Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, and writer who was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that celebrated African American culture and achievements in the 1920s and 1930s. Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up in a series of foster homes and boarding houses after his parents separated. He attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and later enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, where he studied engineering.
Hughes' experiences as a black man in America shaped his writing and political views. He was deeply concerned with issues of race and social justice, and his poetry often dealt with themes of racism, inequality, and the struggle for civil rights. Many of Hughes' poems were set in Harlem, the largely African American neighborhood in New York City that was home to a thriving arts and culture scene in the 1920s and 1930s.
Hughes is perhaps best known for his poems "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "I, Too," both of which deal with themes of race and identity. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" celebrates the long and rich history of African Americans, while "I, Too" speaks to the resilience and strength of black people in the face of discrimination and oppression.
In addition to his poetry, Hughes was also a prolific writer of fiction, plays, and non-fiction. His work appeared in numerous publications, including The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Opportunity, a magazine for African American artists and intellectuals.
Hughes was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance and helped to bring African American literature and culture to the forefront of American society. His work continues to be widely read and celebrated today, and he is remembered as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. So, Harlem and Langston Hughes are closely related and both are important in the history of African American literature and culture.
Explication of The Poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved December 9, 2019. Meanwhile, the interrogative mood of the poem stays almost constant. As with filmic montage, in which one image often collides with another in suggestive, violent, and unpredictable ways, in Montage, questions jostle one another, becoming part a deeper interrogation of the rhythms and contradictions of black life in the United States. The power of this image lies in the dual nature of the image: a long and painful process of drying and an eventual concentration of the sweetness.
Langston Hughes
Soon after its publication, the novel became commercially successful and won the Harmon gold medal for literature. One of the reasons ''Harlem'' is considered an influential poem in American literature is that many people, African-American or other, can easily relate to the frustration of not being able to have their dreams come true and their goals and wishes fulfilled. But not all get to live out their dream. Retrieved October 27, 2019. According to Francis Ianni, "By 1925 there were thirty black policy banks in Harlem, several of them large enough to collect bets in an area of twenty city blocks and across three or four avenues. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
Harlem Poem Summary and Analysis
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and secondary education from Western Carolina University and a Master of School Administration in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The first and last stanza contains one line, while the other two stanzas contain seven and have two lines. While not a standardized scheme, it is a pattern which gives the poem power, since it emphasizes those end words: sun-run, meat-sweet, and load-explode. By reading this poem, can make one think more consciously about their dreams, pursuing the dreams or what can happen if the dreams are left on hold. Langston Hughes uses the element of diction as he compares a dream put on hold to an explosion. March 2008;80 1 :57-81. One of his most celebrated poems, Let America Be America Again, was published in July 1936.
