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Bibliography
Hoagwood, Terence. "Claude McKay's HARLEM SHADOWS." The Explicator68.1 (2009): 5154.
Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1995.
Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1995.
Hoagwood, Terence. "Claude McKay's HARLEM SHADOWS." The Explicator68.1 (2009): 5154.
Brace, Harcourt, and Christopher MacGowan. "Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows." TwentiethCentury American Poetry: 187-189.
Baker Jr, Houston A. Modernism and the Harlem renaissance. University of Chicago Press,
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Murray, Joshua M. No Definite Destination: Transnational Liminality in Harlem Renaissance
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Maxwell, William J. "Claude McKay." A Companion to Modernist Poetry(2014): 464-473.
Schwarz, AB Christa. Gay voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Indiana University Press, 2003.

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Claude McKay
During the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay was a seminal figure which was a
prominent movement during 120s. His writing varied from people of his local nations living a
peasant life and the authority activities in America. He wrote poems expressing lives of citizens
living peasant lives in Jamaica and also challenged American Authority (Maxwell & William,
2014 p. 475). Furthermore, he straightforwardly wrote about fare sales of black American in
Jamaica and America and a philosophical ambitious, he tries to express the intellectual duality
which was a back born to the blacks as they tried to cope with discrimination due to a racist
society. Since he lived during the Harlem Renaissance, he didn’t hide his bitterness towards
racism. He constantly wrote against racism, and implicit stupidity renders its supporters
disgraceful as well as loathsome. However, according to Arthur D, I his essay “Claude
McKay’s” Claude can transcend bitterness because he had maintained his vision as a poet and
novelist and also preserving his status towards human beings. Amazingly, at some points, Claude
would protest as a negro and cry for justice and equality of the race of mankind. Therefore, his
pity towards humans especially the blacks who were neglected laid foundation to al of hid
achievement during Harlem Renaissance. As such, there is more about his life during this period
of Harlem Renaissance.

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Claude McKay (Festus Claudius) was born on September 15, 1889. His village was
called Sunny Ville, and his father was a peasant farmer. He was happy to be a black. Hence he
was filled with racial pride and always wanted to talk and hear more about his African heritage
(Maxwell & William, 2014 p. 475). Despite writing his early literary in English, they were
fascinating and expressed his views towards peasant citizens in Jamaica and American authority
in America. He was a Jamaican, and he wrote novels and poets. McKay studied British masters
with the help of his brother and his tutor Uriah Theophilus. Also, his neighbors Walter Jekyll and
Englishman played a major role in helping McKay in his studies. Jekyll advised McKay to quit
mimicking Americans authority in his English poets and start composing verse in Jamaica
Dialect. During the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay was a seminal figure. In his writing
life, Claude McKay wrote four novels which include Home to Harlem in 1928, the Best seller in
1929 which won Harlem Gold. Banana bottom in 1933 and lastly Amiable with teeth which were
a manuscript written in 1934.
While he was seventeen years old, McKay left his village, Sunny Villa, to work as a
woodworker in Brown’s Town (Brace at El P. 1990). However, he didn’t stay there for long
because after his brief studies in Brown Town; he left to work in Jamaica capital, Kingstone, as a
constable. It is in Kingstone where he encountered racism the first time in his life. Contrary to
Kingstone where whites dominated and viewed blacks as inferior, his village Sunny Vile was
predominantly full of blacks who coexisted without discrimination. McKay was much frustrated
by the bigoted Society in the Kingstone which made him return to his home village in Sunny
Ville.
His brief stays in Kingstone and Brown’s Town inspired Mc Kay to continue writing
poetry. With encouragement from Jekyll, McKay managed to produce a verse which was a

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collection of several songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads in 1912 London. In both volumes,
his views were against blacks’ aspects of life in Jamaica. Ultimately, Jamaican songs expressed
peasant lives of peasant blacks and connected with peaceful death such as McKay mother’s
deaths and the Jamaicans commitment in their land. Precisely, Constab Ballads contained blacker
perspective on Blacks life and criticized urban life in Kingstone.
Songs of Jamaica received positive comments from people who made McKay win an
award in the Jamaica Institute of Arts and Social Sciences. He used the money he received for
the ward to travel to America in 1912. He financed for the trip and travelled to South Caroline.
While in America, he studied in two main schools. He left South Carolina to Alabama and was
admitted to Tuskegee Institute. However, after two months, he transferred from Tuskegee to
Kansas State College. Early 1914, McKay quitted his studies and went to New York where he
started working on menial jobs. Again, he was faced with racism in New York City which was at
a...