I Am Negro, Black as Night
The title of this paper was inspired by the famous black poet, Langston Hughes’, poem Negro, which is included in the book The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes’ works are world renowned classics years after the start of his career. Hughes’ works were very influential in the age of the Harlem Renaissance. They are some of the greatest and most eye-opening works of that time. The research undertaken in this paper will include some aspects of his personal life, educational background, important works, the difference in his writing styles and the achievements that he acquired during his career.
Langston Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced at a young age and for some time he was raised by his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas (Kansas Heritage.com). After the divorce, his father moved to Mexico and Langston went to live with his mother and her new family in Lincoln, Illinois when he was thirteen. Around this time is when Hughes began writing his poetic works. Langston’s father had trouble finding work in America because of his race, so he relocated to Mexico. When his father moved away, Hughes found that writing poetry helped him to express his feelings about his father relocation. After living in Illinois for only a year, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio where Hughes’ stepfather found work.
In Hughes’ junior year of high school, he moved to Mexico to live with his father. Langston Hughes returned to Cleveland to finish high school, graduated and attended Columbia University (poets.org). Some jobs Langston acquired during the years after he left Columbia in 1922 were as a busboy, assistant cook, lau...
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...ne Hansberry, where the title is taken from a line in Hughes’ poem, A Dream Deferred (filmreference.com).
The most recognizable achievement of Langston Hughes’ career was his “enlightening and intriguing portrayals of black life in America during the 1920s-1960s” (poets.org). Mr. Hughes’ writings are one of the best methods to inform society of the times of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes was known as the Poet Laureate of Harlem, which describes him as one of the most well-known poets to grace Harlem’s street corners.
Though Hughes died on May 22, 1967 in Harlem of complications from prostate cancer, his works live on in infamy. His works are studied by students worldwide and still constantly sell out. As previously stated, Langston Hughes is known as one of the greatest African-American writers to ever introduce his prose to American society.
Langston Hughes was an African American poet who emerged during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance strongly influenced most of Langston Hughes’s writing. In such works as “Dream”, “Still Here”, “Dream Deferred”, and “Justice” you see the clear messages that are trying to be voiced through his work.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
James Mercer who we all knew as Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri February 1, 1902. Right after Hughes was born his parents James Hughes and Carrie Langston, decided to separate. His father went his way and his mother she moved around a lot so his maternal grandmother raised him. Mary, Hughes grandmother had an impact that influenced him into writing poetry. After his grandmother passed he eventually went to stay with his mother where they got settled in Ohio. Hughes began writing poetry throughout his years in high school.
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.
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.
Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.
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.
In this poem I don’t think the speaker is Langston Hughes, the speaker could be anybody. This poem is asking what happens to dream. The speaker has many ideas in their mind, of what could happen to the deferred dreams as shown throughout the entire poem. Most poems are statements, although this particular poem is asking multiple questions. “What happens to a dream deferred?” (1), “Does it dry up,” (2) “like a raisin in the sun,” (3) “Or fester like a sore -,” (4) “And then run?” (5) Does it stink like rotten meat?” (6) “Or crust and sugar over –,” (7) “like a syrupy sweet?” (8), “Or does it explode?” (11)While lines 9 and 10 make an assumption of what the speaker thinks would happen to a deferred dream. The ending of the poem keeps you guessing. What would you say happens to dreams
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.
An artist in the truest sense of the word, Langston Hughes was quite simply a literary genius. Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was a speaker for the simple man, a man who had no wealth or power but still had soundness of heart and virtues abundant. He was the one of the earliest innovators of the then new art form known as Jazz Poetry alongside with e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. Hughes is also known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance (Francis).
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 ...