This
is the homepage into which you first entered - the page that serves as
the cover to the book known as my website.
This interpretive
website is a gift from me to you, a glimpse into my reading of the
theme and significance of the pear tree in Zora Neale Hurston's
renowned novel, Their Eyes
Were Watching God. Hurston is one of the foremost authors
of the Harlem Renaissance, a period roughly dated between 1920 and 1930
more accurately defined by its "unprecedented outburst of
creative activity among African-Americans (which) occurred in all
fields of art. Beginning as a series of literary discussions in the
lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem)
sections of New York City, this African-American cultural movement
became known as "The New Negro Movement" and later as the Harlem
Renaissance. More than a literary movement and more than a social
revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique
culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression.
African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to
become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic
Alain LeRoy Locke," as eloquently explained @ http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/harlem/harlem.asp.
For more
biographical information relating to Zora Neale Hurston, please see the
annotated links and credits page which will guide you to the abundance
of internet resources that I encountered in my research for this site
and for the English 200: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
course I am taking at the University of Washington.
