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21 - Redefining the art of poetry

from PART II - AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2011

By
Opal Moore
Edited by
Maryemma Graham  and
Jerry W. Ward, Jr
Maryemma Graham
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Jerry W. Ward, Jr
Affiliation:
Dillard University, New Orleans
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Summary

In June 1926 W. E. B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes addressed two different audiences in two different venues on the subject of Art, especially the relationship of Art to Race. In his lecture, “The Criteria of Negro Art,” Du Bois, speaking to members of the NAACP, defined the terms by which he expected Negro American art production to further the organization's radical, reformist sociopolitical goals. “Beauty,” said Du Bois, “[must] set the world right.” In other words, Art is Beauty, but Beauty is contingent – the conditions under which Beauty may be appreciated must be created. Art must first be artful. In his 1926 essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” which appeared in The Nation, Hughes attempted to redefine the position of the artist in relation to his art, his identity, and his community. Hughes decried the debased condition of American audiences, black and white, who routinely applied racial criteria to affirm or dismiss the artistic accomplishments of Negro artists – a condition he believed was certain to negatively affect the artistic values of the artists themselves. Hughes's famous declaration is equal parts manifesto and exasperation:

We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of African American Literature , pp. 497 - 531
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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