Poetic Devices In Harlem

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Harlem Poem Analysis “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly” said Langston Hugh. He wrote this to address the importance of following your dreams because once you stop working hard for the dream, it dies and leaves you heartbroken. In his poem, “Harlem”, Hugh criticizes the consequences of what might happen if dreams are put on hold. His poem include a lot of poetic elements such as simile, personification, diction, rhetorical question etc. Hugh uses simile to compare a dream to different things to portray the aftermath of a delayed dream. Hugh opens the poem with the simile of comparing delayed dreams to a raisin in the sun. In the line, “Does it [dream] dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (2-3).

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