Langston Hughes, born on 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, was an American poet, novelist, and playwright during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. He saw and experienced constant racism and prejudice in his life and later wrote in an attempt to help the oppressed have a voice. Hughes’ poem “Let America Be America Again” was originally published in an issue of Esquire Magazine in 1936, though he first wrote the poem in 1935. The poem was last published in 1938 in a small collection of Hughes poems called A New Song. The poem was written with attention to tone, diction, structure, and poetic devices to give a voice to Americans being denied the American dream. A key element achieving the overall message of the poem is the tone. Langston created his tone In his poem Hughes uses punctuation often. He did this because it force the reader to slow down when reading and helps emphasize his point. In addition to his punctuation his use of rhyme scheme draws the reader in and better hold their attention. UGH his use of parallelism is often seen. He says “I am . . .” in lines nineteen to twenty two, twenty five, thirty one to four and again in line thirty seven. Hughes does this to expand the short comings faced in America. 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 “. . . live like leeches…”. His alliteration catches the reader’s eye and refocuses on the reader’s attention. Perhaps his cleverest poetic device is his use of dialogue. “Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? / And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?” on lines seventeen and eighteen especially stand out in the poem. Not only does the dialogue interrupt the natural flow he has created but it makes the reader think. They are given the image of darkness over their sight and they made to question who the narrator is addressing. Due to the fact the reader stumbles on the lines they are forces to take in the imagery and process the information they have read
It’s had tacks in it,/ And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/And places with no carpet on the floor-” ( Norton, lines 2-6 2028). Despite the fact that the pain was torture, she made it and she wants her son to do the same. With that being the first stanza of the poem, Hughes was making a bold
Lanston Hughes focuses more on rhythm then on rhyme, for example, the poem "The Weary Blues" reads like a blues song, which is what the poem is about. "Mother to Son" is a conversation a mother has to a child about what era life has been, and that no matter how hard life may seem, one should never give up climbing the "stairs". The poem seems to shift from good English to Black English and then back again, which to me shows...
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
Idealism in Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints a vivid picture of a depressed America in the 1930's. To many living in America, the idealism presented as the American Dream had escaped their grasp. In this poetic expression, a speaker is allowed to voice the unsung Americans' concern of how America was intended to be, had become to them, and could aspire to be again. Using a conversational style, the author allows the speaker and listener to interact with each other.
“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, Langston. "Let America Be America Again." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.
The use of diction expressed this theme because they show that the author has a different dialect than most people have. As Langston Hughes states, “For I’se still goin’, honey” (18). This is showing that even with a difference in how a person is raised, or where they were raised, they have about the same chances of success as the next person. But, these differences can cause problems for that person to overcome earlier in life, like having little money or having an abusive parent, and these things can ruin a life. Another device Langston Hughes uses is imagery in order to to explain the situation of the poem in more depth. As Langston Hughes states, “And boards torn up,/ and places with no carpet on the floor--/ Bare” (5-7). The use of imagery in this poem is showing what the author was raised in, and the fact that their life was no easy thing that she had to go through, she had lost all control of the situation she and the place she lived
Poems are expression of the human soul, and even though, is not everyone’s cup of tea when the individual finds that special poem it moves their soul one with the poet. There are many poets in the world, but the one that grab my attention the most was no other than Langston Hughes. It would be impossible for me to cover all the poems he wrote, but the one that grab my attention the most is called “Let America Be America Again.” It first appeared in “1938 pamphlet by Hughes entitled A New Song. Which was published by a socialist organization named the International Worker Order” (MLM) and later change back to its original name. I have never felt such an energy coming out of a poem like this one which is the reason that I instantly felt in love with it.
Langstons use of rhetorical questions keeps the poem interesting and alive. It implies its own answer
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.
To start, the structure of the initial assignment that the student must focus on is given differently then the rest of the poem. The majority of the poem is written in free verse. These verses are typical of the jazz-poetry style that became popular during the Harlem Renaissance. The easy style of jazz-poetry gives a dialogue feel to the poem that the reader can connect with. “As it appears, Langston Hughes’s outstanding collection of poems exemplifies the greatest of those qualities of jazz and blues, and his talent truly makes these poems come alive in the same way that jazz and blues music comes alive for the audience as well as for the musicians” (Davidas 1). You truly begin to see the internal struggle the student is having with his assignment and how he is grappling with more then just an assignment for English
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 ...
Form and meaning are what readers need to analyze to understand the poem that they are evaluating. In “Mother to Son”, his form of writing that is used frequently, is free verse. There is no set “form”, but he gets his point across in a very dramatic way. The poem is told by a mother who is trying to let her son know that in her life, she too has gone through many frustrations just like what her son is going through. The tone of this poem is very dramatic and tense because she illustrates the hardships that she had to go through in order to get where she is today. She explains that the hardships that she has gone through in her life have helped her become the person that she has come to be. Instead of Hughes being ironic, like he does in some of his poems, he is giving the reader true background on the mother’s life. By introducing the background, this helps get his point across to the reader in a very effective way. In this poem there are many key words which help portray the struggles that the mother is trying to express to her son. The poem is conveyed in a very “down to earth” manner. An example of this is, “Life for me ain’t been a crystal stair (462).” This quote shows the reader that the mom is trying to teach the son a lesson with out sugar coating it. She wants her son to know that throughout her life has had many obstacles to overcome, and that he too is going to have to get through his own obstacles no matter how frustrating it is. Her tone throughout the poem is stern telling the boy, “So boy, don’t turn your back (462).” The poems tone almost makes the reader believe that the mother is talking to them, almost as if I am being taught a valuable lesson.
Symbolism embodies Hughes’ literary poem through his use of the river as a timeless symbol. A river can be portrayed by many as an everlasting symbol of perpetual and continual change and of the constancy of time and of life itself. People have equated rivers to the aspects of life - time, love, death, and every other indescribable quality which evokes human life. This analogy is because a river exemplifies characteristics that can be ultimately damaging or explicitly peaceable. In the poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes cites all of these qualities.