Analysis Of The Weary Blues By Langston Hughes

Submitted By batlua
Words: 720
Pages: 3
Open Document
Langston Hughes is a famous poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, autobiographer, and writer of children's books. He was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri but grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas. Langston Hughes was known as one of the most prominent and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, a rebirth movement of African Americans in the arts during the 1920s. Through his writing, “he has enriched our lives”(1) with a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. The main theme of his work evolves in the everyday life of African Americans – the pride to be black.
The Weary Blues (1926) clearly introduced Hughes's enduring themes and established his own style. It was his seemingly casual style that reflects the simplicity and the sincerity of the blacks. Among many poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers became Hughes's signature poem.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.(2)
The poem is a historical painting of the Negroes and their contribution to the establishment of civilization. Rivers are always the source of life and communities throughout the world. The poem demonstrates the equality of the Negros to other races; it speaks of the blacks’ ability to move forward in the future. The final line “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” fully expresses Hughes’ pride of his people with the deep soul like the rivers. The blacks are part of the history and part of the nature. The poem effectively shows the contributions of the Negroes through history. They are equal to everyone.
Hughes places emphasis on the theme "black is beautiful" in multiple levels. His main concern was to elevate his people by recording their courage, humor, and spirits in his writings. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working class African Americans. He penetrated his work with the black vernacular speech pattern as an identity and a pride to be black. "My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind," (3)Hughes said. He sought to reeducate both audience and artist by “lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality”(4). My People is a good example of this.

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.(5)

The poem demonstrates the beauty of the blacks. Hughes portrayed his people poetically
Show More

Related Documents: Analysis Of The Weary Blues By Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

ordinary African Americans is prevalent in this important literary artist, Langston Hughes. Searching for equality and a rite of passage in America for an African American is a message clearly shown throughout Hughes' work. It is clear that Hughes saw himself equal to the white race, specified in the poem "I, Too." African Americas have every right to do that of which Caucasians are capable of doing. I find that Langston Hughes was trying to speak for the entire black race, a way of proving one's…

Words 493 - Pages 2

Analysis Of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is one of the best poets of the 20th century best known for his role for the “Harlem Renaissance” in the 1920's and 1930s. During a time which blacks would challenge racism in things like art, music, and literature. And Langston Hughes poems would reflect that and in the poem “Negro” it was no different. The poem discusses on the history and treatment of African Americans from the past throughout slavery. The speaker of the poem is a combination of African Americans throughout slavery…

Words 541 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Modernism

assigned for Wednesday, April 4 (Hughes, McKay, Stevens, Moore), and explain what, if anything, about each poem seems “modernist.” Include at least one quote per poem to support your thoughts. Cite line numbers for each quotation, e.g. (Hughes 4). Modernism strives to break away from traditional norms. One key aspect of modernism is the break away from traditional story telling. All four poets showed this in their pieces. In Langston Hughes’s Mulatto, Langston Hughes is telling the story of a mulatto…

Words 574 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Essay

Langston stayed in school there for only a year; meanwhile, he found Harlem. Hughes quickly became an integral part of the arts scene in Harlem, so much so that in many ways he defined the spirit of the age, from a literary point of view. The Big Sea, the first volume of his autobiography, provides such a crucial first-person account of the era and its key players that much of what we know about the Harlem Renaissance we know from Langston Hughes's point of view. Hughes began regularly publishing…

Words 710 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Salvation

Support with text evidence. The thesis of Langston Hughes’s short essay “Salvation” is that people often pretend to believe something merely because of social pressures and, in this way, act hypocritically. The support for this claim comes from the plot of the story, in which the narrator pretends to believe in Jesus only to spare himself embarrassment and because he finds it tedious to wait in church until he professes his conversion. At the end of the essay, Hughes writes about the narrator’s aunt, who…

Words 550 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Poetry

the human soul entire, squeezed like a lemon or a lime, drop by drop, into atomic words.” -Langston Hughes Poetry is a type of creative writing in which feelings and experiences are intensified through the usage of metaphors, similes and many other literary devices. Poetry is unique and gives the poet a distinct style of writing and rhythm throughout their work. I will be analyzing the poet Langston Hughes, and some of his work. From the pieces that I read, “I Dream A World,” “Harlem,” and “Dreams”…

Words 671 - Pages 3

Essay on Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes “Salvation” assignment title 1 Sebastian Canola Langston Hughes main purpose in the narrative “Salvation,” is to define how his involvement of being “saved” only resulted in him being upset with himself. This also disappointed him because he had lied to the church and felt remorse for doing so. The “saving” of Langston also resulted in him losing faith in Christ. “I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church,…

Words 638 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Metaphors

of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.” Langston Hughes said, “every poet has a different styles of writing and their different views on life and other topics.” Hughes usually talks about how life is short and how you should cherish every moment of it. Many poets write about death and evil things whereas Hughes writes about the great things in life and how we should cherish those memorable moments. Langston Hughes uses literary devices to convey the theme that life is short.…

Words 578 - Pages 3

Langston Hughes Origin

agree, like Langston Hughes, an African American poet from the 20th Century. He was criticized for portraying the African American community truthfully instead of in a positive light. But as seen in The Poetry Foundation’s article on Hughes, he wanted to express the most important piece of the puzzle: origin. Hughes argues in his literary work that one’s origin is critical because origin plays a formidable role in shaping one’s identity. In Hughes’s poem, “Theme for English B”, Hughes argues that…

Words 479 - Pages 2

Langston Hughes Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes was a poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes was such a good poet that he was known as “the poet laureate of Harlem.” (Howard University, par. 1) Hughes was one of the earliest jazz innovators, he implemented a jazz rhythm to his poetry. The Harlem Renaissance was a social, cultural, and artistic explosion during the1920s and 1930s. Langston Hughes is viewed as one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes believed the black race should not be oppressed or left out of society…

Words 399 - Pages 2