Langston Hughes was an American poet, whose African-American themes made him a main contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
He’s the brains behind "Let America be America Again" and many other pieces of poetry. When first reading "Let America be America Again" I was really intrigued about why and how he was displaying all the different cultures and races in America and how it always ends the same way because they are overpowered by the rich and powerful. After analyzing this poem, I believe that Langston Hughes shows that America is once again America, must accept all the people living in it. This theme was communicated through the use of the abstract language poet, personification, and its history.
This poem shows and defines a great deal of american identity.
It shows how america needs to be as how america was advertised,as the land of the free and equality.
Langston Hughes demonstrates his ideas by giving examples using abstract language. He does this to give the words use a wider and stronger meaning and use them in ways that only he can. Things and objects hold greater significance and always have
…show more content…
a hidden meaning. Also he gives animals way deeper meanings. For example, he uses the word “leeches” to demonstrate how white people and people in political positions are sucking everything out of other cultures and keeping it for themselves.
He also uses "faith" and "pain" tremendously as a way to show what they feel, who have faith and do not know what to do in their current situation. "Black" is also used in abstract ways.
He uses “Black” to show how they have been called by the rest of the people, and uses it as an insult to African-American culture. The use of different and abstract language helps poetry create significant meanings because it makes poetry not just literal, but deeper and makes the reader think that there may be a different meaning for each reader, because the word might have many different meanings. Here are some examples of abstract language of use in "Both in America and America
Again". Since this is a very deep poem, Langston Hughes has had to use the representation of a small poem more interesting. Use personification to show what you think about earth and people. Hughes lives in America, says "That America is again in America," as he is talking to people and saying he should leave alone and leave it to be. It also gives human characteristics to other things, such as Liberty. Giving freedom a human feature when it says: "Oh, my land is a land where freedom is crowned by a false patriotic crown" in this part is giving the characteristic freedom of a human being that can be crowned and can be patriotic . Because freedom can not be crowned or patriotic, but use these words to give more meaning to what he says. I like how to use personification in the poem because it gives a nice touch and makes it more interesting because not only to see the literal meaning, but something more profound, personifying these words deeply pronounced poetry a special touch. This is just one of the many poetic devices used by Hughes "America is America Again". He also uses part of his life to do this poem.
Langston Hughes wrote during a very critical time in American History, the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote many poems, but most of his most captivating works centered around women and power that they hold. They also targeted light and darkness and strength. The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Mother to Son, both explain the importance of the woman, light and darkness and strength in the African-American community. They both go about it in different ways.
When reading the literature of Langston Hughes, I cant help but feeling energetically charged and inspired. Equality, freedom, empowerment, renaissance, justice and perseverance, are just a taste of the subject matter Hughes offers. He amplifies his voice and beliefs through his works which are firmly rooted in race pride and race feeling. Hughes committed himself both to writing and to writing mainly about African Americans. His early love for the “wonderful world of books” was sparked by loneliness and parental neglect. He would soon lose himself in the works of Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence, Carl Sandburg and other literary greats which would lead to enhancing his ever so growing style and grace of oeuvre. Such talent, character, and willpower could only come from one’s life experiences. Hughes had allot to owe to influences such as his grandmother and great uncle John Mercer Langston - a famous African American abolitionist. These influential individuals helped mold Hughes, and their affect shines brightly through his literary works of art.
The "Langston Hughes" Voices & Visions: the Poet in America. Ed. Helen Vendler. New York: Random House, 1987. 352-93.
It’s no secret that inequality and racial discriminations were high back in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Langston Hughes was able to use his work to counterattack this way of thinking in America. He not only led a movement, but also set an example for others to follow. In the poems I stated above, you can tell the Harlem Renaissance influences on his
Once Hughes graduated from high school some of his work began to be published in magazines. During his college years he became a very important key figure with his poetry during the Harlem Renaissance which took place in New York; and it was a literary, artistic, cultural, and intellectual movement that began soon after World War I and ended in the 1930's. The movement brought up huge issues in the lives of African Americans
AND to show how wide spread the equality in the country is, not focusing singularly on a group. AND he uses alliteration briefly throughout the poem. In line six he says “. . . dreamers dream. . .” and on line seventy two he says “. . .
Although “Theme for English B” was published in 1949, it has many of the characteristics that his earlier works from the Harlem Renaissance possessed. The rhythmic rhyming adds to the musicality of the poem. The language is simple, yet effective in making a very important social statement. An especially intense aura of American separatism is present throughout the poem. A sense of egalitarianism is also present throughout the poem: the instructor is just as much student as the student is professor, young and old each have much to offer the other, and black and white partake of each other.
Langston Hughes was a large influence on the African-American population of America. Some of the ways he did this was how his poetry influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and the Harlem Renaissance. These caused the civil rights movement that resulted in African-Americans getting the rights that they deserved in the United States. Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was young and his grandmother raised him. She got him into literature and education; she was one of the most important influences on him. He moved around a lot when he was young, due to his parents divorce, but remained a good student and graduated high school. After this he traveled the world and worked in different places, all the things he saw in his travels influenced him. In 1924 he settled down in Harlem where he became one of the important figures in the Harlem Renaissance. He enjoyed listening to blues and jazz in clubs while he wrote his poetry. The music that he enjoyed greatly influenced the style and rhythm of his poetry. The poem “Dream Variations” by Hughes is about an average African-American who dreams of a world where African-Americans are not looked at or treated differently and they can rest peacefully. Yet in real life this was not so, black people and white people were not equal. And the world was not as forgiving and nice as in their dream. This poem is a good example of Hughes writing because it is typical of three things. The first is the common theme of the average life of an African-American and their struggles. Secondly, the style of his writing which is based on the rhythm of jazz and blues- he uses a lot of imagery and similes. Lastly, his influences which are his lonely childhood and growing up as an Afric...
During the 1920's and 30’s, America went through a period of astonishing artistic creativity, the majority of which was concentrated in one neighborhood of New York City, Harlem. The creators of this period of growth in the arts were African-American writers and other artists. Langston Hughes is considered to be one of the most influential writers of the period know as the Harlem Renaissance. With the use of blues and jazz Hughes managed to express a range of different themes all revolving around the Negro. He played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance, helping to create and express black culture. He also wrote of political views and ideas, racial inequality and his opinion on religion. I believe that Langston Hughes’ poetry helps to capture the era know as the Harlem Renaissance.
...struggle for dignity as a black person in the early/mid twentieth century. “Democracy” is a slightly stern and direct request to take action and fight for civil rights. “Theme for English B” is a compassionate and low-key personal anecdote that reiterates the unpracticed concept that “all men are created equal”. Despite the difference in tone and subject, all four poems relate to the central theme that dignity is something that white men may take for granted, but Langston Hughes, as a black man and a writer, sees and feels dignity as fight and a struggle that he faced and that the black community as whole faces every day.
Langston Hughes is a key figure in the vision of the American dream. In his writings, his African-American perspective gives an accurate vision of what the American dream means to a less fortunate minority. His poetry is very loud and emotional in conveying his idea of the African-American dream. Most of his poetry either states how the black man is being suppressed or is a wish, a plea for equality. He does not want the black man to be better than everyone else, but just to be treated equally.
By this Langston means people will not only see the color of his skin, but the beauty and capability he has on the inside. People will see that he is really beautiful—nothing and no one to be embarrassed by—and they will be ashamed by their earlier behavior. Hughes ends the poem by again stating, "I, too, am America" (line 18) showing his true pride and ownership of a country that was never very hospitable to him. Hughes is a talented poet who uses metaphors and his own style of writing to create the effectiveness of his overall message. He uses metaphor throughout the poem for the readers to dig deeper and see underneath the surfaces. He starts out by stating that he, too was an American, but that he is treated like someone the “family” would be ashamed of. Separated from the rest of the society, eating in another room, being given a different treatment than the others. The speaker never let these actions get the best of him. He decided to bide his time where he has been sent and grow stronger and work hard to obtain and enjoy all the rights that all people in the U.S. shall enjoy regardless of their race or
Langston Hughes is one of the most famous poets of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Mississippi in 1902 and later moved to Ohio where he attended Central High School. When Hughes graduated high school he went to Mexico to visit his father and while crossing the Mississippi River he was inspired to write “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, which was his first published poem when he was eighteen years old. When Hughes returned to the United States in 1924 the Harlem Renaissance was in “full swing”. In 1925 at the age of twenty-three Hughes received an award for his poem “The Weary Blues”, Hughes was famous for incorporating blues and jazz rhymes into his poetry, which is what he did in his poem “The Weary Blues”. Hughes was at a banquet where he received an award for his poem “The Weary Blues” and was asked by a man named Carl Van Vechten if he had enough poems to make a book. Hughes said yes and Van Vechten promised that he would find Hughes ...
...us and is still influencing today's literary scene immensely. While his writings' meanings are not always apparent at first glance, when taking a look at historical events and sites mentioned in his work, the connections between his cultural background and society becomes clearer. Due to his eloquence and importance of topics chosen, Langston Hughes is a great representative of the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was a poet and a novelist from the mid -1900s who began writing poems throughout his high school career. His poems are mainly affiliated with the tough life he had been through as racism reached its peak. In his poems, Langston Hughes discusses his hardships dealing with all the racist people in his schools and the ones around him. And how the experience of life was for someone who was black. He was known as the most versatile writer of the Harlem Renaissance, a time in American history when African Americans became part of the mainstream in both politics and music.