The Life And Legacy Of Langston Hughes

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Langston’s Life and Legacy
James Mercer Langston Hughes, more commonly known as Langston Hughes was -- and still is -- most renowned for being a major influence on the Harlem Renaissance. Although he was a very popular poet, he was more than a literary figure. Hughes was a man of passion and great personality. While there are many interesting aspects concerning Hughes’ life, it was his early years, beginning career, and major influences that stand out as the most responsible for his passionate writing style. Ups and downs were a constant in the early years of Hughes’ life. Born in the town of Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, to parents Caroline Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes, was James Mercer Langston Hughes (“Langston
Some poets that influenced him most were Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Claude McKay, and Carl Sandburg, who was a “guiding star” towards free verse (Rampersand). The fact that Hughes’ had a rather dejected childhood played a large role in many of his works. To be found in these works are memories turned into stories, creating parallels between his childhood and his poems (Bloom 44). As well as this, he was influenced very much by the lower class black life that he lived and the music that sprung forth from the homes of these same lower class people. From 1932 to 1933, Hughes spent some time in the Soviet Union. During that time, it is said that he became a “commie”. Although he denied all ties to the communist party in 1953, he was most certainly a radical democrat. He claimed that all the radical poems that he had written were misguided and ill-advised. In 1956, Hughes wrote an autobiography about his time in the Soviet Union titled I Wonder as I Wander (Rampersand). Africa was also a place that greatly influenced his works. In his works, the nostalgia for the beautiful, and equally unrealistic, Africa is almost tangible. Taking the characters, he painted them as the victims that they were, telling tales of the African people building empires throughout history that they would never be allowed to be a part of (Bloom
He is both strong yet delicate, a dreamer, yet a realist, just like his poems mixes both dream and reality (Hughes). Varying over a broad spectrum of topics, often his poems were about the latest social issue, and racial tension can be found in many of his poems as well. Hughes himself was the embodiment of the Harlem Renaissance. He has very strong opinions and a strong voice and is a very dynamic poet (“Langston Hughes” 73). Unafraid to broach controversial issues, Hughes often wrote about religious, social, political, and racial issues, as well as writing about mixed marriage and America’s progress. He loved writing for children, and also wrote often about jazz, Africa, the West Indies, and even wrote histories of the NAACP and Black

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