Harlem Renaissance: Harlem Renaissance is a cultural moment of Afro- American people during 1920s. It was concentrated on New York City’s Harlem so it is called Harlem. It is also called as New Negro Renaissance, New Negro movement. It affected different fields like art, literature, politics etc. When the southerners, found northern part more prosperous, liberal and industrialized they assumed it as dreamland. So in a large number great migration started to Northern part especially in Harlem they thought Harlem a kind of Mecca. Although there is no any fixed date of the emergence of Harlem Renaissance , Normally it is believed that after the First World War around 1915- 1918 it emerged and at 1920s it reaches in its peak, then at 1930s it ended. Harlem Renaissance is a term that refers to a period of remarkable creativity in literature, music, dance, painting and sculpture by African- Americans. The distinguished writers who were part of their movement were Langston Hughes, Countee Culler, Steling Brown, Jean Toomer, Claude Mckay, Jessie Fauset etc. However, the Great Depression of 1929 and the early 1930s brought the period of Harlem Culture effectively to an end.

Characteristics of Harlem Renaissance in Literature

     Among Black writers there is no a common literary style or political ideology. They practiced with different styles and made experiment. However they were similar in terms of the expression of oppression and suffering. Black writers common themes were alienation and marginality, and a strong sense of racial pride and desire for social and political equality. Yet the most interesting characteristics aspect of Harlem Renaissance is diversity of its expression.

Beat Poets :In the later half of the 1950s a group of poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerovac, Gregory Corso etc formed a group of young rebels called Beat poet and thus, young rebels developed the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation is a group of writers centered in San Francisco and New York City in the later half of the 1950s. The poet of this generation called themselves beat because they felt themselves to be very much beaten. Read More...

The Black Art Movement :This is a new movement which came to be institutionalized in the sixties and seventies. It was a radical separatist ethnicism proposing to disengage itself not only from the larger world of American literature but also from the western (white) tradition. Read More...

Black Drama: After the end of Second World War the Negro writer did not paid so much attention to fiction as much they motivated to poetry and Drama. Drama became the easiest form to reflect the pain and suffering. Read More...

Broadway Theaters: Broadway theaters are highly commercialized and established theatres, especially situated on Manhattam. There theatres are especially situated in Manhattam. There theatres are musical as well as they were powerful sources of entertainment on 1920s and 1930s. Read More...

Off Broadway: Off Broadway came on 1940s as a reaction against costly and commercialized Broadway theatres. This theater has stage on center and audience could watch the performance from all corners. During the 1940s, there was the heyday of this theatre; it was highly popular during that time. But till 1960s there remained no fundamental differences between Broadway and off Broadway, it became more commercialized as Broadway. Read More...

Confessional Poetry: The second generation poets born from 1920 to 1935 were under the influence of New critical mode, but they were less burdened by the legacies of the great modernists. So some poets of this generation stuck to the New critical mode, but some poets developed a new style in poetry called confessional mode. Read More...

Arthur Miller: Miller belongs to the second half of the twentieth century. Miller was leftist and being leftist he starts his dramatic career with the propaganda plays. In his propaganda plays he explicitly overthrows capitalism and advocates for the establishment of socialism. Miller is influenced by Marxism. His propaganda plays are not published until the publication of Death of a Salesman in 1949. In his later plays after propaganda plays he implicitly advocate Marxism. Read More...

Eugene O’ Neill: Eugene O’ Neill, an American dramatist, who is internationally reputed in the field of drama, also got the noble prize in 1936. He was influenced by Henric Ibsen, August Strindberg and Maurice Maeterlinck. He is remembered for realist, naturalist and expressionist drama. Moreover the credit goes to Eugene O’Neill for his realist and naturalistic play. Before O’Neill in American theater, there were melodrama which were sentimental and having the sense of excitement. Read More...

Tennesse Williams:  If Eugene O’ Neill, Susan Gospel, Thornton Wilder Clifford Odets dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lawrance Hensbery, Sam Shepard, David Moment dominated the second half of the twentieth century, but Tennessee Williams is very much important between this two ages . Tennesse Williams was brought up in the South, we can clearly see element of the southern literary tradition in his work. The elements like complicated feelings about time and the past. The past is usually looked up on with sadness, guilt or fear. He describes his society as a kind of hell of brutality and race hatred. Read More...