Jean Toomer

Introduction for essay about Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer was an American writer and poet, and the author of the influential modernist novel Cane. Toomer was born in Washington, D.C. in 1894, and his family had deep roots in the American South. His grandfather, P.B.S. Pinchback, was the first African American to serve as governor of Louisiana. Toomer’s father, Nathan Toomer, was a prominent African American educator and civil rights activist.nJean Toomer began his literary career as a poet, and his first collection of poems, The Way of the New World, was published in 1917. In the early 1920s, Toomer began working on Cane, a novel that draws on his own experiences as a black man living in the South. Cane was published in 1923 and was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of modernist literature.nToomer continued to write poetry and essays throughout his life, and he also worked as a teacher and a social worker. He died in 1967.

Structure of essay papers on Jean Toomer

1. The importance of art and literature in Toomer’s life and work
2. Toomer’s commitment to racial equality and social justice
3. The centrality of nature in Toomer’s writing
4. Toomer’s exploration of the intersections of race, class, and gender
5. The influence of Toomer’s family and community on his development as a writer
6. The significance of place in Toomer’s work
7. Toomer’s use of experimental literary techniques
8. Themes of identity and self-discovery in Toomer’s writing
9. The role of spirituality in Toomer’s life and work
10. Toomer’s legacy as a major American writer

Conclusion

In conclusion, Jean Toomer was a gifted writer and thinker whose work was greatly influential during the Harlem Renaissance. Though he is not as well-known as some of his contemporaries, his work is nonetheless important and deserving of study.

The most popular works of this author

1. Cane
2. The Way of the New World
3. The Gift of the Black Folk
4. The Negro
5. The Blue Horizon
6. Song of the Lark
7. Kabnis
8. Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing
9. Helene Johnson’s Selected Poems
10. Jean Toomer’s Collected Poems