Urban rage in Bronzeville: Social commentary in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, 1945-1960

Gwendolyn Brooks, Poet Laureate of Illinois, earned fame when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1950) for her second book of poetry, Annie Allen (1949). Brooks used the poetic language and the traditional prosodic devices of the English poets and earned wide acclaim for her poetic expertise. However, by doing so, she also became the literary target of a chorus of dissident voices: a cultural contingency accused her of directing her writing to a white audience and ignoring her own Black community, while a critical coterie viewed her work as unduly obscure and complex because of her use of inverted syntax, extreme wordplay, and highly allusive images. In the midst of the tensions created by such controversial analyses of Brooks' early work, little attention has been directed to illuminating its social content. Yet, the reality is that since Brooks published her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), her voice of social consciousness has been consistent and clear. In this study I explicate Brooks' poetry from the perspective of the social commentary in the two works listed above and in her third book of poetry, The Bean Eaters (1960).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Bolden, Barbara Jean

Contributors dc:contributor

• Watts, Emily S.

• Literature, American

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1994 Bolden, Barbara Jean

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9503142
(UMI)AAI9503142

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21907