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Book entitled the Strange Career of Jim Crow
Theme of racial descrimonation in Langston Hughes selected poems
Thematic concerns in Langston Hughes' poetry
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Recommended: Book entitled the Strange Career of Jim Crow
Micah Sloan
Honors English I
Mrs. Lopez
18 September 2015
For many people a life of obstacles would be impossible to overcome. For Langston Hughes he conquered these obstacles and became the famous poet from the Harlem Renaissance read today. Langston Hughes dedicated his poems to the pride, struggles, and dreams of African American people, and his legacy continues to be felt today.
In Joplin, Missouri, in 1902, Langston Hughes was born, and started experiencing a series of obstacles in his early lifetime (“Langston Hughes”, All poetry). The first major obstacle was when Hughes’ mother and father split up and ”From 1903 to 1915 he lived mostly in Lawrence with his grandmother” ; his father moved to Mexico while his mother moved to Illinois
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Poets like Whitman, Dunbar, McKay, and Sandburg all inspired Langston Hughes to be become the memorable writer that he is now. Sandburg had a larger impact on Langston Hughes life in literature because he wrote poems in a socialists point of view which at the time had segregated everything(Rampersad,, “Hughes's Life and Career”). Hughes also was inspired by the jazz and blues music at the time(“Langston Hughes”, Poets.org). The Culture of the blacks during the harlem renaissance was much harder than the whites because whites had better schools and could eat in all restaurants unlike blacks who sometimes had to eat scraps in the alley behind the restaurant(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). This inspired langston hughes to write his poetry about the culture of black men and women during the Harlem renaissance.Using the poems short stories and books Langston Hughes wrote about, he captured the attention of all …show more content…
In 1921 The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Tyle, “Langston Hughes”).Another four years later he released The Weary Blues in 1925(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). In twelves years after that he realised Fine Clothes to the Jew, his first book Not Without Laughter, and his first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folk(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). Hughes began getting known very quick after his first book. Following his first book the short stories he wrote began getting read by everyone because they were in the newspaper, Not long after he made a comic for the newspaper, and the character was called “Simple”(Tyle, “Langston Hughes”). Eleven years after his comic he wrote the poem Dream Deferred which became his most largely known for poem he’d ever written. These many works he created himself a legacy that still lives on
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.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, to James Nathaniel Hughes, a lawyer and businessman, and Carrie Mercer (Langston) Hughes, a teacher. The couple separated shortly thereafter. James Hughes was, by his son’s account, a cold man who hated blacks (and hated himself for being one), feeling that most of them deserved their ill fortune because of what he considered their ignorance and laziness. Langston’s youthful visits to him there, although sometimes for extended periods, were strained and painful. He attended Columbia University in 1921-22, and when he died he, left everything to three elderly women who had cared for him in his last illness, and Langston was not even mentioned in his will.
“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.
James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin , Missouri . His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico . He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln , Illinois , to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland , Ohio . It was in Lincoln , Illinois , that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University . During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington , D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.
James Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He was named after his father, but it was later shortened to just Langston Hughes. He was the only child of James and Carrie Hughes. His family was never happy so he was a lonely youth. The reasons for their unhappiness had as much to do with the color of their skin and the society into which they had been born as they did with their opposite personalities. They were victims of white attitudes and discriminatory laws. They moved to Oklahoma in the late 1890s. Although the institution of slavery was officially abolished racial discrimination and segregation persisted.
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
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
During the early to mid-twentieth century Langston Hughes contributed vastly to a very significant cultural movement later to be named the “Harlem Renaissance.” At the time it was named the “New Negro Movement,” which involved African Americans in creating and expressing their words through literature and art. Hughes contributed in a variety of different aspects including plays, poems, short stories, novels and even jazz. He was even different from other notable black poets at the time in the way that he shared personal experiences rather than the ordinary everyday experiences of black America. His racial pride helped mold American politics and literature into what it is today.
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.
Langston Hughes was the second child of schoolteacher Carrie (Caroline) Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He grew up in a series of Midwestern small towns in Missouri. Hughes's father left his family and later divorced Carrie, going to Cuba, and then Mexico, seeking to escape the enduring racism in the United States (“Biography of Langston Hughes”). His grandmother raised him until he was thirteen (as his father had left him and his mother at a young age) when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband. They, later, settled in Cleveland, Ohio.
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.
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.
Langston Hughes, a primary voice of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's, was known as "The Poet Laureate of Harlem". Hughes had pride in his black heritage, strong political beliefs, and the will to survive in a society where racial equality had to be fought for. Hughes' strength and determination shine through his poetry, he does not hide the fact that he lived with racism, but talks of his strength and to st...
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes opened the doors to African American art. Throughout history, there has been a lot of issues with racial inequality. During the Harlem Renaissance, many African Americans wanted to prove they were just as intelligent, creative, and talented as white Americans. Langston Hughes was one of the people who played an influential part in the Harlem Renaissance. His poem “Harlem” painted a very vivid picture of his life and his outlook on the society he lived in.