All Claude McKay Poems, 934-38
All Langston Hughes Poems, 1036-44, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," 816-818
Note: Read "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" first
Study Questions:
1. Summarize Hughes's argument in "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." How does Hughes's poems "The Weary Blues" and "Song for a Dark Girl" spring forth from the ideas expressed in Hughes's manifesto? How do "Visitors to the Black Belt" and "Note on Commercial Theatre" point to the commodification of black expression?
2. Most of Claude McKay's poems in the Norton are based on Shakespearean sonnets: 14 lines of three quatrains (abab, cdcd, efef) with a couplet at the end (gg). The traditional sonnet advances an argument, making a point in the first two quatrains (abab, cdcd), having a turn in the last quatrain (efef), and summarizing the argument in the last rhyming couplet (gg). Select two poems (one from pp. 934-35 and one from pp.936-8) and think about how this structure allows McKay to make his argument.
