Anthems, Sonnets, and Chants PDF
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Anthems, Sonnets, and Chants Anthems, Sonnets, and Chants Recovering the African American Poetry of the 1930s Jon Woodson The OhiO STaTe UniverSiTy PreSS • COlUmbUS Copyright © 2011 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Woodson, Jon. Anthems, sonnets, and chants : recovering the African American poetry of the 1930s / Jon Woodson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8142-1146-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8142-1146-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8142-9245-7 (cd) 1. American poetry—African American authors—History and criticism. 2. Depres- sions—1929—United States. 3. Existentialism in literature. 4. Racism in literature. 5. Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936—Influence. I. Title. PS153.N5W66 2011 811'5209896073—dc22 2010022344 This book is available in the following editions: Cloth (ISBN 978-0-8142-1146-5) CD-ROM (ISBN 978-0-8142-9245-7) Cover design by Laurence Nozik Text design by Jennifer Shoffey Forsythe Type set in Adobe Minion Pro Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FoR Lynn CuRRieR smith Woodson Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi introduction 1 Chapter 1 the Crash of 1929 and the Great depression: three Long Poems 15 Chapter 2 existential Crisis: the sonnet and self-Fashioning in the Black Poetry of the 1930s 69 Chapter 3 “Race War”: African American Poetry on the italo-ethiopian War 142 A Concluding note 190 Appendix: Poems 197 notes 235 Works Cited 253 index 271 Acknowledgments My thanks to Dorcas Haller—professor, librarian, and chair of the Library Department at the Community College of Rhode Island—for finding the books that I could not find. Carol Doreski sent me many invaluable books. I thank Alicia Catlos for digitally transcribing the unpublished anthology of thirties poems which I assembled as an important part of my research. I am deeply grateful for Amritjit Singh’s longstanding interest in my work. Without the help of Jean Currie Church, chief librarian of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard Uni- versity, this project would not have been possible. Two grants from the Howard University–Sponsored Faculty Research Program in the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Education greatly furthered my research and writing. The students of my African American Poetry classes and of my graduate seminars at Howard University were instrumental in helping me develop my understanding of African American poetry and in locating poems that would otherwise never have come to light. Libraries that were generous include the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America (at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study), the Marcus Christian Collection (at the University of New Orleans), and the John Hay Library (at Brown Uni- versity). My affiliate privileges at the Johns Hopkins University’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library are greatly appreciated. I am deeply obliged to the anonymous reader, whose patient, per- severing, and discerning comments about my earlier drafts helped shape the final form of this book. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewer of the final draft of the manuscript and acknowledge the many ix x | Acknowledgments benefits of that reading. The guidance and support of Sandy Crooms, my editor at The Ohio State University Press, immeasurably sustained me while I wrote this book.
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