Négritude

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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Negritude, an ideological movement that developed in France in the 1930s, during an era of decreasing colonial power, was based on two principal beliefs: the ennoblement of the black (then generally called Negro) race in response to racist attitudes and the revaluation of African civilizations. It is most commonly associated with the Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire, the Senegalese poet and first president of his country Léopold Sédar Senghor, and the poet and politician Léon-Gontran Damas from French Guyana, although many others contributed significantly to the movement's birth.

African-American writers of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Zora Neale Hurston, to name but a few, would influence the Negritude movement greatly. Their belief in

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Citation: Jahn, Jennifer. "Négritude". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1722, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1722 Négritude 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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