Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen: Perspective on Religion

Langston Hughes rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance. His first two books, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the

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

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.

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

Langston Hughes in several poems denounced religion, inferring that religion did not exist any longer. In reading these poems, the reader canes that Hughes was expressing his feelings of betrayal and abandonment, against his race, by religion and the church. Hughes had a talent for writing poems that would start a discussion. From these discussions, Hugh es could only hope for realization from the public, of how religion and the church treated the Black race.

Poetry is like a museum. It encompasses a range of topics with innumerable specimens. However, it is constantly evolving like displays moving from city to city. The authors are the exhibits and their oeuvre may either stand the test of time or fade into oblivion. To stay relevant throughout the decades, a poet must possess some authoritative dominion over their genre, whatever it may be. Two of these lyricists whose work remains topical to this day are Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) told poignant tales which connected his personal experience to the overall state of African American livelihood in America. Conversely, Countee Cullen (1903-1946) spoke in the tradition of English Romantic poets, and was met with

James Mercer Langston Hughes was one of the most influential African-American writers during the Harlem Renaissance. He was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri to James and Carrie Mercer Hughes. Hughes parents divorced shortly after his birth and his father moved to Mexico. Hughes went to live with his grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston in Kansas while his mother travelled back and forth with jobs. After his grandmother died he went to live with friends of the family, James and Mary Reed for two years. Hughes attended school at Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio. He started writing while he was in the eighth grade, during which he was selected as Class Poet. Langston Hughes went on to be one of the greatest African-American

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

Langston Hughes’s poems “Song For a Dark Girl” and “Christ in Alabama” are poems that talks about religion. These poems use a lot of figurative language like imagery, symbolism, and metaphors to explain what Langston Hughes is talking about. The poem “Song For a Dark Girl” is a short poem that consists of three stanzas, and each stanza has four lines or quatrains. This poem also uses iambic trimeter as its meter of rhyme. Langston Hughes rhymes “me” and “tree” in the first part of the poem and repeats the rhyme in that last part of the poem. The first stanza to rhyme is:

Poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen were pinnacle authors during the Harlem Renaissance era. They unshielded topics and experiences as African-American’s in a white, racist society, unveiling their hungry desire and demand for change and equality. The poets do this through provoking poems such as “I, Too” by Hughes and “Incident” by Cullen. Both explore the common theme of racism while also giving insight to the reader their own experiences of racism and the different effect it had on the narrators.

Hughes’ most popular poems – “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Mother to Son,” “I, Too,” and “Democracy” have a lot of similarities and share a similar central idea. The following is a summary of each poem:

In the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes illustrates that though life may be filled with hardships, life will get better in the end. The author shows this by talking about the trials and tribulations of people of color.

Langston Hughes was a novelist, fiction, poet, playwright and fiction writer. He is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through to the sixties and was important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” while on a train crossing the Mississippi River on the way to visit his father in Mexico in 1920; he was 17 years old at the time. Hughes helped to unite and inspire the African American community when their voice was not appreciated by a predominantly white society, and as a result, he became the unofficial poet laureate of the Renaissance. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" connects the soul and heritage of the African American community to four great rivers in Africa, America and the Middle East. In this way, the poem charts the journey of African and African Americans and links this community to the birth of civilization. Hughes tells the tale of freedom and enslavement that

Without a doubt, Langston Hughes was one the most popular names in the history of

Throughout our lives, we often deal with boundaries created by society and ourselves. Racism and prejudices have plagued our society for years. There have been many people using many methods techniques in the fight against racism. One man used his art and the power of words to bring forth the issues of injustice suffered in America, he was Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was a Negro Writer, born at the turn of the century in 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His ancestry included three major race groups, however, he lived and was identified as a Negro or Colored (Hughes referred to himself as "colored" or "Negro," because those were the terms used to refer to African-Americans in this era). He spent most of his early years with his grandmother