"Heretofore scholars have not been willing -- perhaps, even beenunable for many reasons both academic and personal -- to identify much of the HarlemRenaissance work as same-sex oriented.... An important book." -- Jim Elledge
This groundbreaking study explores the Harlem Renaissance as aliterary phenomenon fundamentally shaped by same-sex-interested men. Christa Schwarzfocuses on Count e Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Richard Bruce Nugentand explores these writers' sexually dissident or gay literary voices. Theportrayals of men-loving men in these writers' works vary significantly. Schwarzlocates in the poetry of Cullen, Hughes, and McKay the employment of contemporarygay code words, deriving from the Greek discourse of homosexuality and from WaltWhitman. By contrast, Nugent -- the only "out" gay Harlem Renaissanceartist -- portrayed men-loving men without reference to racial concepts orWhitmanesque codes. Schwarz argues for contemporary readings attuned to the complexrelation between race, gender, and sexual orientation in Harlem Renaissancewriting.