The present volume undertakes to treat somewhat more thoroughly than has ever before been attempted the achievement of the Negro in the United States along literary and artistic lines, judging this by absolute rather than by partial or limited standards. The work is the result of studies in which I first became interested nearly ten years ago. In 1910 a booklet, "The Negro in Literature and Art," appeared in Atlanta, privately printed. The little work contained only sixty pages. The reception accorded it, however, was even more cordial than I had hoped it might be, and the limited edition was soon exhausted. Its substance, in condensed form, was used in 1913 as the last chapter of "A Short History of the American Negro," brought out by the Macmillan Co. In the mean time, however, new books and magazine articles were constantly appearing, and my own judgment on more than one point had changed; so that the time has seemed ripe for a more intensive review of the whole field. To teachers who may be using the history as a text I hardly need to say that I should be pleased to have the present work supersede anything said in the last chapter of that volume. The first chapter, and those on Mr. Braithwaite and Mrs. Fuller, originally appeared in the _Southern Workman_. That on the Stage was a contribution to the _Springfield Republican_; and the supplementary chapter is from the _Dial_. All are here reprinted with the kind consent of the owners of those periodicals. Much of the quoted matter is covered by copyright. Thanks are especially due to Mr. Braithwaite and Mr. J. W. Johnson for permission to use some of their poems, and to Dodd, Mead & Co., the publishers of the works of Dunbar. The bibliography is quite new. It is hoped that it may prove of service. BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. North Cambridge, August, 1917. THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART I THE NEGRO GENIUS In his lecture on "The Poetic Principle," in leading down to his definition of poetry, Edgar Allan Poe has called attention to the three faculties, intellect, feeling, and will, and shown that poetry, that the whole realm of aesthetics in fact, is concerned primarily and solely with the second of these. _Does it satisfy a sense of beauty?_ This is his sole test of a poem or of any work of art, the aim being neither to appeal to the intellect by satisfying the reason or inculcating truth, nor to appeal to the will by satisfying the moral sense or inculcating duty.