In this dissertation, Michael Yellin examines the relationship between Jean Toomer, a multi-racial writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, and Waldo Frank, a Jewish-American writer and early proponent of Modernism. Through close textual analysis of their correspondence and published and unpublished writing, he studies the influence they had on each other's literary and intellectual work in the early 1920s. He contends that while Toomer was attracted to Frank's call for rebellion against white Christian dominance in Our America, Toomer's identification with Frank was always marked by ambivalence. According to Yellin, such ambivalence led to estrangement between Toomer and Frank for two reasons: (1) Frank's fixation on the redemptive value of suffering (particularly Jewish suffering) repulsed Toomer, who was deeply concerned with his own lack of power, and (2) Frank failed to grasp the importance Toomer placed on his multi-racial identity. Placing Toomer's Cane in the context of his engagement with Frank brings the text's commentary on race into fuller relief. Yellin asserts that Cane rejects the Judeo-Christian notion of a "chosen" race and replaces it with a eugenic theory of human evolution through interracial procreation. He also juxtaposes Frank's Holiday, Memoirs, published essays, and correspondence with Toomer to add insight into Jewish Americans' conceptualization of race. As a whole, this dissertation is a contribution to the study of relations between African Americans and Jewish Americans.
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