Proletarian poetry is a political poetry movement that developed in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, expressing the class-conscious perspectives of the working class through poems that are explicitly Marxist or at least socialist, though aesthetically varied. Its poetic forms range from styles emulating African-American slave work songs to modernist poetry, and major poets of the movement include Langston Hughes, Kenneth Fearing, Edwin Rolfe, Horace Gregory and Mike Gold.
Facts
Place of Origin Notable Example Defining TraitViews human conflict from a social perspective and sees society in terms of economic classes 1 FAQs
Where did American proletarian poetry come from, and who promoted it?
It drew on Soviet proletarian literature and American labor songs, and The New Masses, founded in 1926, led its promotion.
Proletarian poetry mainly originated in the proletarian literary movement that arose in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union, but it also had American antecedents before the 1920s. Coal miners in Pennsylvania wrote and sang militant labor songs, a form the Industrial Workers of the World embraced in the years before World War I. In 1926 the leftist magazine The New Masses was established and quickly took the forefront in defining and promoting the poetry, and members of its staff went on in 1929 to organize John Reed Clubs in numerous cities.
How did critics receive proletarian poetry at the time?
Some 1930s critics called it raucous, stilted and over-sentimental, and it was not readily accepted.
Some critics in the 1930s criticized proletarian poetry as raucous, stilted and over-sentimental, despite its attempt to represent the working class. Many of its poems and songs appeared in labor movement magazines such as the Wobblies' Can Opener and Industrial Worker. Because it shifted away from traditional verse and from traditional means of publication, it was not readily accepted and was received vaguely.
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Sources
1. Proletarian poetry, Wikipedia
Lead section
Proletarian poetry is a political poetry movement that developed in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s
Description section
View human conflict from a social perspective (as opposed to personal, psychological, or universal) and see society in terms of economic classes.
Lead section [notable-example]
Major poets of the movement include Langston Hughes, Kenneth Fearing, Edwin Rolfe, Horace Gregory, and Mike Gold.
View the SourceReader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.