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Langston hughespoetry analysis
Langston hughespoetry analysis
Langston hughes and contribution to african american literature
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Poetry was a big part of the Harlem Renaissance, especially black poetry. Poetry helped people get their emotions out and provided an outlet for many new and old African-Americans, and for Africans just arriving in the United States in Harlem. The Renaissance was filled with great poets including the great Langston Hughes. Hughes is the author of his own book The Weary Blues and the writer of the poems Not without Laughter and The Way of the White Folks. He believed in the beauty of the Africans, as stated on Shmoop “Hughes knew that black was beautiful.” He won the Harlem gold medal for literature for his literary work and helped shape the artists of the Harlem Renaissances contributions to the movement. Hughes was also the founder of three theaters meant as outlets for black actors and dramatists. The names of these theaters are the New Negro Theater, Langston Hughes Preforming Arts, and Black Arts (“Langston Hughes Founded Theaters”). Langston Hughes was a very popular and …show more content…
much loved poet/author/play writer during the Renaissance. His poems, being directed to the people of the Renaissance and particularly the African people, was greatly liked for showing the life struggles and pleasures of the African population in Harlem. Providing a strong voice in the Renaissance movement he became a part of its success(“Langston Hughes”). Not every poet during the Harlem renaissance can be as popular as Langston with a street renamed after him. Wallace Henry Thurman, another great poet during the Renaissance time period. Born in August 16, 1902 Thurman was another big part of the Harlem Renaissance’s poetry aspect. Editor of his own book The Messenger and a co-founder of the literary magazine FIRE!! This magazine was started during the Harlem Renaissance, and featured poems from many great poets including Langston Hughes. Aside from that he was also the writer of the poems The Blacker the Berry and infants of the spring, Two known but not necessarily well known poems by this poet/author/editor. Wallace was also the kind of man to be so kind as to allow his apartment, which was basically just a room, in Harlem to be used as a meeting place for authors and artists(“Wallace Henry Thurman”). Now back to the more popular Renaissance poets.
Zora Neale Hurtson, considered by some sources to be Langston Hughes’ female equal. She was also considered an early feminist during the Renaissance. And she contributed to the Renaissance by providing a strong and much needed feminine voice for the ladies during this time period. Zora was the author of her two books Mules and Men, a collection of folk tales she got from the places of her travel, and Their Eyes are Watching God, a story that was famous during the twentieth century. She was the writer of the plays The Great Day, and From Sun to Sun(“Zora Neale Hurtson”). But this poet/author/play writer was not really all that much liked during her time. Her criticism of the brown .VS. board made her very unpopular. Although she started off a loved and famous writer of three areas she sadly died poor, alone and sad. Still she had a big impact on the Renaissance and she has heavily influenced writers leading up to even today(“Zora Neale
Hurtson”). The Harlem Renaissance was greatly affected by poetry. Poetry provided an outlet and a way to find understanding from other people. Hughes, Thurman, and Hurtson were all very good poets/writers that helped the success of the Renaissance in Harlem Ney York in many of the same and different ways. But they weren’t the only poets to be around at the time. Many other writers of poetry, plays, and book popped up before and around the time of the Renaissance and influenced many things and people to change during this time period. The poetry aspect as a whole was a fairly major influence during and after the Renaissance to the point of it still affecting and influencing us today. Poetry was also a very critical part of the Renaissance’s success, without that poetry there would have been no real communication of feeling during the time, and expression is important in all things especially during revolutions or movements(“Poetry”).
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.
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.
Berry, Faith. Langston Hughes Before and Beyond Harlem Connecticut: Lawrence Hill and Company Publishers, 1983
Through the turbulent decades of the 1920's through the 1960's many of the black Americans went through difficult hardships and found comfort only in dreaming. Those especially who lived in the ghettos' of Harlem would dream about a better place for them, their families, and their futures. Langston Hughes discusses dreams and what they could do in one of his poems, "Harlem." Hughes poem begins: "What happens to a dream deferred..."
Albert Einstein is thought to have popularised the idea that society favours the logical mind - which people are taught to use - over the one of creativity and intuition, which cannot be learned. However, the Harlem Renaissance is a key cultural movement that shows the value of creative forms in bringing about political and social change. This African American movement generated distinctly black works of literature that ushered in a change of racial relations in the United States. Leading this movement were Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, whose literature contributed to the Harlem Renaissance by raising awareness of what it meant to be black in the United States and developing a new African American cultural identity.
Zora Neale Hurston was the best and most prolific African American woman writer of the 1930’s. Before writing her masterwork Their Eyes Watching God, she was an anthropologist and novelist. She was a revolutionary in helping to protect the rights of African Americans and she was known during the Harlem Renaissance for her wit and folk writing style.
Poetry was another prominent form of expression during the Harlem Renaissance era. Poetry served as another form of self expression for African-Americans, similar to that of Jazz and the Blues. This form of media served the same (or a very much similar) as music did, Some notable poets include the likes of Langston Hughes, who is considered by some to be one of the most important and influential Harlem Renaissance poets of the time, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay. Most notable of the three is, poet and intellectual, Langston Hughes who , in addition to writing books and plays, served to spread the emotions of African-Americans as well as himself and to make clear the ambitions and dreams of the American people within the United States. As Stated by Concordia Online Education, ”Hughes wrote novels, plays and short stories, but it is his emotional, heartfelt poems that expressed the common experiences of the culture of black people for which he is most
“What happens to a dream deferred?” Is the question posed by the infamous Poet, activists, novelist, and playwright Langston Hughes in his 1951 poem by the name of Harlem or Dream deferred. In the poem, Hughes straightforwardly flings us a question, in which at first seem pretty simple in meaning but as you continue to read the concept becomes more and more complex and profound. The telling reader to pursue after their dream or the dream will soon disappear, an inspirational theme in which Hughes display in several of his works. Harlem uses clear-cut use of literary elements such as Metaphor, Speakers, Imagery, and Rhythm to describe just how 1950’s Harlem community perceived and valued their dream through the eye of Hughes. His approach was very straight forward and infuses in the concept in the most rudimentary way yet there’s nothing plain about the poem.
The human brain is capable of many things, maybe curing cancer, memorizing a number of seconds in a year but, I believe the most incredible thing the brain can do is influence others with simple words and thoughts. Literature is one of the greatest things to ever be created but, my favorite subsection of literature would be Poetry. Poetry is sensual, creative, and diverse, it can be perceived in many ways depending on a person 's thoughts and standpoints. Langston Hughes was and, still is one of the most inspirational poets who has ever lived. Langston’s life has set the standard for many other writers and, poets, his creativity, and life has served it’s purpose in the literature world.
He remembers, while visiting his mother in Kansas, that she took him to an open-air theater on Independent Avenue. He said that the music seemed to cry to him, but then laugh at the same time. He would remember the feeling of loneliness with such power that he felt as a kid and turned it into a book called “The Weary Blues”, which got published in 1926. Before all of the poems got released as a collection though, one of his poems called “The Weary Blues” took off drastically before the others in 1925. "The Weary Blues" poem went on to win the prestigious literary contest, created by Opportunity magazine. Hughes was said to have wrote "The Weary Blues," a poem about a singer performing on Lenox Avenue, after a visit to Cabaret in Harlem. Hughes would then on try to change the ongoing racial discrimination with the power of jazz. Jazz was a huge musical influence on the African Americans, especially the ones in Harlem. Jazz to Hughes was a way to connect everyone, no matter his or her color, through simply a melody. Even though some white people at the time did not approve of jazz, some were actually quite fond of it and the messages decrypted in them. He wrote a plethora of other jazzy poems during this time like, “ Mulatto”, “Sport” and “Homesick Blues”. One of the most inspirational poems Hughes wrote during the Harlem Renaissance can be found in “The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes” called
“I dream a world where… love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn.” -- Langston Hughes
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.
During the time I’ve been working on the Harlem Renaissance, I have learned a lot about it and about Langston Hughes. I learned that the Renaissance was a very big part of the black culture, more so than I ever thought. I also learned that a lot of white’s would go to white only clubs just to listen to the black’s music just to see what it felt like to be part of the culture that surrounded Harlem. I learned that blacks basicly migrated to Harlem from the south to get away from the way they were treated and to find purpose in their lives. Mostly I learned that the music people like Duke Ellington and writers like Langston Hughes shaped and formed the way we see, hear, and do thing with music and with writing stories today.
Langston Hughes was known as the most popular and versatile writes that was connected to the Harlem Renaissance. His main goal was to try an capture the oral and improvisatory traditions of black culture in the form of writing. He grew up around racism which influenced him to become more deeply rooted in his culture. After he published his first volumes of poems in 1962 he went on to writing a very important essay called, "The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain". In this writing he described in great detail the challenges he had to face being a black artist who produced racial art. Though it was frowned upon he encouraged other artist to make the same attempt. Langston Hughes' work is well influenced by the Harlem Renaissance because it was time African Americans would celebrate and it opened artistic possibilities to the writers. These included drawing
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes is a poem that talks about what happens when we postpones our dreams. The poem is made up of a series of similes and it ends with a metaphor. The objective of the poem is to get us to think about what happens to a dream that is put off, postponed; what happens when we create our very own shelve of dreams? The “dream” refers to a goal in life, not the dreams we have while sleeping, but our deepest desires. There are many ways to understand this poem; it varies from person to person. Some may see this poem as talking about just dreams in general. Others may see it as African-American’s dreams.