Langston Hughes Biography Essay

     Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes creative intellect was influenced by his life in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Hughes had a very strong sense of racial pride. Through his works he promoted racial equality and celebrated the African American culture. It was in Lincoln, Illinois that Hughes started to write his poetry. In November 1924, he moved to Washington D.C. where he published his first book of poetry. Hughes is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America. Langston is also known for his commitment to jazz. Hughes refused to distinguish between his personal and common understandings of black America. He

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

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).

During the 1940s there were many authors creating poems and stories to try and uplift the spirit of the black community in New York. However, Langston Hughes felt inspired to write about a fictional character, which in he attempted to represent all of the feelings of the black man without being blatant or bold: “Jesse B. Semple is certainly no romantic hero, protest victim or

Langston Hughes was one of the great writers of his time. He was named the “most renowned African American poet of the 20th century” (McLaren). Through his writing he made many contributions to following generations by writing about African American issues in creative ways including the use of blues and jazz. Langston Hughes captured the scene of Harlem life in the early 20th century significantly influencing American Literature. He once explained that his writing was an attempt to “explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America” (Daniel 760). To fulfill this task, he wrote 15 volumes of poetry, six novels, three books, 11 plays, and a variety of non-fiction work (Daniel 760). He also edited over 50 books in his time (McKay).

"Hughes was fascinated with black music, tried his hand at writing lyrics, and was taken with the

Hughes' parents split up soon after his birth. His father left for Mexico and Hughes was primarily raised by his grandmother until her death. This situation of Hughes being separated from his parents, then the death of his grandmother in his late teens influenced his writing. After the death of his grandmother, Hughes moved with his mother to Cleveland, Ohio. There, he was introduced to poetry.

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

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

during this time he quickly became a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Four years later,

She moved Langston around often as a child in search for better work after her and Mr. Hughes divorced early in Langston’s childhood. James Nathaniel Hughes abandoned his family when Langston was very young. James Nathaniel Hughes was in search of leaving the United States in order to outrun the racism and civil rights issues occurring during the time period. Hughes’ father moved to Cuba at first, and then finally settled in Mexico City, Mexico. Hughes’ mother decided to move to Mexico City to reunite their family, but when they had arrived an earthquake had scared Hughes’ mother in wanting to move back to Kansas. Soon after being back in Kansas, Hughes’ mother decided to place Langston in the care of her mother. Langston then lived with his grandmother for a period of time. Langston’s grandmother, Mary, had a huge impact on Langston while he was growing up. Langston had resided with his grandmother for most of his childhood, and into his early teenage years. Langston wrote in his memoir that he remembered often sitting on his grandmother’s lap as a child and would listen to her tell him stories that would later be the fuel to his powerful vision over African Americans. Mary often told him stories of slaves who struggled for their freedom, and of abolitionists. These stories gave young Langston the vision for African Americans to be free and gave him a good outlook for his people that would become evident in his writings. Mary

“James Mercer Langston Hughes, known as Langston Hughes was born February 2, 1902 in Missouri, to Carrie Hughes and James Hughes.” Years later his parents separated. Langston’s father moved to Mexico and became very successful, as his for mother, she moved frequently to find better jobs. As a child growing up Langston spent most of his childhood living with his grandmother named Mary Langston in Lawrence, Kansas. Mary Langston was a learned women and a participant in the civil rights Movement. When Langston Hughes was 12 years old his grandmother passed away. Langston then moved in with his mother and stepfather Homer Clark. A few months later, Langston’s mother sent him to live with her mother’s friend “Auntie” and Mr. Reed. In 1915

     Langston Hughes’s writing showcases a variety of themes and moods, and his distinguished career led his biographer, Arnold Rampersad, to describe him as “perhaps the most representative black American writer.” Many of his poems illustrate his role as a spokesman for African American society and the working poor. In others, he relates his ideas on the importance of heritage and the past. Hughes accomplishes this with a straightforward, easily understandable writing style that clearly conveys his thoughts and opinions, although he has frequently been criticized for the slightly negative tone to his works.

Credited as being the most recognizable figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes played a vital role in the Modernist literary movement and the movement to revitalize African American culture in the early 20th century. Hughes’s poems reflect his personal struggle and the collective struggle of African Americans during this cultural revival.

According to Biography, James Mercer Langston Hughes is considered to be an African American poet who is college educated and comes from a middle-class family (Langston Hughes Biography). He attended college in New York City and became influential during the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes Biography). Although Hughes was a talented writer, he faced some challenges early on and it was stated that his “early work was roundly criticized by many black intellectuals for portraying what they thought to be an unattractive view of black life” (Langston Hughes. American Poet). They believed that his work helps the spread the stereotypes of African Americans. “Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations” (Langston Hughes. American Poet). Langston Hughes’s poems “The Negro Mother”, “Let America be America Again” and “The Weary Blues” were influenced by his life during the Harlem Renaissance and the racial inequality experienced in the late 1920s through the 1960s.