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Poetic Analysis Of The Weary Blues By Langston Hughes

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Poetic Analysis of “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes Langston Hughes was truly able to make a name for himself through the reaction he gained from creating the revolutionary collection of poems “The Weary Blues” in 1926 where this poem with the same title can be found. During this time, the world was in turmoil and Hughes had just immersed himself in the Harlem renaissance scene. All the rules were changing around him so, why not in poems too. He decided to take an entirely new approach to poetry by breaking standard rules of poems and adopting the jazz and urban blues rules which were more like a recommendation of rules rather than graved in stone. Hughes had a basic rhythm and varied it to fit the words or change the mood of his poems. Sometimes he spelled words to match the way that real people talk. It was refreshing compared to the stuffy, rigid poetry that had been seen before, written in free verse with an irregular rhyme scheme, mimicking the natural patterns of speech and music.

In the opening two lines Hughes decided to use a tactic that left the reader in the dark, guessing what he is talking about. The only element one can decipher is that he is talking about music by the terminology being used; words such as “syncopated tune // croon”, the long O sounds of "droning" and "drowsy" which mimic yawning. The sense of music can also be observed by the ever present varying rhythm, a rocking back and forth feeling replicating the flow of a gentle blues.

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