Art Serves as Reflection of Ourselves
What is the role of art in society? During the Harlem Renaissance, luminaries such as W.E.B DuBois argued that all art should serve as propaganda and should stem from classical traditions whereas others such as Langston Hughes sought to make art of and about the people, eschewing the position that art should be “lofty.” Throughout A Long Way from Home, Claude McKay addresses this discussion, in various ways, but he also, more importantly, highlights the ways that art provides insights into one’s inner-self, especially when he relates the story of Ivan Opfer’s portrait of Le Corse.
During the 1920s, McKay worked at Max and Crystal Eastman’s socialist magazine The Liberator. While there, he received some poems from e.e. cummings and argued for their inclusion in the magazine. Particularly, “Maison” caught McKay’s attention, and on the poem, McKay says, “It created something like an exquisite palace in Chinese porcelain. . . . but the author had also placed in it a little egg so rotten that you could smell it.” McKay argued with cummings about the egg, but the poet said that he intended the egg to be in the poem, and McKay accepted the poet’s position.
McKay liked cummings’ not for its social or political nature but for its artistic nature; however, the substitute editor-in-chief, Robert Minor, did not agree. Instead, Minor accussed McKay of being “more of…
