Jean Toomer Totally Explained

Everything about Jean Toomer totally explained

Jean Toomer (December 26, 1894–March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Biography

Born Nathan Pinchback Toomer in Washington, D.C., mixed racial and ethnic descent (Dutch, French, Native American, Welsh, German, Jewish and African American). His parents were Nina Pinchback and Nathan Toomer. He spent his childhood attending both all-white and all-black segregated schools. In his early years, Toomer resisted racial classifications and wished to be identified only as an American after going to an all-black school in Washington D.C., then an all-white school in New Rochelle N.Y., then an all-black school in Washington D.C. again. Toomer attended six institutions of higher education between 1914 and 1917 (the University of Wisconsin, the Massachusetts College of Agriculture, the American College of Physical Training in Chicago, the University of Chicago, New York University, and the City College of New York) studying agriculture, fitness, biology, sociology, and history, but he never completed a degree. The readings that he'd undertake and the lectures he attended during his college years shaped the direction his writing would take.
   After leaving college, Toomer published some short stories, devoted several months to the study of Eastern philosophies and took a job as a principal in Sparta, Georgia. The segregation Toomer experienced in the South led him to identify more strongly as an African American.
   In 1923, Toomer published the novel Cane, an important work of High Modernism. It is considered by scholars to be his best work. A series of poems and short stories about the black experience in America, Cane was hailed by critics and is seen as an important work of both the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation.
   Toomer found it harder and harder to get published throughout the 1930s and in 1940 moved with his second wife to Doylestown, Pennsylvania where he joined the Religious Society of Friends and began to withdraw from society. Toomer wrote a small amount of fiction and published essays in Quaker publications during this time, but devoted most of his time to serving on Quaker committees. Toomer stopped writing literary works after 1950. He died in 1967 after several years of poor health.

Works

Cane (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923) ISBN 0871401517
- Written during the Harlem Renaissance, Cane is a collection of poems and short narratives that examine the African-American condition both in the South as well as in Washington, D.C. around the time of its publication.
Blood Burning Moon (1923)
Problems of Civilization, by Ellsworth Huntington, Whiting Williams, Jean Toomer and others, (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1929)
Essentials: Definitions and Aphorisms (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1931)
An Interpretation of Friends Worship (Philadelphia: Committee on Religious Education of Friends General Conference, 1947)
The Flavor of Man (Philadelphia: Young Friends Movement of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1949)
The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988) ISBN 0807842095

Further Information

Get more info on 'Jean Toomer'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://jean_toomer.totallyexplained.com">Jean Toomer Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.