black writers

BLACK WRITERS IN EUROPE : 

BLACK WRITERS IN EUROPE

OUTLINE : 

OUTLINE The lives of the black in Europe The black literature Harlem Renaissance The poetry of the black poets The novels of black writers The black dramatists

THE BLACK WRITERS IN EUROPE : 

THE BLACK WRITERS IN EUROPE The black people are usually despised and humiliated by the white and the relationship between the white and the black is a crucial problem thoroughout Europe where this discrimination is felt intensely. Especially in the postcolonial world, the black are not seen as men but Blackman. This situation forces the black to question his own race and the white race as well in order to get rid of the discrimination between the white and the black.

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For them, what is to be done is to let them be free as the white ones since freedom will bring the rights of the black back. The white always consider themselves superior to the black and in turn the black want to prove at all cost all the richness of their thought, the equal value of their intellect and they have tried their best in order show how talented they are in art and literature as the white who have much more freedom to express their ideas under any circumstances.

BLACK LITERATURE : 

BLACK LITERATURE One of the most important movements that has influenced the black literature is the Civil Rights Movement, by means of which the black writers have found the chance of making their sounds heard. They present the lives of the black in almost each of the literary areas. This movement influenced the Black Art Movement and through this movement, African American literature was begun to be analysed. The African Americans have begun to migrate during the World War II that is also called as the “Great Migration”.

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They mostly have begun to settle in northern cities like Chicago where they found work in factories and other sectors of economy. This situation gave independence to the black community and strengtened the idea of American Civil Right Movement which was very influencial upon the black writers during 1940s, 50s and 60s. Black writers have found the chance to explain their own ideas about racism, segregation and sense of black nationalism just as the black activists who do the same actions to declare their rights.

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE : 

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE The Harlem Renaissance was a period when the black writers gain immense promise and hopefulness as their efforts were noticed and applauded across the United States. It produced the possibility of a new age of acceptance for black writers in America. “Harlem” captures the tension between the need of black expression and the impossibility of that expression because of American society’s oppression of its black population. The renaissance paved the way for black writers to write about many issues such as racism, inequality, etc. In this period, James Weldon Johnson edited The Book of American Negro Poetry in 1922, a gathering of some of the period's most talented poets including Claude McCay and Langston Hughes.

BLACK POETRY : 

BLACK POETRY In the Black Poetry, there are many important black poets who successfully reflect the life of the black in their poems in order for the readers to have a clear idea about the black and their harsh living conditions.

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Walt Whitman was a self-taught poet as he left the school at eleven and educated himself. His one of the important works is “Leaves of Glass” which was published in 1855. It is a visionary book celebrating all creation in nature and it is an open-hearted universal kind of a poem. Mark Twain can be accepted as an other black poet whose pattern of life was the pattern of American frontier community to industrial urbanity from river boots to rail roads, from an aggressive adolescence toward a troubled and powerful maturity. He tried to reflect the American life in a realistic way with his vernacular and direct language. He used regional accents and newly invented words in order to be more effective. Moreover, he related his observation to reality and he usually made use of the male world.

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Emily Dickinson is also another important poet and she is a radical individualist and she loved nature very much and deep inspiration in the words related to natural elements. She found poetic freedom within the confines of a meter familiar to her from earliest childhood within that for she multiplied possibilities by what a later audience called “off” rhymes or “slant” rhymes. In the first half of life, she wrote about her childhood experiences and in the second half, she dealt with the theme of death.

BLACK NOVELISTS : 

BLACK NOVELISTS The Black Novelists are also influencial in the literature of Europe. Tonni Morrison has supported the black Americans and presented the unjust situation of the black women in the country. She used fantasy and mythic elements in his novels by presenting the racial, gender and class distinction. Her most important works are The Bluest Eye and Beloved which tells the story of a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery.

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Lorraine Hansberry, as a ground-shaking playwright of her era, was born in Chicago on May 19,1930 and her parents are well-educated and successful black citizens who publicly fought discrimination against black people. Chicago was a striking example of a city carved into strictly divided black and white neighborhoods. Hansberry’s family became the first to move into a white neighborhood and Hansberry was one of the first playwrights to create realistic portraits of African-American life. She wrote A Raisin in The Sun which presents the life of the black in a clear way and with the help of this work, she became the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway.

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Amiri Baraka can also be accepted as one of the important playwrights of his time and he was born Everett Leroi Jones on October 7, 1934, to Anna Lois Russ Jones, a social worker, and Coyt Jones, a postal supervisor. He transferred to the predominantly African American Howard university after only one year because he felt too much like an outsider at Rutgers. From university, he went into Air Force, where he faced racial oppression. Just as his stint at Howard had taught him about the ‘Negro sickness of self-hatred, his experience in the armed forces taught him about the’ white sickness of hating others.