Countee Cullen | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 18 pages of analysis & critique of Countee Cullen.
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Countee Cullen | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 18 pages of analysis & critique of Countee Cullen.
This section contains 5,214 words
(approx. 18 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Alan R. Shucard

SOURCE: "Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance" and "The Racial Poet," in Countee Cullen, Twayne Publishers, 1984, pp. 1-12, 13-24.

In the following excerpt, Shucard argues that Cullen naturally created race dominated poetry despite his intellectual intent to place artistry above all other concerns.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body….

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging, he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He...

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This section contains 5,214 words
(approx. 18 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Alan R. Shucard
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Critical Essay by Alan R. Shucard from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.