Gwendolyn Brooks, one of America's leading poets since World War II, is a master of different styles of poetry and prose. Critics and laymen have acclaimed her work. Ms. Brooks has won several academic honors and literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. During the early phase of her career her poetry exhibited a boundless faith in the potential goodness of America and the viability of integration. Hence, her writing was rational, controlled, and rarely strident as it made impassioned pleas to white America to recognize the humanity of African-Americans. Subsequently, time and circumstances forced Brooks to alter these views. The civil rights struggle in America, the indomitable spirits of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other activists made the earlier views no longer acceptable to her. Additionally, the Black Arts Movement, fostered by some young black writers, and the development of a new Black consciousness resulted in her decision not only to write about blacks but for and to them in a most simplistic manner. As a Black poet Brooks began to interpret her environment more forcefully; her writing portrayed the lives of poor, black urban dwellers in a forthright, realistic tone. She described life in the nation's ghettoes in brutally frank language and aligned herself with the exploited, joined the battle against racism, classicism, sexism, materialism, and, in general, man's inhumanity to man. Brooks repeatedly revealed that man's quest for human freedom and dignity is widespread, and that this quest forces individuals to become creative in ways unknown to their oppressors. Brooks' writing was directed against both whites and blacks. Partly autobiographical, her work attacks various prejudices manifested by some blacks against each other. Specifically, her writing condemned interracial color discrimination, class, and sexual prejudices. Brooks is not a protest poet in the classic sense. She appeals to all ages, races, classes, and sexes. Her subjects run the gamut of life, for her aesthetic premise is "to vivify the universal fact . . . " especially when it wears contemporary clothing. Brooks is devoted to a truthful representation of the ordinary aspects of people's lives, especially African-Americans. Though the maladies affecting modern man pervade her work, she did include some of life's pleasantries. Specifically, this dissertation entails five sections. "The Early Gwendolyn Brooks" treats her work from A Street in Bronzeville (1945) to Selected Poems (1963). This chapter reflects her integrationist belief in an intricate and a formal style. "The Metamorphosis of Gwendolyn Brooks" deals with her change from assimilation to activism. In a less tightly controlled style as seen in her early work, her later writing emphasizes her Black consciousness. "Gwendolyn Brooks and the Young" features the poet's concern for and interest in children and youth displayed in her three books written especially for children, and a number of other things she has done for them and young people. The powerful influence that young Black writers/artists had on her racial views is also included. "For Women Only" illustrates the poet's representation of typical concerns of women. Finally, "Social Injustices--Update" discusses the ways the poet used her art to assail the inequities that most Blacks, especially poor urban ghetto dwellers, face daily. However, her writing about injustices is not limited to the lower socioeconomic people, for it suggests that injustices are so embedded in America against its Black citizens that a mere chronicling of their lives is sufficient to reveal numerous inequities. Overall, Brooks' work reveals that she is a sensitive, honest, creative, concerned, and sophisticated writer. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1149. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74411 |
| Contributors | Hemmingway, Beulah Smith |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 332 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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