Langston Hughes Life During The Harlem Renaissance

When Langston Hughes was writing his poems, he wanted the reader to get a dive into the life of the black Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. In most of his work, Langston writes about the truth and their actual culture such as, both, their love for music and suffering during this time. In Blues

This paper examines the perspective of Langston Hughes and how his style of writing is. It looks at how several interrelated themes run through the poetry of Langston Hughes, all of which have to do with being black in America and surviving in spite of immense difficulties. Langston Hughes is one of the most influential writers because his style of work not only captured the situation of African Americans; it also grabbed the attention of other races with the use of literary elements and other stylistic qualities. Langston Hughes became well known for his way of interpreting music into his work of writing, which readers love and enjoy today.

The well known poet Langston Hughes was an inspiring character during the Harlem Renaissance to provide a push for the black communities to fight for the rights they deserved. Hughes wrote his poetry to deliver important messages and provide support to the movements. When he was at a young age a teacher introduced him to poets Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, and they inspired him to start his own. Being a “darker brother,” as he called blacks, he experienced and wanted his rights, and that inspired him. Although literary critics felt that Langston Hughes portrayed an unattractive view of black life, the poems demonstrate reality. Hughes used the Blues and Jazz to add effect to his work as well as his extravagant word use and literary

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

Hughes was a great writer with much diversity in his types of writings. His poetry was a way for us to see a picture of urban life during the Harlem Renaissance, the habits, attitudes, and feelings of his oppressed people. These poems did more than reveal the pain of poverty, it also illustrated racial pride and dignity. “His main concern was the uplift of his people, whose strengths, resiliency, courage, and humor he wanted to record as part of the general American experience” (Wikipedia, Langston Hughes). Hughes was not ashamed of his heritage and his main theme, “black is beautiful,” was expressed and shared to the world through his poetry. During the literary movement, music was central to the cultural movement of the Harlem Renaissance, which was a main feature of Hughes’s poetry. He had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk, jazz, and blues rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride. Hughes used this unique style of writing because it was important to him to have the readers feel and experience what they were reading, “to recognize the covert rhetoric in lyric means to appreciate the overlap between emotive and discursive poetry. Rooted in song, the lyric reestablishes the ritual of human communion” (Miller 52).

Langston Hughes was known for his poems of black activity in America since the 1920’s to the 1960’s, which was the time of the Harlem Renaissance. “My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.” Throughout Langston’s life he has seen and experienced racism. He used these experiences to give him ideas of things he could write about. Back then white people were the majority in Harlem, but then once the blacks started to come they dispersed. “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.” Langston knew that blacks should express themselves no matter what color they are and not be ashamed of it. Some white people may like that they are expressing themselves, on the other hand, some white people may not accept that the

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of revival and awakening in which the African American community produced a new form of cultural identity. After years of oppression and slavery, African Americans struggled to discover their own distinctive culture. It was through the literature and artistry of the Harlem Renaissance that the African American community began to express the suffering and resentment they truly experienced. In addition, the movement allowed them to find a way to escape their hardships. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” address the addiction, poverty, and violence that surrounded African Americans and the triumph of life that was captured in their attempt to escape the suffering.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and social movement that occurred due to black migration to the north increasing the social and economic boom. Langston Hughes is one of the influential African Americans that contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, by writing about events and his surroundings, his work was able to help struggling African Americans. Langston Hughes was born in February 1, in 1902 in Missouri. He began writing poetry while living in Lincoln, Illinois and years later he launched his literary career with his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Most of his writings were influenced by his upbringing in New York City’s Harlem, which was a predominantly black community.

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

The Harlem Renaissance was a time where creativity flourished throughout the African American community. At the time many African Americans were treated as second class citizens. The Harlem Renaissance acted as artistic and cultural outlet for the African-American community. The Harlem Renaissance, otherwise known as “The New Negro Movement” was an unexpected outburst of creative activity among African Americans In the poems Harlem by Langston Hughes, America by Claude McKay, and Incident by Countee Cullen all use frustration and hope as reoccurring themes to help empower the African-American population and realize the injustices they face day to day. The Harlem Renaissance was a period marked by great change and forever altered the

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

When we think of the African American culture, the first thing most people revert to is slavery. However, even after slavery ended, African Americans were not given the rights they were promised. They were treated wrongly and their true culture and identities were still widely misunderstood. During the period of Harlem Renaissance, the African American culture and the true identities of the people were revealed along with allowing the world to see them as more than just slaves and servants, but as actual people. Different poets, writers, musicians, and painters displayed the culture in their creative ways one of who is known as Langston Hughes. His works are credited and discussed worldwide till this day and will continue to do so in the future. During the Harlem Renaissance Langston

The Great Migration of African Americans during the XXth century initiated a particular series of poets who chose to express their thoughts through writing. What's more, what these poets had to say for themselves and collectively had been a sensible topic among groups of black people living in a most racist era. There was a lot published in the newspapers in those times and not everything was poetry. Letters were received from people seeking to flee from the southern parts of America where nothing good had come to them, no jobs, no shaking of hands, but high prices and a lot of discontents. Articles were covering the pages with an emphasis on the number of people who seemed to have all decided at once to settle someplace else. Out of this widespread phenomenon emerged a cultural movement known unto the name of the Harlem Renaissance, quite a romantic entitlement for what represented quite a major step forward in the history of African American culture. Music, visual arts, literature encapsulated such a particular style that it created the movement by itself.

Langston Hughes, a black poet, proved one of the most influential poets of the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African American literature, art, and culture during the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, writers of the Renaissance focused heavily on issues of black identity and struggles faced by African Americans, both economically and socially, as they struggled with the legacy of the Civil War and omnipresent discrimination. Hughes was no exception, and his body of work explored the issue of the black experience. His poem “The Weary Blues” falls squarely within this literary theme; in it, the black musician portrayed represents the struggles faced by black Americans, and Hughes clearly communicates that

Authors and Poets and Musicians all flourished during this time and their materials mainly focused on the issues surrounding racism and their frustration towards the treatment their people have been given throughout history. Poems like “I, Too” and “Democracy” by Langston Hughes portrayed this frustration. Poetry as it is today was highly influenced by writers of the Harlem Renaissance.