UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO CEARÁ

CURSO DE LETRAS- CENTRO DE HUMANIDADES

DEPARTAMENTO DE LETRAS ESTRANGEIRAS
DISCIPLINA INGLÊS VIII: LÍNGUA & CULTURA

Docente: Profa. Dra.Maria da Glória Guará Tavares.

Discente: Aleksandra Holanda da Nóbrega Sampaio

Harlem Renaissance Poetry

“Tenebris” by Angelina Weld Grimke

Tenebris

There is a tree, by day,

That, at night,

Has a shadow,

A hand huge and black,

With fingers long and black.

All through the dark,

Against the white man's house,

In the little wind,

The black hand plucks and plucks

At the bricks.

The bricks are the color of blood and very small

.Is it a black hand,

Or is it a shadow?
 The most famous writers of Harlem Renaissance Literature are all men. This fact made
me wonder about the production of females writers in that period. During my researches, I have
found at least three of them, all with interesting life stories. So, I chose Angelina Weld Grimke,
an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright and poet who was part of the Harlem
Renaissance. She was one of the first African-American women to have a play publicly
performed.

According to Angelina herself, the poem “Tenebris” depicts an eerie/mysterious haunting

that flows slowly into the heart of the poet. By taking a glance to dictionary, we found that
Tenebris means "dark and gloomy". Another resource says that by likening the branches of a
tree to a hand "huge and black," whose shadow rests against "the white man's house," Grimké
invites us to find in her image a statement about the relationship of Blacks to white society. One
reading of the poem is that it sees Black struggle as a subterranean, persistent chipping away at
white structures. The Black Hand "plucks and plucks" at the bricks, which are "the color of
blood and very small," at night, when the occupant is sleeping, falsely secure that the image on
his house is the shadow of a harmless tree. Yet the last line asks: "Is it a black hand, or is it a
shadow?" and we are left sensing that the white man's house is in danger. The portrait of a
house built with blood-colored bricks evokes memories of the big house on a plantation
maintained by the blood and sweat of slave labor. It is also haunted by the ghosts of people,
whose anguish and anger are growing shadows on the white man's power, gathering force while
he basks in his privilege.

This cloudy atmosphere and uncertainty towards life reminds me songs of a very famous
female singer whose talent also emerged during the Harlem Renaissance Period, Billy Holiday.
All those artists have pushed their art to its limit as a form of expression and representation. It
gave empowerment to Black Community.