Heritage

Response Question:

Discuss the representation of heritage in Countee Collen's "Heritage," focusing on the poem's meditations on the status of the past, on cultural and national identity, and on individual and collective identity. How do cultural heritage and history shape the speaker's identity? What is the viewpoint of the poem concerning heritage and how it constitutes identity?

Gathering evidence:

As you plan and draft your paper, focus on specific poetic elements the poet uses: imagery, rhyme, rhythm, meter, enjambment, repetition, assonance, alliteration, and typographical variations. Use this textual evidence to develop an argument about how the poem represents the idea of ancestry or heritage. How do ancestry and heritage define the speaker's identity? You may use the attached questions to gather textual evidence and examples. And you may find it helpful to consider or integrate other critical views as you develop your discussion.

Helpful hints for the paper's structure:

Converting a topic into a thesis:

Now that you have reviewed the poem carefully and gathered detailed textual evidence, draft a provisional thesis for your paper. Attach the thesis to your preparation notes. As you develop your thesis and paper, you'll want to think carefully about how to transform the topic--heritage and identity--into a thesis or argument.

You may wish to view the poem as it originally appeared, "Heritage Part 1" and "Heritage Part 2". For the visually inclined, you may also include discussion of the relationship between the text and the images that originally appeared alongside it.