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Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel"

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Countee Cullen and the Harlem Renaissance

Cullen was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, promoting the "new Negro" in his poetry, yet he was also criticized for writing traditional poetry rather than experimenting with form. Following is his response to a patron's request that he write more "Negroid" poetry:

Madame is of the opinion that little of artistic merit is now being produced in America except that which is being done by Negroes; the American short story writers and novelists have run out of material; the American poets are monotonous and repetitious; but the Negro alone has life and action and material unplumbed out of which the new literature is to come. In vain I mention some names: Frost and Robinson and Millay; Anderson and Cather and O'Neill; timidly I venture the opinion that these are names before whom it is just to bow the knee, and that their ore does not seem to have run out. Madame makes me feel that I am recreant, disloyal, a literary heretic, a blind man stumbling along in the light of the new day. Just archly enough not to offend me, yet accusingly, she turns to one of my poems, and indicts me for my love of Keats, for concerning myself with names like Endymion and Lancelot and Jupiter. It is on the tip of my tongue to ask why Keats himself should have concerned himself with themes like Endymion and Hyperion, but I am drinking Madame's tea. . . . Later, out in the cool Parisian air, I ponder where all this will lead us. Must we, willy-nilly, be forced into writing of nothing but the old atavistic urges, the more savage and none too beautiful aspects of our lives? May we not chant a hymn to the Sun God if we will, create a bit of phantasy in which not a spiritual or blues appears, write a tract defending Christianity though its practitioners aid us so little in our argument; in short do, write, create, what we will, our only concern being that we do it well and with all the power that is within us? Ah, Madame, I have drunk your tea and read your book and thought you a charming hostess, but I have not been converted.

Research the Harlem Renaissance beginning with the Web resources on the related links page, and consider how Cullen does and does not represent its major literary ideas.

Exploring Mythological Allusions

The stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus are important to this poem and affect the way we read it. Consider the fuller stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Many critics have written about the role of these stories in the poem, such as Fred Fetrow (The Explicator 56.2 [Winter 1998]: 103—this article is found in Infotrac, available in many college libraries). Another perspective on Sisyphus is that of Albert Camus—his exploration of the myth of Sisyphus formed the basis of his existentialist philosophy. How do you see the meaning of these myths working in Cullen's poem?

Poetic Comparisons

Compare this poem with others in our text which are similar in form, tone, or theme. In particular, look at Robert Frost's questioning of God in "Design" or John Keats's confrontation with his mortality in "When I have fears" or "To Autumn."  You might develop comparisons with other works of the Harlem Renaissance, such as those by Claude McKay ("The Harlem Dancer," "The White House," "America") or Langston Hughes ("Harlem [A Dream Deferred]," "Theme for English B"), or Paul Laurence Dunbar ("Sympathy," "We Wear the Mask").

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In The Portable Intro to Literature
In The Seagull Reader
In Portable & The Seagull Reader