Right after the World War I, the majority of African Americans moved from South to the North of the United States. New economic and artistic opportunities led them to create and identify themselves in their own culture and heritage. This movement is well-known as the Harlem renaissance. It was accompanied by new lifestyle, music styles, and plenty of talented writers. This paper discusses two poems from this period: Heritage, written by Countee Cullen, and The Weary Blues, written by Langston Hughes.
There is a lot of mystery about the early life of Countee Cullen. He was adopted at age fifteen, and liked a singing of his adopting mother. According to Nelson (2000), that might be the reason why Cullen perceived poetry as muse-song. His role within the Harlem Renaissance was very significant. He was inspired by American black life and had written in conventional writing style. Through his work he remained in a sense of double-consciousness, “the very term African American” (Sayre, 2012).
Langston Hughes was one of the most productive writers of the Harlem renaissance, and one of the few artists of the movement who achieved fame and recognition (Kelley, Bloom, 2010). He enriched the circles of the Harlem renaissance not only by his poetry but also essays, short stories, novels, plays, autobiographies, and lyrics of blues and jazz. His poems have simple structure. Comparing to Cullen, whose poems were more conventional, Hughes wrote his poems in more intellectual way. Many of them incorporate elements from songs and sermons.
The poem Heritage is part of the Cullen’s first book of poems called Color. It describes the image of Africa in Cullen’s imagination, the split of self into a pagan and Christian (often refer...
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...nt was the main consequence of the slavery. In the Heritage it may be seen in lines sixty four through sixty seven. In The Weary Blues these scenes are evoked by the words as poor, sad, melancholy, nobody, ma troubles, can’t be satisfied, I ain’t happy no mo’, or I wish that I had died.
Works Cited
Kelley, J. B., & Bloom, H. (2010). Bloom's How to Write About Langston Hughes. Chelsea House Publishers.
Nelson, E. S. (2000). African American Authors, 1745-1945 : Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Powers, P. (2000). 'The Singing Man Who Must be Reckoned With': Private Desire and Public Responsibility in the Poetry of Countee Cullen. African American Review, 34(4), 661.
Sayre, H. M. (2012). The Humanities: Culture, continuity and change, Volume 2. (2nd ed.). (2011 Custom Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
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 author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
Countee Cullen used quite an amount of poetic styles and words such as: “What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black. Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?” (Doc.A). In these lines, the poet characterized the geographical features of Africa and the mood as well as the people there. Countee used the language of a white man but used it to show African-American
Countee LeRoy Cullen was one of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Although there is no real account of his early life, his accomplishments throughout his time was magnificent. During the Harlem Renaissance, he and other writers and poets used their work to empower blacks and talk about the ongoing struggle of blacks. His poem, “Incident”, depicts how overt racism was and how it attacked anyone regardless age or gender. Countee Cullen Born on May 30th, 1903, Countee LeRoy Porter is an African American poet, anthologist, novelist, translator, and children's writer.
Cullen was simply an amazing young man who won many poetry contests throughout New York, published two notable volumes of poetry (Color and Copper Sun), received a master’s degree from Harvard University and married the daughter of W.E.B Du Bois, a founder of the NAACP. Cullen grew up in the “heart” of New York since he was an adopted son of Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, minister of the Salem African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dubois, WEB. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 694-695. Print.
Countee Cullen was deemed one of the most dominant and influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance (Reimherr 22). Cullen was born in 1903, and was raised by Reverend Frederick Cullen and his wife after Countee’s mother died when he was five. Although Cullen grew up in Harlem, he is believed to have actually been born in either Kentucky or Maryland (Haskins 99). With the historical setting the way it was during Cullen’s life, he let the actions of others influence his writing. Due to his personal beliefs, the pressures from his culture, and the racial violence and prejudice that he encountered on a regular basis, Countee Cullen’s writing tended to be about the racial struggles he faced.
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
The poems, “I, Too” by Langston Hughes and “Incident” by Countee Cullen employ visual imagery, tone, literary devices such as hyperboles, symbolism, and foreshadowing in different ways to illustrate the public life interaction between two different races, and the private life of an African American’s internal struggle of not being able to fight against the prejudice towards them. Both poets share racism as their piece of life, and although dealing with racism is the central tension engaged in the poems, Cullen suggests that experiences can affect your view on life and change your attitude. Hughes on the other hand, proposes that with an optimistic attitude you can change the outcome of your future, and that your attitude is independent from past experiences.
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
“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.
Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company , Inc. , 2004. Print.
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.
During this era African Americans were facing the challenges of accepting their heritage or ignoring outright to claim a different lifestyle for their day to day lives. Hughes and Cullen wrote poems that seemed to describe themselves, or African Americans, who had accepted their African Heritage and who also wanted to be a part of American heritage as well. These are some of the things they have in common, as well as what is different about them based on appearance, now I shall focus on each author individually and talk about how they are different afterwards.
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.