18 pages • 36 minutes read
Gwendolyn Brooksthe rites for Cousin Vit
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context
Brooks places Cousin Vit within the literary context of poets who helped make the sonnet famous, including William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Brooks shows how the sonnet isn’t the exclusive domain of white authors. It’s a form that Black poets—and poets from other historically marginalized groups—can access. Brooks’s use of the sonnet is aligned with her goal to bring poetry to ordinary people and reveal how extraordinary these individuals can be. Cousin Vit deserves to be in a sonnet not because she was famous or a leading historical figure but because she was a regular person who was lucky or “haply” (Line 14) enough to live a vibrant life.
The Harlem Renaissance is another context for “the rites for Cousin Vit.” This literary movement took place in New York City during the 1920s and 30s. It encouraged Black writers and artists to express their lives, voices, and multidimensional identities. Brooks read and admired Harlem Renaissance writers—the poet Langston Hughes, among them. They helped create the platform so that she could write textured poems about Black people like Cousin Vit.
Yet, according to George Kent, Brooks “recoiled at the exotic image” of the Harlem Renaissance and its representation of Black people (Kent, A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks). Brooks’s belief that people shouldn’t reduce Black people to their skin color might be why she omits Cousin Vit’s. By not explicitly noting Cousin Vit’s race, Brooks requires the reader to think more deeply about how race shapes identity.
Historical Context
Brooks published "the rites for Cousin Vit" in her 1949 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Annie Allen. During the 1940s, women, regardless of their skin color, had more freedom. World War Two (1939-1945) took many women out of the domestic sphere and put them into the public workplace. Since men were fighting abroad, factories and companies hired women to fill their positions. For the first time, many women were earning a salary and experiencing the kind of independence Cousin Vit embodies.
At the same time, women continued to face acute limitations. Due to gender inequality, women like Cousin Vit—women who went against the idea that they should lead meek, passive lives in the shadows of their husbands—were often villainized or censured. During this period, abortion was a crime, so the mention of “pregnancy” (Line 12) and “alleys” (Line 13) could refer to “back-alley abortions” or risky, potentially lethal abortion procedures.
During the 1940s, white people continued to assault, lynch, segregate, and mistreat Black people. None of this horrendous prejudice explicitly occurs in the poem. Maybe this is another reason why Cousin Vit is “haply” (Line 14) or lucky. Somehow, she didn’t let racism define her life.
Finally, the mention of “snake-hips” (Line 10) suggests another applicable historical lens for Cousin Vit: the 1920s. A Black performer, Earl Tucker, created the snakehips dance during the 1920s in Harlem. This historical period connects Cousin Vit to the Harlem Renaissance and the excitement experienced by its participants. The 1920s also links Cousin Vit to prohibition. The United States prohibited or outlawed alcohol sales from 1920 to 1933, making her visits to “bars” (Line 7) and consumption of “bad wine” (Line 11) all the more rebellious.
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By Gwendolyn Brooks
