Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1984. The Sage in Harlem establishes H. L. Mencken as a catalyst for the blossoming of black literary culture in the 1920s and chronicles the intensely productive exchange of ideas between Mencken and two generations of black writers: the Old Guard who pioneered the Harlem Renaissance and the Young Wits who sought to reshape it a decade later. From his readings of unpublished letters and articles from black publications of the time, Charles Scruggs argues that black writers saw usefulness in Mencken's critique of American culture, his advocacy of literary realism, and his satire of America. They understood that realism could free them from the pernicious stereotypes that had hounded past efforts at honest portraiture, and that satire could be the means whereby the white man might be paid back in his own coin. Scruggs contends that the content of Mencken's observations, whether ludicrously narrow or dazzlingly astute, was of secondary importance to the Harlem int
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Chapter 1. Why Mencken?
Chapter 2. Mencken and "The Colored Brother"
Chapter 3. The Age of Satire: The Teacher and His Pupils
Chapter 4. The Dream of the Secular City: Mencken Locke, and the "Little American Renaissance"
Chapter 5. Et Tu Mencken? The End of the Romance
Chapter 6. The Negro Novel and the Limits of Realism
Chapter 7. Epilogue
Notes
Index
