Today we had a test to wrap up our unit on the Harlem Renaissance. We were given a new poem we had never seen before, which was “America” by Claude McKay. Here is a link to the poem:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44691/america-56d223e1ac025
We had 45 minutes to answer two questions, 1) What does “America” mean to McKay? and 2) How does McKay engage with prevalent ideas in the Harlem Renaissance in a distinct way?
My favorite point that I made in my analysis was how McKay breaks the iambic meter with the words “stealing” and “giving.” These words are used in relation to how an African American interacts with “America,” approaching the Harlem Renaissance idea of duality in a unique way. The most common approach to duality is through the idea of a double-consciousness, or the distinct identities of African and American and how they interact with each other.
I made a point about the use of a Shakespearean sonnet to write about rebellion and gathering strength. By staying inside a preexisting structure but writing about a revolutionary topic, McKay reflects the ideas of Booker T. Washington, who believed that African Americans should work inside existing systems to achieve civil rights rather than taking a radical approach and working to rebuild the system entirely.
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