Harlem Renaissance Poets - Essay Example

rican poets that influenced this movement were Brown Sterling and Angelina Grimké Weld where Brown’s poetry illustrated his concerns for race in America while Grimké’s poetry focused on influencing their heritage. Both of these poets were prominent figures in the Harlem Renaissance movement. However, Grimké was a controversial poet, but this did not deter her in her attempts to influence the African American culture to the members of the community that she came from. With this, this essay will describe the role of Grimké and Brown and their importance to the Harlem Renaissance movement and the elements that indicate of double-consciousness by these poets.

Further, the essay will also discuss The Eyes of My Regret and the Southern Road by Grimké and Brown respectively together with describing the primary themes in these poems during the Harlem Renaissance period. Ideally, Grimké’s literature works had varied themes as she focused on the societal ills that were facing the American population at that time. Some of her poems discussed the role of women in society as many women roles at that time had confines to domestic work as society did not support their writing skills.

In other literature works, Grimké highlighted the lynching of American people by the white supremacy group Ku Klux Klan as they had minimal regard for people of color. Grimké illustrated this in one of her plays named Rachel, which demonstrated her desire for the African-American population to gain respect through her literature works. Further, her role in the movement was synonymous with the ideologies of the Harlem movement, which was to create a new culture from the one that existed surrounding the role of African-Americans in the USA.

In essence, this movement sought to create racial consciousness to which Grimké applied and led to the adoption of traits that whites associated with such as clothing and etiquette (West, 2003). The plays that Grimké wrote became the precursor to