A 'Lost Crowd': Reconfiguring the Harlem Renaissance as a Post-War 'Lost Generation'

Traditionally for black Americans, World War I did not signify the traumatic removal of traditional Victorian ideals, the end of any romantic notions of battle, or, as it would for white American literature, the disillusionment and alienation of a literary 'Lost Generation'. Although experiencing continued racism upon their return, the recognition that black Americans had received in wartime France came to characterize a budding enthusiasm for the social prospects of the post-war era. Yet many novels of the Harlem Renaissance certainly resonate with the disillusionment of the Lost Generation and similarly grapple with notions of war trauma and traumatic post-war (re) integration into a chaotic American society. This article considers the endeavour to reconcile feelings of post-war national unity with the African-American struggle for racial equality in the early twentieth century. By evaluating the analogous themes of alienation, masculinity, and place represented by both the Lost Generation and Harlem Renaissance, this article seeks to highlight traumatic parallels between post- war literatures of two divergent 'lost' generations.