African American Identity and the Sonnet: McKay's “The Harlem Dancer” and the Restructuring of Traditional Poetic Form
If Modernist poetry were strictly about the utilization of new forms in which images and feelings could be expressed that challenged traditional linear form, Claude McKay would not be seen as a modernist poet. Indeed, “The Harlem Dancer” utilizes the traditional sonnet, staying true to iambic pentameter, an abab rhyme scheme, and the definitive concluding couplet. So how can McKay be seen as a modernist if he intentionally uses the most canonical poet form for his poem? I would argue that McKay intentionally utilizes the traditional form of the white literary world, while at the same time reconfigures how it functions with it's subject matter to make it new and ultimately untraditional. Typically the Shakespearean sonnet is about love and offers a structure that exudes a sense of harmony. “The Harlem Dancer,” however, is far from an amiable love poem, and the bleak picture of the “mask” motif highlights the harsh realities African American's faced within the confines of white society. Thus, just as the poem must operate within the rigid requirements of the sonnet, African Americans must refigure their identity to function within the binary limitations of a White world.
The speaker in the poem outlines the notion of appearance versus reality—the dancer may seem one way, but in actuality her “self” is concealed beyond a facade. Here McKay alludes to Dunbar's mask motif from his poem “We Wear the Mask” that offers, “let them only see us, while/ we wear the mask.” The physical body becomes the image of the African American obtained merely through visual cues, while true identity is repressed behind these constructed “Masks”. What makes McKay's poem unique, however, is that the Dancer is not simply wearing the mask for a white audience, she is misunderstood by the “youths”. It is “the wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls” that...