Typicality, Tone, and the Harlem Renaissance

On Monday, we discussed several strategies a poet uses to construct a self within a poem. These included: construct temporal space; relocate the speaker in space and time; add depth; include details that make it seem as if the author has intimate knowledge of a given historical time and place; and ensure the speaker's motivations, justifications, and conclusions are reasonable.

Today, we added two more: typicality and tone.

Typicality is exactly how it sounds: the experience is typical rather than narrowly personal (Vendler 183).

Tone, too, is connected to identity construction: “Every poem suggests to its readers the tones with which they might give voice to it; and conversely, the tones you feel to be present, as you get to know the poem well, give you clues to the perceptions and emotions of the self, constructed in the poem, that generates these tones” (184).

In this context we discussed Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," and Hughes' "I, Too" and "Theme for English B." In their journals, students were asked to determine the tone (in one word) of either Whitman's poem or Hughes' "I, Too." Then, they were asked to explain what words (considering their connotations) and punctuation led them to this conclusion. The last ten minutes of class were devoted to finishing Thursday's character sketch.

Assignment for Monday: Choose one poem and explain how the author "constructs a self." In other words, how does the poet get the reader to "turn into" the speaker of the poem? Draw on the strategies we discussed this week. Choose any poem from Week 1 or 2 except “Ellen West.” Parameters: typed, approximately 1 page double-spaced.