Langston Hughes
Many poets are well recognized for their poems and live that they lived but, one poet is not all that well known. This poet had a rough live living in persecution just because of his skin color. The famous but forgotten Langston Hughes had an exciting career and very intense writings during the severe segregation era which he had lived in
Langston Hughes traveled around the world, which made his very exciting career although, it started out slow, and once it got going it took off very quickly. Langston Hughes moved from Missouri to Illinois then to Ohio. He spent time in Mexico, France, New York, Africa, The U.S.S.R and Washington D.C., where he started his writing career and won his first award (Langston Hughes). In Lincoln Ohio Langston started writing and after high school he went to Columbia University in New York then to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Hughes attended grammar school and wrote during his free time. While in Washington D.C. he became a busboy in a hotel where he met the poet Vachel Lindsay and gave him three of his poems. Vachel then wrote of a “Negro Busboy Poet” that he had met in the capitol; this is where Hughes career began. The three poems that he gave to Vachel Lindsay were published so, he decided to start a career out of writing. Langston Hughes attended three colleges during of which he was treated badly by whites during the era of segregation (Constankisis). While in college Hughes was harassed by the police, beat up by whites, and of course separated from the whites in public places. These events inspired some of his writings like “Ku Klux”, “Who but the Lord”, and “Ways of the White Folks”. These Poems describe the brutality and problems that the African-Americans were faced...
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...ike. “The Sounds of Black Laughter and the Harlem Renaissance: Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes.” American Literature 80.1 (March 2008): 57-81. Print.
Constankisis, Sarah. "Langston Hughes." Poetry For Students. New York: Gale, 1979. . Print.
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"The Ways of White Folks." Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction. Hans A. Ostrom. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. 3-18. Twayne's Studies in Short Fiction 47. Twayne's Authors on GVRL. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
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...
Langston Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He started education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He went on to write and publish his first work, a poem called, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in Crisis magazine. He then continued his education at Columbia University in New York in 1921. He then lived for sometime in Paris and after returning to the United States, he worked in Washington D.C. as a busboy. Later after that, Vachel Lindsay discovered Hughes literary talents. Hughes talents did not only exist in poetry, he also expanded his talent into music, play writing, and short stories, for example the “Simple” stories. His most prominent work however was written and published during the Harlem Renaissance a time where many other African-American authors were showcasing their work and being published. Hughes however, stood above the rest with his multiple talents and work which spread across the board. The white society of America at the time of the Harlem Renaissance and years after began to label him as a radical. Hughes remained extremely prolific to the very end of his life. Hughes published over forty books, including a series of children’s books. However, if you add his translations and his many anthologies of black writing, the amount of books he has published would double. He remained a controversial figure, having been considered a dangerous radical in the 1940s. Hughes was now, as he retained his lifelong commitment to racial integration, rejected by 1960s radicals considered to be a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. However, that would not stop Hughes from being recognized as one of the important black a...
Hughes mother went through protracted separations and reconciliations in her second marriage (she and her son from this marriage would live with him off and on in later years. He was raised by alternately by her, by his maternal grandmother, and, after his grandmother’s death, by family friends. By the time he was fourteen, he had lived in Joplin; Buffalo; Cleveland; Lawrence, Kansas; Mexico City; Topeka, Kansas; Colorado Springs; Kansas City; and Lincoln, Illinois. In 1915, he was class poet of his grammar-school graduating class in Lincoln. From 1916 to 1920, he attended Central High School in Cleveland, where he was a star athlete, wrote poetry and short stories (and published many of them in the Central High Monthly), and on his own read such modern poets as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg. His classmates were for the most part the children of European immigrants, who treated him largely without discrimination and introduced him to leftist political ideas.
Langston Hughes is considered by many readers to be the most significant black poet of the twentieth century. Except for a few examples, all his poems are about social injustice in America. The somber tone of his writing often reflected his mood. Race relations were present in almost his whole career, following him from his first poem to his last.
Hughes, a.k.a. Langston, a.k.a. “Harlem [Dream Deferred]” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer.
The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost begged status; due to his place as a “black American” poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes’ black experience was sensationalized. Using his “black experience” as a façade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure.
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.
Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 04 Dec. 2013. The "Biography of Langston Hughes." Poemhunter.com.
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. The poems “Visitors to the Black Belt”, “Note on Commercial Theatre”, “Democracy”, and “Theme for English B” by Hughes all illustrate the theme of staying true to one’s cultural identity and refusing to compromise it despite the constant daily struggle it meant to be black in an Anglo centric society.
Langston Hughes was deemed the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race," a fitting title which the man who fueled the Harlem Renaissance deserved. But what if looking at Hughes within the narrow confines of the perspective that he was a "black poet" does not fully give him credit or fully explain his works? What if one actually stereotypes Hughes and his works by these over-general definitions that cause readers to look at his poetry expecting to see "blackness?" Any person's unique experiences in life and the sense of personal identity this forms most definitely affects the way he or she views the world. This molded view of the world can, in turn, be communicated by the person through artistic expression. Taking this logic into account, to more fully comprehend the message and force of Hughes' poetry one must look, not just to his work, but also at the experiences in his life that constructed his ideas about society and his own identity. In looking at Hughes' biography, one studies his struggle to form a self-identity that reflected both his African American and mainstream white cultural influence; consequently, this mixing of black and white identity that occurred throughout Hughes' life is reflected in his poem "The Weary Blues."
Langston Hughes (often called the father of the Harlem Renaissance) was born on February 1, 1902 - May 22, 1967. As a child he lived in Joplin, Missouri. This African American novelist, poet, and even playwright had a different background then others, he did not come from a perfect household. His parents divorced and he lived with his grandmother until he was thirteen. Shortly after he moved to Illinois to live with his mother. After completing high school he studied at Columbia University in New York City. Langston Hughes is most famous for his literature and politics during this movement. His politics, literature, poetry, novels, plays, essays and children books shaped this movement.
Hughes, Langston. “Harlem.” Literature for Composition. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto and William E. Cain.10th ed. New York: Pearson, 2014. 136. Print. 8 Apr. 2014.
Langston Hughes, an American Poet, is one of the most influential poets in American history. He was a social activist and novelist that spoke up for others that couldn 't and spread his ideas and thoughts amongst America. He was born on February 1,1902 and died at the age of 65 on May 22, 1967. He might of died but his legacy still lives amongst the world, his work still being translated into to todays meaning and being published for all to see. Langston has said that his most influential writers were Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman; all having an influential and deep background in novels and poems. He began orchestrating poems in the late teens and his career took off in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance movement. In the span of his career he wrote over 100 books and poems that impacted not only America but the world as well, and his work still does to this day. Langston Hughes wrote
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." [1951] Literature. 5th ed. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28.