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Early Twentieth-Century Fictione20fic17.blogs.rutgers.edu
Prof. Andrew Goldstone ([email protected])Mondays: Scott 119; Wednesdays: Scott 106
Office hours: Murray 019, Mondays 1:00–2:30 or by appointment
November 6, 2017. Toomer (1).
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parallel histories
1892 Conan Doyle, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes1893 James, “The Middle Years”1903 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk1916 Joyce, Portrait1921 Woolf, Monday or Tuesday1923 Toomer, Cane1923 Sayers, Whose Body?1925 Locke, ed., The New Negro1926 Hughes, The Weary Blues1929 Woolf, A Room of One’s Own1929 Hammett, Maltese Falcon1930 Faulkner, As I Lay Dying1937 Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Display Ad 50 -- No TitleNew York Times (1923-Current file); Jun 10, 1923; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Timespg. BR28
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Display Ad 54 -- No TitleNew York Times (1923-Current file); Sep 16, 1923; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Timespg. BR24
Left: NYT Book Review, June 10, 1923: 28. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.Right: Ibid., September 16, 1923: 24. ProQuest.
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categories
My racial composition and my position in the world are realities which Ialone may determine…. I do not expect to be told what I should considermyself to be…. As a B and L author, I make the distinction between myfundamental position and the position which your publicity departmentmay wish to establish for me in order that Cane reach as large a publicas possible. In this connection I have told you…to make use of whateverracial factors you wish. Feature Negro if you wish, but do not expectme to feature it in advertisements for you. For myself, I have sufficientlyfeatured Negro in Cane. Whatever statements I give will inevitably comefrom a synthetic human and art point of view; not from a racial one….All of this may seem over-subtle and over-refined to you, but I assure youthat it isn’t.
Toomer to Horace Liveright, September 5, 1923. Beinecke library; Lettersof Jean Toomer, 1919–1924, ed. Mark Whalan (Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 2006), 171–72.
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Cane (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923): dust jacket. Beinecke Library.
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T H E C R I S I S A R E C O R D O F T H E D A R K E R R A C E S
P U B L I S H E D M O N T H L Y A N D C O P Y R I G H T E D B Y T H E N A T I O N A L A S S O C I A T I O N F O R T H E A D V A N C E M E N T OF C O L O R E D P E O P L E , A T 70 F I F T H A V E N U E , N E W Y O R K C I T Y . CON-D U C T E D B Y W . E . B U R G H A R D T D U B O I S ; J E S S I E R E D M O N F A U S E T , L I T E R A R Y E D I T O R ;
A U G U S T U S G R A N V I L L E D I L L , B U S I N E S S M A N A G E R .
Vol. 2 3 - N o . 6 APRIL, 1922 Whole No. 138
Page C O V E R
"Spring." Drawing by Yolande D u Bois.
O P I N I O N
T h e W o r l d and U s ; T h e Dyer Bill in the Senate; T h e Sterl ing-Towner
Bill; Maria Baldwin; T h e Case of Samuel Moore; The Spanish Fandango;
Show Us, Missouri; Aga in Africa; The Demagog; Help 2 4 7
T H E N E G R O B A N K . Illustrated 2 5 3
L E X T A L I O N I S . A Story. Robert W . Bagnall 2 5 4
T H E P O R T U G U E S E N E G R O . Nicolas Santos-Pinto 2 5 9
B R A W L E Y ' S " S O C I A L H I S T O R Y O F T H E A M E R I C A N N E G R O " 2 6 0
S O N G O F T H E S O N . A Poem. Jean T o o m e r 2 6 1
T H E N A T I O N A L A S S O C I A T I O N F O R T H E A D V A N C E M E N T O F C O L O R E D
P E O P L E 2 6 2
P R I D E . A Poem. Mortimer G. Mitchell 2 6 5
T H E H O R I Z O N . Illustrated 2 6 6
T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S 2 7 5
T H E R I C H B E G G A R . A Poem. Mary Effie Lee Newsome 2 8 0
THE MAY CRISIS The cover will be Albert Smith's fine painting of Rene M a r a n . T h e special articles will be on
the late Bert Wil l iams and on the leaders o f N e g r o fraternit ies.
FIFTEEN CENTS A C O P Y ; ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A Y E A R F O R E I G N S U B S C R I P T I O N T W E N T Y - F I V E C E N T S E X T R A
R F N F W A L S • The date o£ expiration of eack subscription is printed on the wrapper. When the lubscription is due, a blue renewal blank is enclosed.
f T T A N G E O F A D D R E S S * The address of a subscriber can be changed as often as desired. In ordering a change of address, both the old and the new address must be given. Two weeks' notice is required.
M A N U S C R I P T S and drawings relating to colored people are desired. They must be accom panied by return postage. I f found unavailable they will be returned.
-p^torerl as second class m a t t e r November 2, 1910, a t the post office a t N e w Y o r k , N e w Y o r k , under the A c t of March 3 , 1879.
261 SONG OF THE SON
SONG OF THE SON J E A N T O O M E R
POUR, O pour, that parting soul in song, O pour it in the saw-dust glow of night,
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight, And let the valley carry it along, And let the valley carry it along.
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch's sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.
In time, for though the sun is setting on A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil it is not too late yet T o catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.
O Negro slaves, dark-purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes
An everlasting song, a singing tree, Carrolling softly souls of slavery, • All that they were, and that they are to me,— Carrolling softly souls of slavery.
Crisis 23, no. 6 (April 1922): 243, 261. Modernist Journals Project.
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Autumn 1922
THE LITTLE REVIEW QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ART AND LETTERS
S U B S C R I P T I O N YEARLY: $4.00 £1 FOREIGN
S I N G L E N U M B E R $1.00
A D M I N I S T R A T I O N Margaret A N D E R S O N jh Ezra P O U N D Francis P I C A B I A
address: 2 7 west eighth street, new york english office: egoist publishing co., 2 3 adelphi terrace house, robert street, london w. c. 2 .
Entered as scond class matter October 28, 1921, at the post office at new york, n. y., under the act of march 3, 1879.
C O N T E N T S Photograph (Stella and Duchamp) Man Ray Poems with Drawings Jean de Bosschere The Death of Tragedy Kenneth Burke Garden Mitchell Dawson B. B., or the Birthplace of Bonnes Gertrude Stein Conte pour la comtesse de Noailles Pierre de Massot Fern Jean Toomer Funeral Isidor Schneider Ocean Aquarium 16 Reproductions of the work of Joseph Stella Landscape "Gardening with Brains" jh "Ulysses" jh Having a Gland Time "Narcisse" Notes, etc. jh R Rose Selàvie Man Ray Ma main tremble Francis Picabia Aesthetic Meditations, II Guillaume Apollinaire
(with illustrations) The Reader Critic Good Painting Francis Picabia
O N S A L E A L L F I R S T C L A S S B O O K S T O R E S F. B. N E U M A Y E R: 70 CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON S H A K E S P E A R E A N D C O M P A N Y : P A R I S V I e V O L. I X N O . 3
FERN
FA C E flowed into her eyes. Flowed in soft cream foam and plaintive ripples, in such a way that wherever your glance may momentarily have rested it immediately thereafter wavered in the direction of her eyes. The soft suggestion of down slightly darkened, like the shadow of a bird's
wing, the creamy brown color of her upper lip. Why, after noticing it, you sought her eyes, I cannot tell you. H e r nose was aquiline Semitic. If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I followed the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta. They were strange eyes. In this, that they sought noth-ing, that is nothing that was obvious and tangible and that one could see; and they gave the impression that nothing was to be denied. When a woman seeks, you will have observed, her eyes deny. Fern's eyes desired nothing that you could give her ; there was no reason why they should withold. Men saw her eyes and fooled themselves. Fern's eyes said to them that she was easy. W h e n she was young a few men took her, but got no joy from it. And then, once done, they felt bound to her (quite unlike their hit and run with other gir ls) , felt as though it would take them a lifetime to fulfill an obligation which they could find no name for. They became attached to her and hungered after finding the barest trace of what she might desire. As she grew up new men who came to town felt as almost everyone did whoever saw her, that they woud not be denied. Men were ever-lastingly bringing her their bodies. Something inside of her got tired of them I guess, for I am certain that for the life of her she could not tell why or how she began to turn them off. A man in fever is no trifling thing to send away. They began to leave her, baffled and ashamed, yet vowing to themselves that some-day they would do some fine thing for her : send her candy every week and not let her know who it came from, watch out for her wedding-day and give her a magnificent something with no name
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Little Review 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1922): 1, 25. Modernist Journals Project.
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I ask you, friend (it makes no difference if you sit in the Pullman or the JimCrow as the train crosses her road), what thoughts would come to you—that is, after you’d finished with the thoughts that leap into men’s minds atthe sight of a pretty woman who will not deny them; what thoughts wouldcome to you, had you seen her in a quick flash, keenly and intuitively, asshe sat there on her porch when your train thundered by?…Something Iwould do for her. (“Fern,” 24)
Her body was tortured with something it could not let out. Like boilingsap it flooded arms and fingers till she shook them as if they burned her….And then she sang, brokenly. A Jewish cantor singing with a broken voice.A child’s voice, uncertain, or an old man’s. Dusk hid her; I could hear onlyher song. (25–26)
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I ask you, friend (it makes no difference if you sit in the Pullman or the JimCrow as the train crosses her road), what thoughts would come to you—that is, after you’d finished with the thoughts that leap into men’s minds atthe sight of a pretty woman who will not deny them; what thoughts wouldcome to you, had you seen her in a quick flash, keenly and intuitively, asshe sat there on her porch when your train thundered by?…Something Iwould do for her. (“Fern,” 24)
Her body was tortured with something it could not let out. Like boilingsap it flooded arms and fingers till she shook them as if they burned her….And then she sang, brokenly. A Jewish cantor singing with a broken voice.A child’s voice, uncertain, or an old man’s. Dusk hid her; I could hear onlyher song. (25–26)
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1894 b. Nathan Pinchback Toomer in DC1914–17 attends six colleges/universities1919–23 magazine publications (NY Call,Crisis, Liberator, little magazines)1920 changes name: Jean Toomer1921 Substitute principal, Sparta, GA:Agricultural and Industrial Institute1923 Cane published by LiverightSmall sales, critical success1923– mystical/religious pursuits(Gurdjieff, Jungian, Quakers...)1925 Cane excerpts in Alain Locke, ed., TheNew Negro anthology (JT is not happy)1967 d.
Passport, 1926. Beinecke.
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The drama surrounding the publication of Cane is a unique and revealinginstance of the problem that no person considered “Negro,” according tothe one-drop-rule of the U.S. regime of race, could get a hearing exceptunder the sign of blackness.
George Hutchinson, “Identity in Motion: Placing Cane,” in Jean Toomerand the Harlem Renaissance, ed. Geneviève Fabre and Michel Feith (NewBrunswick: Rutgers UP, 2001), 52.
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The school in Sparta, Georgia. Jean Toomer Papers, Beinecke library.
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A visit to Georgia last fall was the starting point of almost everything ofworth that I have done. I heard folk-songs come from the lips of Negropeasants. I saw the rich dusk beauty that I had heard many false accentsabout, and of which, till then, I was somewhat skeptical. And a deep partof my nature, a part that I had repressed, sprang suddenly to life andresponded to them.
Letter to the Liberator (Claude McKay and Max Eastman), August 19, 1922,Letters of Jean Toomer, 1919–1924, ed. Mark Whalan (Knoxville: Univer-sity of Tennessee Press, 2006), 70–71.
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black folk
Come, brother, come. Lets lift it;Come now, hewit! roll away!Shackles fall upon the Judgment DayBut lets not wait for it. (“Cotton Song,” 13)
“I saw a man arise, an he was big an black an powerful—”
Some one yells, “Preach it, preacher, preach it!”
“—but his head was caught up in th clouds. An while he was agazin at theheavens, heart filled up with th Lord, some little white-ant biddies camean tied his feet to chains.” (“Esther,” 30)
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black folk
Come, brother, come. Lets lift it;Come now, hewit! roll away!Shackles fall upon the Judgment DayBut lets not wait for it. (“Cotton Song,” 13)
“I saw a man arise, an he was big an black an powerful—”
Some one yells, “Preach it, preacher, preach it!”
“—but his head was caught up in th clouds. An while he was agazin at theheavens, heart filled up with th Lord, some little white-ant biddies camean tied his feet to chains.” (“Esther,” 30)
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the uses of language varieties
The accepted grammar (and by this I mean the kind that is taught inschools) may be a means to this end. In which case, the artist uses it.On the other hand, the accepted grammatical construction may prove tobe an obstacle. Whereupon, the artist shelves it. In this case, the onlylegitimate criticism of him would be in answer to the question, does theresult justify his freedom?… Conrad and [Anatole] France are mastersafter their fashion. And so are James Joyce and Waldo Frank. Literatureis large enough to contain the contrasts. Readers of literature?
Letter to Mary Burrill, n.d. [1922/1923], in Whalan, Letters of Jean Toomer,109.
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Wedges rust in soggy wood . . . Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! . . .the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry andblow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinnedlife, who set you flowing? (“Seventh Street,” 53)
▶ What is the effect of Toomer’s non-standard language here? Whatdoes it represent?
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Toomer’s design
Cane’s design is a circle. Aesthetically, from simple forms to complex ones,and back to simple forms. Regionally, from the South up into the North,and back into the South again. Or, from the North down into the South,and then a return North. From the point of view of the spiritual entitybehind the work, the curve really starts with Bona and Paul (awakening),plunges into Kabnis, emerges in Karintha etc. swings upward into Theatreand Box Seat, and ends (pauses) in Harvest Song.
Whew!
Letter to Waldo Frank, December 12, 1922, in Letters, 101.
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discussion: linkages
▶ Find a few points of contact between different sections of Cane.▶ How do these linkages make meaning? What kind of context is the
whole of Cane for each individual part?
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next
▶ finish Cane
