A new biography by Cornell literature scholar George Hutchinson examines how Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer's ideas about race shaped his fiction, public identity and personal struggles.
Hutchinson's book argues that Toomer sought an American identity beyond the racial categories of Black and white, a view that informed his 1923 modernist novel Cane.
Toomer, who lived from 1894 to 1967, is widely regarded as an influential Harlem Renaissance figure. “Cane” inspired generations of Black writers and is considered a major work of African American literature, though Toomer resisted identifying himself as either Black or white.
Hutchinson, Cornell's Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture, said Toomer's early experience moving between Black and white communities contributed to his sense of being between established identities. The poetry of Walt Whitman also influenced his belief in a composite American identity.
The biography traces Toomer's development of a “new race” concept before he wrote “Cane.” Hutchinson describes how the book was assembled as a collage of poems, lyrical sketches, stories and a play, many of which first appeared separately in avant-garde magazines.
Hutchinson said the book can be read as an important early expression of what later became known as a Black aesthetic even though Toomer believed it pointed toward a new American people. That tension shaped both the work's reception and Toomer's relationship with it.
The biography also considers Toomer's other writing. Hutchinson cited the story “Withered Skin of Berries,” the play “Balo” and “Essentials,” a collection of aphorisms, as works that warrant more attention.
Toomer's childhood and family history also shaped his life, according to Hutchinson. His father left during his first year, his mother died when he was 12 and he was raised by grandparents as the family fell into poverty.
Hutchinson said Toomer's ability to live on both sides of the color line fed his sense that he could speak for a new racial identity, while vulnerability and a search for vocation contributed to his lifelong pursuit of what he described as higher consciousness.
The biography argues that Toomer's vision did not gain broad acceptance in part because of persistent anti-Blackness and the development of African Americans as a self-defined people with pride in shared history and collective resilience.
Hutchinson directs Cornell's John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines and holds the George Reed Professorship of Writing and Rhetoric. His earlier work includes “The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White,” and he edited the 2019 Penguin Classics edition of “Cane.”
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