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Throughout African American history different individuals have made a significant impact that would forever change things. In the 1900s Harlem became the governing body for the birth of jazz and blues. This also open door for a new era called the Harlem Renaissance. During this time a poet name Langston Hughes was introduced. Langston Hughes created poetry that stood out to people. It had that jazzy vibe mixed with articulate language of choice. He could seize the minds of people with the soulfulness of his writing, and depict the struggles of what was going on with blacks. Some individuals see Langston Hughes as the inspired poet of the Harlem Renaissance time. Mr. Hughes used his body of work to compare and contrast things to create the groundwork for the Harlem Renaissance period.
His poems established him as a well known poet in Harlem. In two of his poems one titled “Mother to Son” and the other “Harlem” both have some comparison and contrast between the two. The poem “Mother to Son” is more of a free lyric flowing poem. In this poem Langston Hughes gets the message across in a powerful attack. The poem is narrated from a mother’s viewpoint and the wisdom she gives her son as read in the following lines:
Son boy, don’t you turn back
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. [14-20]
These sets of lines express the frustrations of a mother who worked through a hard time, and is telling her son her story. She is telling her son this is the adversity she when through to become who she is today in spirit. ...
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Rampersad, Arnold. "Introduction.(THREE POEMS BY LANGSTON HUGHES)(Critical Essay)." Poetry 4 (2009): 327. Academic OneFile. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Hansen, Tom. "Hughes's Harlem." Explicator 58.2 (2000): 106. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 13 Nov. 2013. < http://library.limestone.edu:2379/eds/detail?vid=17&sid=5fe3beae-440d-404f-b673-7e4da96a214b%40sessionmgr114&hid=3&bdata>
Thrall, William Flint, et al. A Handbook to Literature. New York: Odyssey, 1960.
Rampersad, Arnold. "Langston Hughes and His Critics on the Left." The Langston Hughes Review 5.2 (Fall 1986): 34-40. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Deborah A. Schmitt. Vol. 108. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
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.
Hughes, Langston. The Negro mother, and other dramatic recitations. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. Print.
Hughes, Langston. �Salvation.� Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays and Essays. Fourth Edition. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Boston, 2003. 330-331
Rampersad, Arnold. "Langston Hughes." _Voices & Visions: the Poet in America_. Ed. Helen Vendler. New York: Random House, 1987. 352-93.
R: Trotman, C. 1995. Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art, and His Continuing Influence. Routledge 1995
There are countless times as one grows up when you just stop for a second and reminisce on random things. These memories serve for a very special purpose as the things you do in life shapes you into the person you will become. Today, many authors and poets make use of their memories and experiences in their work as a way to reflect back on their lives, raise awareness, or just simply to tell a story. As a prominent contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was an inspirational poet who highlighted many aspects of the urban life of African-Americans through reflections of his own life and experiences.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) absorbed America. In doing so, he wrote about many issues critical to his time period, including The Renaissance, The Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, Jazz, Blues, and Spirituality. Just as Hughes absorbed America, America absorbed the black poet in just about the only way its mindset allowed it to: by absorbing a black writer with all of the patronizing self-consciousness that that entails.
The "Langston Hughes" Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 03 Dec. 2013.
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...
The Poetry of Langston Hughes Langston Hughes was born at the turn of the century in America. Hughes spent a rootless childhood moving from place to place with his mother, who was separated from his father. During one year in high school, Hughes spent time with his father in Mexico, a light-skinned man who found an escape from racism while ranching. With aid from his father, Hughes attended Columbia University, but soon became disgusted with university life and immersed himself in his first love - the poetry and jazz and blues in Harlem. Hughes supported himself in odd jobs such as nightclub doorman and steward while he traveled to places as remote as West Africa, Italy, and Paris.
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)." Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River. Prentice, 2002. 534.
Langston Hughes, born in February 1st, 1902, grew up in segregated America. His own ancestry was as mixed as that described in the poem. Both his great-grandmothers were enslaved African Americans and both his grandparents were white slave owners. Both of Hughes’ parents were of mixed race descent. Many of his family members were key figures in the elevation of blacks in society, and they impressed upon him the nobility of black people. Hughes had a rootless and often lonely upbringing, moving back and forth between family members’ homes. Hughes was a prominent leader of the Harlem Renaissance and referred to it as the period when “the negro was in vogue”.
Critical Essays on Langston Hughes.
The comparison between two poems are best analyzed through the form and meaning of the pieces. “Mother to Son” and “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)” both written by the profound poet Langston Hughes, depicts many similarities and differences between the poems. Between these two poems the reader can identify his flow of writing through analyzing the form and meaning of each line.