Langston Hughes Research Paper

Langston Hughes is a well-known African-American writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance, which is also known as the turning point for African-American culture and literature. Because he is identified as such a prominent writer, he became honored as “Shakespeare of Harlem.” At an early age, Hughes wished to voice and represent his African-American culture through writing. Because Hughes had a range of styles and genres, he managed to write and publish sixteen volumes of poetry, ten collections of short fiction, two novels, two volumes of autobiography, nine books for children, and over a dozen works for the stage. His remarkable works are based on the rhythms of African-American music that combine elements from the old and new worlds of America. In his poetry, he expresses racial pride to African-American literature during enslavement, and he reveals the self-respect and inner strengths of blacks during the twentieth century. In his autobiography Hughes states that the folk stories he heard from his mentor and grandmother greatly influenced him as a writer. Hughes was also extremely passionate about the blues, and he was one of the few to take it as achievements and expressions of black culture. His desire for the blues acted as a stimulus to the productive reaction that makes his collections so influential.

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.

James Mercer Langston Hughes, (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was born in Joplin, Missouri, to James Nathaniel and Caroline Hughes in 1902. Hughes’ parents were of mixed-race, and Langston Hughes was of African American, European American and Native American descent. Hughes' father left his family and later divorced Carrie using it as a way to escape the unbearable racism in America. After his parents’ separation, his mother travelled in

Mr. Hughes was born as James Mercer Langston Hughes. He was born on February 1st, 1902. He was the second child born to Carrie Langston Hughes and James Hughes. From the year of 1903- 1907, Mr. Hughes moved around a lot because of his parents’ divorce. In 1924, Mr. Hughes went to Columbia University. In 1929, he got a B.A. (bachelors of the arts) at Lincoln University.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas but also lived in Illinois, Ohio and Mexico. Constantly having to travel he wrote his poem that would make him famous, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Having different expectations his parents slit up resulting in him living with his maternal grandmother.

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).

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 Langston Hughes, Joplin, 1902 - New York, 1967 an American writer. He was one of the greatest exponents of the Renaissance Harlem in the twenties and later, the chief representative of the Afro-American culture, which took him not only one of his most brilliant poets but a tireless protagonist and promoter . Through his writings and public appearances he had as main objective the social and civil progress of the black population of the United States. He spent his childhood in Kansas with his maternal grandmother. He lived for a short time with his father in Mexico, but left him because of this disregard for his own race. He traveled by sea and played junior in France and Italy work before making its appearance on the literary scene in Harlem, where he published between 1921 and 1925, in the

“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 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).

     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.

Langston Hughes remains known as the most impressive, durable Negro writer in America. His tone of voice is as sure, and the manner he speaks with is original. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry, Hughes was turning outward using language and themes, attitudes, and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read. He often employs dialect distinctive of the black urban dweller or the rural black peasant. Throughout Langston Hughes career, he was aware of injustice and oppression, and used his poetry as a means of opposing them. James D. Tyms says, “Hughes writes lyric poems. But his “lyric” persona is often able to copy this social convention of the Negro Folk. Their use of the method of the ballad, to tell others how they feel” (191). Hughes lived as an

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

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.

First, in order to better understand Hughes and his works, it’s important to familiarize oneself with his childhood and early influences. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri during the Jim Crow era. Hughes began writing poetry at just age thirteen thanks to racial stereotyping, however, it wouldn’t be until after dropping out of Columbia University and traveling the world working odd jobs would he have the time and incentive to write and