Abstract

This study investigates the impact of the veil and double consciousness and its impact on the de/formation of identity in the poetry of Countee Cullen (1903–1946), one of the most influential young poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Like Tiresias, Cullen throbs between two lives, a Negro and an American, never to be reconciled. W. E. B. Du Bois’s discussion of the veil and double consciousness is the theoretical framework. A psychoanalytic approach leads to the answer to the question of identity dilemma, which is based on Cullen’s self-de/rejection and his unconscious feelings of inferiority complex. To overcome this complex, Cullen sought to embrace different types of identities: literary, interracial, and homosexual. The analysis of the selected poems proves that Cullen suffers from an identity dilemma due to self-de/rejection resulting from racial depreciation, the repercussions of which echo in the Black Lives Matter Movement in current America and new Black voices. The article suggests further studies on the strong possibility of Cullen’s being homosexual, a new facet of Cullen’s identity dilemma, and on the impact of Cullen’s identity dilemma on contemporary African American poets.