presentation was recorded by the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa.