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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. One of the advantages of how he wrote his poetry is that it can take hold of people by exemplifying his accounts of the everyday life that the disenfranchised experience. Hughes took on the injustices that other dared no to speak of. He wrote about how the African-American people of the 1920’s suffered the plight of racial inequality. In many cases I believe that Hughes used his writing as an instrument of change. In “Come to the Waldorf-Astoria” (506) Hughes tackles the drastic disparity between wealthy whites and the African Americans of the 1930’s. This piece displays an unconventional style for a poem; using satire to capture the reader’s attention. By using this satiric form of poetry Hughes is able to play on the emotions of the white reader, while at the same time inspiring the black readers. Hughes is constantly comparing the luxuries of the Waldorf-Astoria to the hardships that the African American people were experiencing. “It's cold as he... ... middle of paper ... ...ss, representing the truth of the times. The majority of the problems influence only the one dreamer, however, the ending suggests that, when despair is everywhere, it may "explode" and cause social and political uprising. “Harlem” brings to light the anxiety between the need for Negro expression and the opposition to that need because of society’s subjugation of its black populace. His lines confront the racist and unjust attitude common in American society before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. it expresses the belief that black wishes and dreams were irrelevant should be ignored. His closing rhetorical question—“Or does [a dream deferred] explode?”—is aggressive, a testimony that the inhibition of black dreams might result in a revolution. It places the blame for this possible revolution on the domineering society that forces the deferment of the dream.
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.
1920’s Harlem was a time of contrast and contradiction, on one hand it was a hotbed of crime and vice and on the other it was a time of creativity and rebirth of literature and at this movement’s head was Langston Hughes. Hughes was a torchbearer for the Harlem Renaissance, a literary and musical movement that began in Harlem during the Roaring 20’s that promoted not only African-American culture in the mainstream, but gave African-Americans a sense of identity and pride.
There has been much debate over the Negro during the Harlem Renaissance. Two philosophers have created their own interpretations of the Negro during this Period. In Alain Locke’s essay, The New Negro, he distinguishes the difference of the “old” and “new” Negro, while in Langston Hughes essay, When the Negro Was in Vogue, looks at the circumstances of the “new” Negro from a more critical perspective.
...rot and become bitter inside. Hughes questions again, “Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over/like a syrupy sweet?” The dream may rot and stink because it has been locked up inside or it may preserve itself by “crusting and sugaring over”. The African-American dream remain a sweet tasting idea or “Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load”. The dream can remain a heavy load sagging on the backs of African-Americans seeking to gain the equality that they deserved. Hughes asks the final question, “Or does it explode”. Does the American dream for African Americans dry up, rot, sugar over, or “sag like a heavy load/Or does it explode?” Hughes makes a bold statement about African-American isolation. They are separated from whites achieving the American dream; they can only dream of the same equality and as Langston Hughes wrote their dream had been deferred.
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” –Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry is one of the world’s greatest wonders. It is a way to tell a story, raise awareness of a social or political issue, an expression of emotions, an outlet, and last but not least it is an art. Famous poet Langston Hughes uses his poetry as a musical art form to raise awareness of social injustices towards African-Americans during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Although many poets share similarities with one another, Hughes creatively crafted his poetry in a way that was only unique to him during the 1920’s. He implemented different techniques and styles in his poetry that not only helped him excel during the 1920’s, but has also kept him relative in modern times. Famous poems of his such as a “Dream Deferred,” and “I, Too, Sing America” are still being studied and discussed today. Due to the cultural and historical events occurring during the 1920’s Langston Hughes was able to implement unique writing characteristics such as such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues that is demonstrative of his writing style. Langston Hughes use of distinct characteristics such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues helped highlight the plights of African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance Era.
Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual movement that was expressed through art, literature, and music igniting a new cultural identity. At the time it was called the “New Negro Movement” named after Alain Locke a well-known philosopher and writer. The base of the movement involved the Great migration of African Americans from poor to urban areas and from South to North. Escaping its harsh caste system so they can find a place where they could uninhibitedly express their talent. Among those artists whose works accomplished acknowledgment were W.E.B Du Bois, Alain Locke, and Langston Hughes.
Langston Hughes was an activist for the African-American community and made significant artistic contributions to the Harlem Renaissance throughout his career. In one of his most famous poems, “Harlem [Dream Deferred]”, he addresses the limitations and oppression of African Americans after the Great Depression. Many African Americans dreamed of equality, but often times that dream became neglected and pushed aside. In his poem, Hughes responds to a question about a deferred dream with a series of vivid similes, inquiring what happens to a constantly ignored dream.
The four poems by Langston Hughes, “Negro,” “Harlem,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and “Theme for English B” are all powerful poems and moving poems! Taken all together they speak to the very founding of relations of whites and blacks all the way down through history. The speaker in the poem the, “Negro” and also, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” tells the tale of freedom and enslavement that his people have endured, and it heralds their wisdom and strength. The poems “Harlem” and “Theme for English B” speaks to the continuous unfair treatment that the blacks have received at the hands of white people throughout the years.
Langston Hughes was probably the most well-known literary force during the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first known black artists to stress a need for his contemporaries to embrace the black jazz culture of the 1920s, as well as the cultural roots in Africa and not-so-distant memory of enslavement in the United States. In formal aspects, Hughes was innovative in that other writers of the Harlem Renaissance stuck with existing literary conventions, while Hughes wrote several poems and stories inspired by the improvised, oral traditions of black culture (Baym, 2221). Proud of his cultural identity, but saddened and angry about racial injustice, the content of much of Hughes’ work is filled with conflict between simply doing as one is told as a black member of society and standing up for injustice and being proud of one’s identity. This relates to a common theme in many of Hughes’ poems: that dignity is something that has to be fought for by those who are held back by segregation, poverty, and racial bigotry.
The reason I say African American’s dreams is because the author published this poem in 1951, the time period where there was much racism and civil rights violations against African Americans. Another reason is that the author is an African American himself. Finally, the biggest reason is that the author named the poem “Harlem.” Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American cultural and business center. It was associated for much of the twentieth century with black culture, crime and poverty. It is the capital of African-American life in the United States. The author named this poem “Harlem” because he was addressing mainly the black community. Still, the poem’s message is very clear: if one postpones his/her dream(s) it can have a damaging affects.
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 ...
Imagine living in a world where you, and people of your color, can not aspire to do great things because of the environmental oppression that surrounds you. Even if you do dare to dream, your great plans will deteriorate, leaving them to rot or even explode. This short poem, written by Langston Hughes, is one of his most famous works. Hughes wrote “Harlem” in 1951, to address the limitations of the American Dream for African Americans. In “Harlem”, Langston Hughes uses the literary devices, imagery and similes to depict the hopes and frustrations of African Americans in the ghetto’s throughout America.
Hughes uses poetic language to express his thoughts his poem. First Hughes titles his poem Harlem, this means that the city of Harlem is important to him if he chose it as a topic to write his poem about it. When looking for the narrator of this poem a person from Harlem comes to mind. The people of Harlem love their city, but if it were going through hard times they would want it to become better and the best it can be. Hope to make Harlem a better place culturally and a better place for the community is all part of their dream. But
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement where African American poets were writing about the racial tension they experience. Most poems came from Harlem and were about the injustices and pride the black community felt. One famous poet was Langston Hughes. Hughes works were about the African American life starting in the twenties. Langston Hughes was the best writer of the Harlem Renaissance. He wanted his poems to the point and simple, rather than complex and wordy. His works were not written in sonnet like many other black poets. He believes that poem from African American poet should be different from their experiences. He wanted to tell real stories that including good and bad times that happen. His poems spoke to people everywhere, especially in the African American community. One of his poems goes over a hard time an African American would have to face when living under a landlord. Through the words in “Ballad of the LandLord” by Langston Hughes, themes of social injustices in the African American communities show the audience how African Americans were treated.