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The 1920s were the time when the American engaged in testing the moral and social constraints until then complied with by the old norms of behavior. The black man was accepted as part, or an appropriate symbol of, nature rather than the ignoble or untouchable. Black writers took this situation to achieve their own ends, utilizing their own thoughts, attitudes, and ideas from the inside, that is, the black perspective. The poetic style of McKay was a very unusual one, different from that of contemporary black writers who at his time wrote with the commonly-shared view on literature: blackness. Parody was a way of addressing such a seemingly unbalanced style in his poetry as McKay was preparing to demonstrate that he would be acting like a non-black. His poetry was found very playful even though it looked very serious in socio-political issues. Blackness is thereby expressed in non-black form - the regular rhyming pattern just as seen in Shakespearean sonnets. Imitation of the Shakespearean sonnet characterizes some interactions, either derisive or serious, between the old and the new. His poetic style refers to “the cultural politics of parody” which helps contribute to the black parody of what McKay undoubtedly did hope for in different ways: traditional form and dictions with some interesting proletarian verse, and expressions of spiritual anguish in black beauty and white ugliness.

Claude McKay(1890-1948) has often been thought of as an immediate forerunner and one of the key members of the Harlem Renaissance, so it is impossible to assess the Harlem Renaissance without considering his contribution and influence. Yet it is necessary not to put too much emphasis on the position and role of McKay as a Renaissance writer because such an approach is likely to overlook the complexity and multiplicity of his life and literary world. More than anything else, his life was “a single episode in the 500-year-old drama of black diaspora.” In that context, McKay was “a colonial writer who happened to stop over in Harlem on his lifelong quest for a spiritual home.” Unexpectedly, his staying in America was a turning point in his life and literary career. He came to understand the cruelty and bitterness of American racism in person and represented the alienation and racial discrimination that the marginal minority group of black immigrants faced in America in his poems collected in Harlem Shadows. Therefore, I think it very important to reevaluate McKay as a black diaspora poet. So, if judging him based on poems collected in Harlem Shadows, it is not far-overstretched to say that McKay was one of the writers “whose intellectual pedigree was often entirely metropolitan but whose work could be characterized as providing an alternative consciousness to that of mainstream, orthodox, or establishment consciousness prevailing in Europe and the United States.”

Kang Shinwook. “Root of Claude McKay’s Literature -A Study of Songs of Jamaica.” Studies in English Language and Literature. 38.1 (2012): 1-27. Claude McKay(1890-1948) has often been thought of as an immediate forerunner and one of the key members of the Harlem Renaissance, so it is impossible to assess the Harlem Renaissance without considering his contribution and influence. Yet we should be careful not to put too much emphasis on the position and role of McKay as a Renaissance writer because such an approach is likely to overlook the complexity and multiplicity of his life and literary world. More than anything else, his life and literary works in Jamaica was closely related with the historical context at that time. In that context, McKay was a historical witness in his poems about Jamaican people including peasants, intellectuals, and emigrants. More than anyone else, he was willing to record, explain, analyse, and interpret the cruelty and bitterness of British colonialism in Songs of Jamaica. Therefore, I think it very important to reevaluate early McKay. So, if judging him based on poems collected in Songs of Jamaica, it is not far-overstretched to say that McKay was one of the writers who gave voice to a wide range of lower-class social types of Jamaican society and furthermore was able to resist, subvert, and modify the norms of Standard English through Jamaican dialect. (Chonbuk National University)

Kang, Shinwook. “The Agony, Conflict, and Self-Consciousness of a Colonial Constable —A Study of McKay’s Constab Ballads.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 39.1 (2013): 1-27. Claude McKay(1890-1948) has often been thought of as an immediate forerunner and one of the key members of the Harlem Renaissance. Yet we should be careful not to put too much emphasis on the position and role of McKay as a Renaissance writer because such an approach is likely to overlook the complexity and multiplicity of his life and literary world. More than anything else, his life and literary works in Jamaica was closely related with the historical context at that time. If judging his short but significant career as a colonial constable based on poems collected in Constab Ballads, it was one of turning points in his life which gave him a chance to face realities of racial discrimination of Jamaican society in person and recognize how black people were divided and ruled by the British Colonialism. Such an experience and awakening was a stepping board on which he could grow his black consciousness and black solidarity. In that sense, Constab Ballads can be said a bridge between a Jamaican peasant poet and a black diaspora poet in Mckay’s literary career. (Chonbuk National University)

Almost over the past two decades McKay's Home to Harlem has been in a negative critical light. Since as early as in 1928 W. E. B. Du Bois severely criticized the novel, later critics and literary scholars have maintained the modest assessment of McKay's overall literary achievement. Recently, however, McKay's scholarship is resurging, thanks to such scholars as Gary E. Holcomb, Elisa Glick, and Michael Maiwald. Yet even in this recent upbeat of McKay's scholarship still few scholars have noted the point that McKay's view of primitivism is indispensable to understand Home to Harlem. Since the Harlem Renaissance era is overlapped with whites' fascination with the primitive, it is only reasonable to think that McKay's interpretation of the primitive becomes a powerful force and defining factor of Home to Harlem. In this paper I will read McKay's notion of "a plausible Negro tale" in the context of modernist cultural discourses of the primitive and look into whether his characterization of black men and women is effective enough to disrupt the cultural logic behind the decent, educated New Negro propaganda of elite Harlem intelligentsia. Specifically, I will examine the cultural politics in the definition of the primitive in Western culture and locate McKay's notion of primitivism in the context of both whites' and blacks' responses to the primitive. Then, re-viewing McKay in the context of modernist writers of the lost generation, I will examine how he characterizes his main characters Ray and Jake, each representing a lost New Negro and a healthy New Primitive. Finally, I will look into McKay's tilted descriptions of black women and explain what price he has to pay for romanticizing a black male hero's individuation.

1928년에 출판된 『위기』(The Crisis)는 미국의 아이티에 대한 제국주의적 정책을 비판하는 동시에 동일한 문제를 다양한 관점에서 다루고 있는 클라우드 멕케이(Claude McKay)의 『할렘으로의 귀환』(Home to Harlem, 1928)을 신랄하게 비판하는 아이러니한 면을 보인다. 이는 카리브 해 흑인작가인 그가 동시대 흑인비평가들에 의해서 적절하게 평가되지 못하고 있음을 보여주는 예이다. 이러한 문제인식에 시작하여 본 논문은 1920년대와 1930년대 미국 흑인 사회와 카브리 해 이민자 출신 작가인 멕케이 사이에 놓인 인종과 문화의 경계 문제를 멕케이의 『할렘으로의 귀환』을 통해 고찰해보고, 그러한 경계를 넘어 미국을 정체성 형성의 근원으로 인식하고 동화하고자 한 작가의 끊임없는 서사적 욕망을 논의해보고자 한다. 고등교육을 받은 멕케이의 자전적 담론들은 국가에 대한 정체성 형성에 영향을 미치는 인종, 계급, 문화에 대한 그의 인식론적 척도가 동일한 지역에서 온 다른 흑인 작가들과 다소 다르게 작동하고 있다는 것을 보여준다. 그러나 그러한 인식론적 척도가 기존의 미국 흑인들이 보여준 카리브 해 흑인 이민자에 대한 문화와 인종에 대한 배타성과 충돌하면서, 멕케이는 차이가 생산하는 경계의 딜레마에 봉착한다. 이 때문에 그는 동시대 흑인 지식인 얼레인 로크(Alain Locke)와 듀보이스(W.E.B. Du Bois) 등을 강력히 비판하는데, 문명화된 흑인으로의 이미지 쇄신을 위해 그들이 전개하는 사회적 운동 등이 결국 흑인사회의 본질을 외면하고 있을 뿐만 아니라 통합보다는 갈등과 경계만을 생산하고 있다고 보았기 때문이다. 그의 『할렘으로의 귀환』은 듀보이스와 로크가 외면했던 흑인사회의 본질과 경계의 문제를 더욱 심도 있게 다루고 있다. 이 때문에 이 작품은 동시대 흑인 비평가들에 의해서 상당한 비판을 받고, 이러한 비판은 작가 자신이 할렘과 거리를 두는 계기가 된다. 그러나 백인과 흑인이 아닌 흑인사회 내부의 갈등과 경계의 문제를 다루는 이 작품은 백인과 흑인이라는 전통적인 갈등구조를 넘어, 카리브 해 흑인 이민자들이 미국사회로 들어가기 위해 실질적으로 고려해야 하는 문제들을 제기하고 있다는데 큰 의의가 있다고 본다. 멕케이는 미국 흑인사회와 자본주의를 상징하는 제이크(Jake)와 카리브 해 출신의 지식인을 대표하는 레이(Ray)라는 두 등장인물을 이용해 전략적 이중담론을 만들지만, 레이를 텍스트 밖으로 격리시킴으로써 두 담론이 결코 융합될 수 없음을 보여준다. 뿐만 아니라 그는 텍스트 밖으로 사라지는 레이의 모습을 통해 작가 자신이 지닌 미국사회로의 동화에 대한 한계를 드러낸다. 이를 통해 그는 미국 흑인사회가 만들어 놓은 문화와 인종의 경계가 카브리 해 이민 작가들이 넘어 할렘으로 상징되는 미국사회로 동화되기에 얼마나 고통스럽고 배타적인가를 궁극적으로 비판한다. 그럼에도 불구하고 멕케이는 카리브 해 이민자들에 대한 인종주의 폭력이 난무하는 할렘으로 끊임없이 동화하고자 하는 양가적인 태도를 드러내는데, 그 이유는 예술적 자유와 작가 자신이 이상적으로 여기는 문화적 정체성을 할렘에서 발견했기 때문이다. 본 논문은 제이크와 레이의 담론을 통해 할렘에 대한 멕케이의 양가적인 태도를 추적하여, 미국흑인사회에 내재된 인종, 계층의 경계에 대한 비판의 근저에는 작가가 미국을 자신의 조국으로 여기고 동화하고자 하는 그...

Claude McKay(1890-1948) has often been thought of as an immediate forerunner and one of the key members of the Harlem Renaissance, so it is impossible to assess the Harlem Renaissance without considering his contribution and influence. Yet we should be careful not to put too much emphasis on the position and role of McKay as a Renaissance writer because such an approach is likely to overlook the complexity and multiplicity of his life and literary world. More than anything else, his life and literary works in Jamaica was closely related with the historical context at that time. In that context, McKay was a historical witness in his poems about Jamaican people including peasants, intellectuals, and emigrants. More than anyone else, he was willing to record, explain, analyse, and interpret the cruelty and bitterness of British colonialism in Songs of Jamaica. Therefore, I think it very important to reevaluate early McKay. So, if judging him based on poems collected in Songs of Jamaica, it is not far-overstretched to say that McKay was one of the writers who gave voice to a wide range of lower-class social types of Jamaican society and furthermore was able to resist, subvert, and modify the norms of Standard English through Jamaican dialect.