American Literature / Unit 13 AML 1226 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Placing a Harlem Renaissance Text by Its Stance
The idea
Texts from this movement divide by the stance they take toward an audience, and naming the stance answers most questions. The affirming stance addresses Black readers and celebrates without explaining, which is Hughes's position in the manifesto and in the blues poems. The claiming stance takes a European form and occupies it, which is McKay's sonnet and Cullen's, and argues for inclusion by demonstration. The witnessing stance documents violence or injustice for a reader who may not know, which is what "The Lynching" does. The refusing stance declines the role of victim, which is Hurston's essay and part of why she was attacked. Ask whom the text expects to be reading and what it expects them to already believe.
In practice
Affirm, claim, witness, refuse.
Where people slip
The four stances belong to one movement arguing with itself, so a writer can take different ones in different poems. Answer from the passage, not from the name attached.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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