Heritage
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
"Heritage"
Countee Cullen was the foremost poet of the New Negro Academy during the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen was the adopted son of the Reverend Fredrick A. Cullen of the Salem African Episcopal Church in Harlem. Cullen began writing poetry while at Dewitt Clinton High School in New York. He wrote "Heritage," which Langston Hughes called the most beautiful known poem by him. In the poem "Heritage," Cullen is speaking as a representative African American addressing the social issues of a tainted depiction of Africa in relation to heritage amongst the Negro. The poem is like the Earth on its axis, constantly rotating back to itself. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker, the representative African American is describing the Negro's perception of Africa based solely on man-made images such as magazines or paintings. The speaker then goes into an in depth analysis of himself and his connection or lack of connection with the heritage of Africa. He then proceeds back to the Negro's unwarranted perception of Africa...