The Gay Harlem Renaissance

GAY VOIC OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Christa Schwarz foc on Counte Cullen, Langston Hugh, Cl McKay, and Richard Bce Nugent and explor the wrers' sexually dissint or gay lerary voic. Schwarz lot the poetry of Cullen, Hugh, and McKay the employment of ntemporary gay words, rivg om the Greek disurse of homosexualy and om Walt Whman. By ntrast, Nugent--the only "out" gay Harlem Renaissance artist--portrayed men-lovg-men whout reference to racial ncepts or Whmanque s.

GAY VOIC OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Schwarz argu for ntemporary readgs attuned to the plex relatn between race, genr, and sexual orientatn Harlem Renaissance wrgInclus biblgraphil referenc (pag 187-202) and xGay Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance -- Wrg the Harlem Renaissance: the burn of reprentatn and sexual dissince -- Countée Cullen: "his virtu are many; his vic unheard of" -- Langston Hugh: a "te 'people's poet'" -- Cl McKay "enfant terrible of the Negro Renaissance" -- Richard Bce Nugent: the qut for bety.

Gay Voic of the Harlem Renaissance.

GAY VOIC OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: AN SIGHTFUL AND NVCG NTRIBUTN TO THE FIELD

In Gay Voic of the Harlem Renaissance (2003), Christa Schwarz foc on four of the male wrers rangg nventnaly lerary forms om poet Countée Cullen, to the “niggerati” wrers Langston Hugh and Richard Bce Nugent, and the Jamain-born poet turned bt-sellg novelist Cl McKay.

Eded by Thurman) were evasive about their sexual lived experience, wrg that would register on those not -the-know, avoidg pronouns their love poetry (Cullen, Hugh), and craftg statements about character’s homosexualy that uld be read non-sexual ways (a specialty of McKay’s).

Homosexual sire is not entirely about what bodi do, and longgs for raship loom large wrgs by Hugh and McKay—both of whom were Communist fellow-travelers, if not Communists, both of whom worked on ships and railroads.

The adults McKay’s fictn are mostly homosocial (choosg to work where men are crammed together and there are no women), though there are uncensor glimps of male-male upl both Home and Banjo. She do not expla choosg to wre about Nugent stead of the lear of the “niggerati, ” Wallace Thurman (whose roman-à-clef Infants of the Sprg clud a pretty openly gay Nugent).

Nugent was, perhaps, more homosensual than homosexual, seekg bety more than “sexual stimulatn, ” though he accepted labelg as “gay” (and touched as well as gazed at those he saw as betiful, so perhaps “homoerotic” is a better label…). An irony the tra-Harlem war over appropriate subject-matter is that the “tell--like--is niggerati” occlud their own homosexual relatns/relatnships.