A Jean Toomer Reader Selected Unpublished Writings

by Toomer, Jean; Rusch, Frederik L.

• ISBN13: 9780195083293
• ISBN10: 0195083296
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-12-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Jean Toomer achieved instant recognition as a critic and thinker in 1923 with the publication of his novel Cane , a harsh, eloquent vision of black American hardship and suffering. But because of his reclusive, introspective nature, Toomer's fame waned in later years, and today his other contributions to American thought and literature are all but forgotten. Now, this collection of unpublished writings restores a crucial dimension to our understanding of this important African American author. Thematically arranging letters, sketches, poems, autobiography, short stories, a play, and a children's story, Frederik Rusch offers insight into Toomer's mind and spirituality, his feelings on racial identity in America, and his attitudes toward and ideas about Cane . Rusch highlights Toomer's reflections on America, its people, landscape, and politics, reveals his significance for the problems and issues of today, and helps us understand Toomer not only as writer, but also as social critic, prophet, mystic, and idealist. Exploring Toomer's attempts to find self-realization and transcend social and cultural definitions of race, this book offers a unique view of the United States through the life of one of its most significant and fascinating intellectuals.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Note on the Text	p. xix
Chronology	p. xxi
Epigraphs	p. 2
To Move from Place to Place	p. 3
Cane	p. 5
Editor's Note	p. 7
Pre-Cane	p. 10
Letter to Waldo Frank, 7/19/22	p. 10
Letter to John McClure, 7/22/22	p. 12
From Letter to Waldo Frank, 7/23/22	p. 13
From Letter to Waldo Frank, 7/25/22	p. 14
Letter to The Liberator, 8/19/22	p. 15
From Letter to Lola Ridge, 12/22	p. 17
Letter to Sherwood Anderson, 12/18/22	p. 17
Cane	p. 19
Letter to Gorham Munson, 10/31/22	p. 19
From Letter to Gorham Munson, 3/19/23	p. 21
Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, 3/21/23	p. 22
Letter to Waldo Frank, n.d.	p. 23
Post-Cane	p. 26
Letter to Waldo Frank, 12/12/22	p. 26
Letter to Horace Liveright, 2/27/23	p. 27
Letter to Horace Liveright, 3/9/23	p. 27
The Mystical Experience	p. 29
Editor's Note	p. 31
The Experience	p. 33
The Negro, The Blue Man, and the New Race	p. 77
Editor's Note	p. 79
Introduction	p. 82
Prejudice	p. 82
Germ Carriers	p. 82
The Fable of a Creature	p. 83
The Negro	p. 84
Negro Psychology in The Emperor Jones	p. 84
From Letter to Sherwood Anderson, 12/29/22	p. 85
The Negro Emergent	p. 86
The Blue Man	p. 94
Letter to Horace Liveright, 9/5/23	p. 94
From Letter to Waldo Frank, n.d.	p. 95
Not Typically American	p. 95
Fighting the Vice	p. 101
The New Race	p. 105
A New Race in America	p. 105
Letter to James Weldon Johnson, 7/11/30	p. 105
The Americans	p. 106
Oppose the Force, Not the Man	p. 110
Mankind Means Brotherhood	p. 111
Caught in the Machine	p. 115
Editor's Note	p. 117
To Dike	p. 119
Selling	p. 119
A Comment on The Vegetable	p. 120
Drackman	p. 121
The Scottsboro Boys	p. 137
American Letter	p. 138
To Sleep	p. 146
Love on a Train	p. 146
Man's Home Companion	p. 165
Lump	p. 170
The Spoken Word	p. 187
Winter Road	p. 189
George Washington	p. 191
Atomic Energy	p. 195
A Children's Story	p. 197
Editor's Note	p. 199
Monrovia	p. 200
The Land	p. 207
Editor's Note	p. 209
Introduction	p. 213
Highways Should Be Rightways	p. 213
It Used To Be	p. 217
Why These?	p. 218
The Extremes Are Great	p. 218
The Northeast	p. 219
New York	p. 219
The Brilliant Brotherhood: New York City During the Mystical Experience of 1926	p. 221
Doylestown	p. 223
The Presence of a Field	p. 227
The South	p. 233
The South	p. 233
Night	p. 234
Chicago	p. 235
Chicago	p. 235
New Mexico	p. 238
To the Land of The People	p. 238
Rainbow	p. 240
The Dust of Abiquiu	p. 240
Taos Night	p. 249
New Mexico After India	p. 249
Part of the Universe	p. 253
Santa Fe Sequence	p. 257
California	p. 259
Caromb	p. 259
America's Proposed Riviera: A Chicagoan's Impressions of Los Angeles	p. 263
Epilogue	p. 273
Editor's Note	p. 275
Music	p. 276
A Double Portrait	p. 276
To Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz	p. 280
Tired, I have come to the door	p. 283
Textual Notes	p. 285
	p. 285
	p. 285
	p. 286
Selected Bibliography	p. 289
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