In the following essay excerpt, Baker asserts that with Cane, Toomer transcended black Ameri-

can literature of the 1920s to present a "thorough delineation of the black situation. "

William Stanley Braithwaite's "The Negro in American Literature," concludes with the rhapsodic assertion that "Cane is a book of gold and bronze, of dusk and flame, of ecstasy and pain, and Jean Toomer is a bright morning star of a new day of the race in literature." Written in 1924, Braithwaite's statement reflects the energy and excess, the vibrancy and hope of a generation of young black authors who set out in the 1920s to express their "individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame." They were wooed by white patrons; they had their work modified beyond recognition by theatrical producers, and they were told time and again precisely what type of black American writing the public would accept. Some, like...