Langston Hughes was an American poet, whose African-American themes made him a main contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He’s the brains behind "Let America be America Again" and many other pieces of poetry. When first reading "Let America be America Again" I was really intrigued about why and how he was displaying all the different cultures and races in America and how it always ends the same way because they are overpowered by the rich and powerful. After analyzing this poem, I believe that Langston Hughes shows that America is once again America, must accept all the people living in it. This theme was communicated through the use of the abstract language poet, personification, and its history. This poem shows and defines a great deal of american identity. It shows how america needs to be as how america was advertised,as the land of the free and equality. Langston Hughes demonstrates his ideas by giving examples using abstract language. He does this to give the words use a wider and stronger meaning and use them in ways that only he can. Things and objects hold greater significance and always have …show more content…
He also uses "faith" and "pain" tremendously as a way to show what they feel, who have faith and do not know what to do in their current situation. "Black" is also used in abstract ways. He uses “Black” to show how they have been called by the rest of the people, and uses it as an insult to African-American culture. The use of different and abstract language helps poetry create significant meanings because it makes poetry not just literal, but deeper and makes the reader think that there may be a different meaning for each reader, because the word might have many different meanings. Here are some examples of abstract language of use in "Both in America and America
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 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.
The "Langston Hughes" Voices & Visions: the Poet in America. Ed. Helen Vendler. New York: Random House, 1987. 352-93.
Langston Hughes is a key figure in the vision of the American dream. In his writings, his African-American perspective gives an accurate vision of what the American dream means to a less fortunate minority. His poetry is very loud and emotional in conveying his idea of the African-American dream. Most of his poetry either states how the black man is being suppressed or is a wish, a plea for equality. He does not want the black man to be better than everyone else, but just to be treated equally.
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.
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.
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.
He was responsible for uplifting and motivating African Americans during the 1920’s. Langston Hughes embraced the New Negro paradigm, which was illustrated in his numerous literary pieces.... ... middle of paper ... ...
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 was an African American poet, essayist, playwright, and skilled short story wordsmith. He is best known for vocalizing the concerns of his fellow working-class African Americans. Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, a descendant of prominent abolitionists and rose quickly to prominence during the “Harlem Renaissance”. We know Hughes for his extreme versatility and as a productive author who was particularly well known and loved for his folksy humor. Langston Hughes incorporate commodities in his tone, diction and imagery to enhance the readers experience in understanding the struggles of the African-American man. These poems filled
The theme that is apparent throughout “Let American Be America Again,” is that even though America is supposed to be the land of the free, it has never really provided this golden opportunity to everyone. In fact, Langston Hughes seems to imply that America oppressed many groups of people and has never really represented those ideals in the first place, except for a certain group of people, the wealthy. Through the use of the literary elements of poems, we’ll explore the true meaning the author seems to portray.
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 ...
...us and is still influencing today's literary scene immensely. While his writings' meanings are not always apparent at first glance, when taking a look at historical events and sites mentioned in his work, the connections between his cultural background and society becomes clearer. Due to his eloquence and importance of topics chosen, Langston Hughes is a great representative of the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.
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.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was a poet and a novelist from the mid -1900s who began writing poems throughout his high school career. His poems are mainly affiliated with the tough life he had been through as racism reached its peak. In his poems, Langston Hughes discusses his hardships dealing with all the racist people in his schools and the ones around him. And how the experience of life was for someone who was black. He was known as the most versatile writer of the Harlem Renaissance, a time in American history when African Americans became part of the mainstream in both politics and music.