Talk:Countee Cullen/Archive 1
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| Archive 1 |
Date of birth
Can anyone confirm the month of Cullen's birth? Other sources (including Britannica) give it as May, but we have March. (In fact, we originally had May too, but it was changed.)
— John Mark Williams (t) 28 June 2005 10:10 (UTC)
- The best answer is May. Britannica has it as May, the reference link has it as May, and Cullen himself wrote a poem, "Saturday's Child" in which he claims, "I was born on a Saturday." Hardly proof -- but if you check the dates, March 30th, 1903 is a Monday; May 30th, 1903 is a Saturday, and would make more sense in the context of Cullen's poem. I can see no good reason for keeping the date as March.
- Conflicting dates given by the two sources on this site. Is there any good way to denote a disagreement over the specific date of birth? (March or May) I have changed the page to say (1903 – January 9, 1946) to reflect disagreement over this date. Rboyce 17:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Sexual orientation
There's a dispute as to whether Cullen was gay. Can the contributor who says that Cullen is gay, the arranged engagement, and name calling by his father, please cite the sources or remove the text? He was married to W.E.B. Du Bois Daughter Yolande they were married in 1928.
- The second source on this page states that Cullen and Yolande DuBois divorced after he admitted his homosexuality to her in Paris. He then went on to remarry Ida Mae Roberson in 1940. At the time, it was not unusual for gays to marry for social reasons. (I am not the original contributor, however.) It seems to be widely accepted that Cullen was gay, although I do not have any information about an arranged engagement with Dorothy West, so some citation for that would be helpful.
Rboyce 16:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
- The same source used to describe Cullen's homosexual attraction also says he enjoyed 'happily married life' with his second wife. Would one then still classify him as homosexual? Elefuntboy 22:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
- There is no proof he was gay, nor can his ex-wife be considered an impartial source on the matter.