Cane
A Library of America eBook Classic
Published on 1. January 2019
134 pages
978-1-59853-573-0 (ISBN)
Description
Jean Toomer's revolutionary masterpiece Cane (1923) ushered in the era we now know as the Harlem Renaissance, and has come to be considered one of the classic works of American literary modernism. A boldly experimental "novel" mixing prose, poetry, and dramatic sketches, the book's hallmark is its formal sophistication; sexuality, racism, and industrialization are among its major themes. Above all else it offers unforgettably evocative portraits of the African American lives Toomer encountered in rural Georgia, by turns down-to-earth, heartfelt, hauntingly lyrical.
More details
Person
Jean Toomer (1899-1967) was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in the household of his maternal grandfather, a prominent mixed-race Louisiana politician. Dropping out of college, he moved to New York, where he discovered the literary circles of Harlem and Greenwich Village and contributed to avant-garde magazines. He began Cane soon after he was appointed as temporary principal of an agricultural school in Smyrna, Georgia. Later an exponent of the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff and a convert to Quakerism, he published aphorisms and religious works; his Collected Poems appeared posthumously in 1988.
Content
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Karintha
- Reapers
- November Cotton Flower
- Becky
- Face
- Cotton Song
- Carma
- Song of the Son
- Georgia Dusk
- Fern
- Nullo
- Evening Song
- Esther
- Conversion
- Portrait in Georgia
- Blood-Burning Moon
- Seventh Street
- Rhobert
- Avey
- Beehive
- Storm Ending
- Theater
- Her Lips Are Copper Wire
- Calling Jesus
- Box Seat
- Prayer
- Harvest Song
- Bona and Paul
- Kabnis
- Chronology
- Biographical Note
- Note on the Text
- Notes
