Synopses & Reviews
Langston Hughes survived as a writer for over forty years under conditions that made survival virtually heroic. Determined on a literary career at a time when no African American had yet been able to live off his or her writing, Hughes not only faced poverty and racism but found himself pressed by the conflicting hopes, expectations, and demands of readers and critics. He relied on his skill as a mediator among competing positions in order to preserve his art, his integrity, and his unique status as the poetic voice of ordinary African Americans.
Which Sin To Bear? explores Hughes's efforts to negotiate the problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African American professional writer and intellectual. The book traces his early efforts to fashion himself as an "authentic" black poet of the Harlem Renaissance and his later imagining of a new and more inclusive understanding of authentic blackness. It examines Hughes's lasting, yet self-critical commitment to progressive politics in the mid-century years. And it shows how, in spite of his own ambivalence--and, at times, anguish--Hughes was forced to engage in ethical compromises to achieve his personal and social goals. The book is also the first to analyze Hughes's executive-session testimony before Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was unavailable to the public for half a century.
David Chinitz digs into Hughes's creative work, newspaper columns, letters, and unpublished papers to reveal a writer who faced a daunting array of dicey questions and intimidating obstacles, and whose triumphs and occasional missteps are a fascinating and telling part of his legacy.
Review
"Which Sin to Bear? is a brilliantly argued intervention in the ongoing critical debate about the ultimate meaning of the art of Langston Hughes. In the process, David Chinitz sheds invaluable light on a full range of collateral topics of genuine importance to our understanding of African American literature in particular and American literature in general." --Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes
"Which Sin to Bear? is one of the best books on Langston Hughes, a book that gives impressive close readings of poems that have eluded such analysis up to now while making a larger point about Hughes's major importance as a writer engaged over a lifetime with the enigma of artistic authenticity and the ethics of compromise. The argument's implications extend in many directions beyond the specific case of Hughes." --George Hutchinson, author of In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line
Synopsis
Which Sin To Bear? mines Langston Hughes's creative work, newspaper columns, letters, and unpublished papers to reveal a writer who faced a daunting array of dicey questions and intimidating obstacles, and whose triumphs and occasional missteps are a fascinating and telling part of his legacy. David E. Chinitz explores Hughes's efforts to negotiate the problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African American professional writer and intellectual, tracing his early efforts to fashion himself as an "authentic" black poet of the Harlem Renaissance and his later imagining of a new and more inclusive understanding of authentic blackness. He also examines Hughes's lasting yet self-critical commitment to progressive politics in the mid-century years and shows how, in spite of ambivalence-and, at times, anguish-Hughes was forced to engage in ethical compromises to achieve his personal and social goals.
Synopsis
This book explores Langston Hughes's efforts to mediate problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African-American professional writer and intellectual. Determined on a literary career at a time when no African American had yet been able to live off his or her writing; constrained by poverty, racism, and lack of opportunity; and pressed by the hopes, expectations, and demands of readers and critics of all stripes, Hughes had to rely on his dexterity as a mediator among competing positions in order to preserve his art, his integrity, and his unique status as the literary voice of ordinary African Americans. Issues treated include Hughes's interventions in the shifting definition of "authentic blackness," his work toward a socially effectual discourse of racial protest, his involvement with liberal politics, his ambivalence toward moral compromise even as he engaged in it, and the imprint of all these matters in texts ranging from his poetry and fiction to his essays and newspaper columns. The conflicting facts, varied experiences, divided impulses, and thorny compromises of his own life led Hughes to develop artistically an inclusive vision of the black community that anticipates by several decades what many cultural critics have come to advocate. The book is also the first to analyze Hughes's executive-session testimony before Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was treated as classified information for fifty years before finally being released to the public in 2003.
About the Author
David E. Chinitz is Professor of English at Loyola University, Chicago. He is the author of
T.S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide and the editor of
A Companion to T.S. Eliot.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Becoming Langston Hughes
2. Producing Authentic Blackness
3. Authenticity in the Blues Poetry
4. The Ethics of Compromise
5. Simple Goes to Washington: Hughes and the McCarthy Committee
6. "Speak to me now of compromise": Hughes and the Specter of Booker T.
Appendix A: Hughes's Senate Testimony in Executive Session
Appendix B: Hughes's Public Testimony
Bibliography
Index