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A Disciple's Odyssey: Jean Toomer's Gurdjieffian Career*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Extract
Nineteen twenty-three was a momentous year in Jean Toomer's life. The publication of Cane, a cluster of thematically related sketches, stories, and poems about black people in Georgia and Washington, D.C., signaled his emergence as a talented young writer whom many associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Later in the year Toomer discovered the teachings of Georgi Gurdjieff, whose Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man was becoming internationally famous. While Cane was emerging as a minor classic during the 1920s, Toomer devoted himself to Gurdjieff, creating confusions about his loyalties that never ceased to plague him. Although his Gurdjieffian connection is well known, it is rarely taken seriously, and even today Toomer is usually discussed only as a “black” writer. Perhaps for a while he was, but his youthful fascination with race for its own sake slowly evolved into a racially conscious, then a radically unconscious, universalism. In that process, Gurdjieffian teachings were the catalyst, and it was clear to Toomer that his involvement with the “movement”—not race—was the defining quality of his life.
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References
NOTES
1. Undated and untitled manuscript, Box 53, Jean Toomer Collection, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee. Hereafter, unless otherwise noted, all Toomer manuscripts and correspondence are from the Toomer Collection at Fisk.
2. Du Bois, W. E. B., Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (1935: rpt. Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1964), p. 469Google Scholar. Also see E. L. Thornbrough, ed., Black Reconstructionists (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 176.
3. Fullinwinder, S. P., The Mind and Mood of Black America (Homewood, ill.: Dorsey Press, 1969), p. 138.Google Scholar
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5. Fullinwinder, , Mind and Mood, p. 138.Google Scholar
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8. Undated manuscript, “Why 1 Entered the Gurdjieff Work,” p. 17.Google Scholar
9. Ibid., p. 28.
10. Toomer, to Frank, Waldo, 1923Google Scholar, quoted in Toomer, , “Outline of Autobiography,” p. 55.Google Scholar
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13. Quoted in Turner, Darwin, In a Minor Chord: Three Afro-Americans and Their Search for Identity (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1971), p. 32.Google Scholar
14. Ibid., pp. 36–37.
15. Toomer, to McClure, John, 06 30, 1922.Google Scholar
16. Toomer, to Barnett, Claud, 04 29, 1923.Google Scholar
17. Toomer, to McKay, Claude, 08 19, 1922.Google Scholar
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19. “Why I Entered the Gurdjieff Work,” pp. 27–28.Google Scholar
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21. Toomer, to Johnson, James Weldon, 07 4, 1930.Google Scholar
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25. Fisher, Alice Poindexter, “The Influence of Ouspensky's Tertium Organum upon Jean Toomer's Cane”, CLA Journal, 17 (06 1974), 504–15Google Scholar. Most of this issue is devoted to Toomer.
26. On Toomer's early contacts with Orage and Gurdjieff, see “Why I Entered the Gurdjieff Work”; untitled manuscript beginning “Sennez-Forle” on arriving at the Institute; and the material on Gurdjieff, including Toomer's membership certificate, in folder 7, Box 67.
27. Quoted in Turner, , In a Minor Chord, p. 37.Google Scholar
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30. Peters, , Boyhood, pp. 26, 152, and passim.Google Scholar
31. Hoffman, Maud, “Taking the Life Cure in Gurdjieff's School,” New York Times, 02 10, 1924, Sec. 7, p. 13.Google Scholar
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36. On their first week in the cottage, see “Portage Potentials,” pp. 1–38Google Scholar; Latimer, to Dupee, Yvonne and to Rakosi, Carl, 06 1931Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, Margery Latimer's letters are in the Toomer Collection at Fisk.
37. Biographical information on Latimer was obtained from Who's Who in America, 1930–1931; 1932–1933; interview with Green, Katharine, Portage, Wisconsin, 03 21, 22, 1975Google Scholar; and letters from Stimson, Rachel L. (Latimer's sister) to McCarthy, Daniel P., 10 1 and November 10, 1974Google Scholar, and to the author, September 23, 1975.
38. Gale, Zona, letter to the editor, New York Times, 03 1, 1924Google Scholar; Orage, A. R. to Latimer, , 11 18, 21, December 19, 1924Google Scholar; March 5, 1925, Katharine Green Collection, Portage, Wisconsin; Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975.Google Scholar
39. Latimer, to Ware, Ruth, 07 5, 1931.Google Scholar
40. “Portage Potentials,” pp. 37–38.Google Scholar
41. Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975Google Scholar; “Portage Potentials,” pp. 97–98Google Scholar; Milwaukee Sentinel, 03 20, 21, 1932.Google Scholar
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43. Ibid.; “Portage Potentials,” p. 68.Google Scholar
44. Latimer, to Le Sueur, Meridel, 08 9, September, October, 1931.Google Scholar
45. Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975Google Scholar; statements from participants appended to “Portage Potentials.”
46. Ibid., pp. 259, 260, 263, 304.
47. Portage (Wisconsin), Register-Democrat, 07 13, 1931Google Scholar, includes the text of the Toomer speech.
48. “Portage Potentials,” pp. 230–233Google Scholar, includes undated Madison and Milwaukee newspaper clippings on the experiment; Register-Democrat, 07 31, 1931.Google Scholar
49. Latimer, to Le Sueur, Meridel, 10, 1931Google Scholar; Milwaukee Journal, 10 24, 1931.Google Scholar
50. Register-Democrat, 10 24, 31, 1931.Google Scholar
51. Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975.Google Scholar
52. Latimer, to Rakosi, Carl, 10, 1931.Google Scholar
53. Toomer, to Dupee, Yvonne, 03 26, 1932Google Scholar; Register-Democrat, 02 15 and March 9, 1932.Google Scholar
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55. Milwaukee, Sentinel, 03 20, 1932Google Scholar; Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975.Google Scholar
56. Same as note 55; Turner, , In a Minor Chord, pp. 50–51Google Scholar; Latimer, to Kelm, Karlton, 09 3, 1931.Google Scholar
57. Latimer, to Latimer, Laurie B., 04 17, 1932Google Scholar. For the Toomers' interpretation of the entire episode, see Margery, to Roberts, Sara, 03 20Google Scholar, and to Latimer, Laurie B., 03 30, 1932Google Scholar; Jean, to Dupee, Yvonne, 03 26, 1932.Google Scholar
58. Green, Katharine interview, 03 21, 22, 1975Google Scholar; interview with Mrs. George Murison, who attended Toomer, 's lectures, Portage, 03 22, 1975.Google Scholar
59. Ibid.; Register-Democrat and Milwaukee Journal, 08 17, 1932Google Scholar; Capital Times and New York Times, 08 18, 1932Google Scholar; Holmes, John Haynes to Toomer, , 11 23, 1933Google Scholar, Katharine Green Collection.
60. Toomer, to Gurdjieff, , 08 16, 1934.Google Scholar
61. Toomer, to Dupee, Yvonne, 11 25, 1934.Google Scholar
62. Anderson, Paul E. to Toomer, , 01 31, 1949Google Scholar: undated manuscript on Gurdjieff, Box 53.
63. Toomer's activities after 1934 have been reconstructed from letters to the author from Marjorie Content Toomer, from assorted manuscripts in boxes marked Gurdjieff in the Toomer Collection, and from an interview on May 1, 1975, with Mrs. William J. Welch, a New York Gurdjieffian.
64. Toomer, to Smith, Harrison, 09 1933Google Scholar; undated manuscript on Gurdjieff, Box 53.
65. Marjorie Content Toomer to the author, October 17, 1975.
66. MrsWelch, William J. interview, 05 I, 1975.Google Scholar