Summary
This volume focuses on the principal African-American poets from colonial times to the Harlem Renaissance and the World War II era, paying tribute to a rich heritage that has deeply influenced the nation’s literature. Poets covered in this volume include Phillis Wheatley, author of the first volume of verse published by an African American, and the seminal figures Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer. Complete with a chronology, bibliography, and notes on the contributors, this volume in the Bloom’s Modern Critical Views series also features an essay by noted literary critic Harold Bloom, who introduces the volume with his thoughts on this group of vibrant poets whose work has altered the landscape of American literature.
Specifications
Chronology. Bibliography. Index.
About the Author(s)
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. Educated at Cornell and Yale universities, he is the author of 30 books, including Shelley's Mythmaking (1959), The Visionary Company (1961), Blake's Apocalypse (1963), Yeats (1970), A Map of Misreading (1975), Kabbalah and Criticism (1975), Agon: Toward a Theory of Revisionism (1982), The American Religion (1992), The Western Canon (1994), Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection (1996), and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), a 1998 National Book Award finalist. The Anxiety of Influence (1973) sets forth Professor Bloom's provocative theory of the literary relationships between the great writers and their predecessors. His most recent books include How to Read and Why (2000), Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002), Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (2003), Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (2004), and Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (2005). In addition, he is the author of hundreds of articles, reviews, and editorial introductions. In 1999, Professor Bloom received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism. He has also received the International Prize of Catalonia, the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico, and the Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennial Prize of Denmark.