Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance by Houston A. Baker, Jr.

In this monograph, Houston Baker argues that the Harlem Renaissance does not constitute a "'failure' to produce vital, original, effective, or 'modern' art in the manner, presumably, of British, Anglo-American, and Irish creative endeavors" (xiii). Instead, Baker makes the case that African American art, starting with Up From Slavery works against the minstrel mask to create oratorical mastery from "inside the while world's nonsense syllables" (25). I found Baker's readings of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry and Charles Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman and his insistence on the importance of finding a way to convey sound persuasive. Finally, Baker contends that the "mastery of form" and the "deformation of mastery" constitute two strategies employed by various artists as they work against the mask of minstrelcy to create the Harlem Renaissance.