Langston Hughes wrote poetry for American jazz and blues using very simple diction sharing stories of living as a black man, express his ideas on being black , and informing the public about the reality of black life, while facing a considerable amount of criticism.
Hughes wanted to be a different type of black writer, poet, and storyteller during the Harlem Renaissance era. Most black writers at the time were making poems that rhymed, followed the way traditional poems were written, and used difficult wording to get their points across. What made Hughes different was that he used a significant amount of simple diction for the readers to find the latent meanings in his poems, as well as writing free verse. The idea of simplicity interested Hughes because he enjoyed writing poems that included the common American speech and African American slang (African American Writers 369). Hughes avoided dialogue in his writings, instead he used poetry to be straightforward, understanding, and simple. His word choices resembled Hughes’ life growing up and reflects his tone in his work. The words symbolized African American daily concerns, and implied drama that move from tragedy and war to peaceful times. He confines racial suffering and conflict, while making clear the need for reuniting people together. Although his diction resembles his life growing up, it is from the point of view of his life being his own African American history through his own eyes and psyche. His words mediated between antonyms symbolizing black and white and war and peace, referring to Harlem representing the war and Africa representing the peace. As the Harlem Renaissance came to an end, he began using diction to signify Harlem Renaissance moving over to the Civil Rights Movement (Harlem Renaissance 609). In Hughes’ poems, he speaks with the present, past, and how he wants the future changes to be like. Separating history and time, he also informs us on history and overlaps our arousal to being wordy and lengthy. He transforms facts into his values and power into his own thoughts. In his thoughts, which are the words in his poems, he carries a variety of motives and religions expressing that humans should come together and practice the same customs. He connects innocence and guilt among the world as a whole (Harlem Renaissance 605).
Most of Langston Hughes’ poems are racial in theme and treatment, which was a reflection of his own life. He felt being black was a matter of pride and whoever is black should love themselves in every aspect (Harlem Renaissance 597). In the majority of his poems Hughes expresses his ideas and feelings about black people, as well as black life. In “Mother To Son,” he gives us his ideas about black women; praising black women’s strength and courage that stands strong in spite of life’s obstacles. The poem “Negro” presents his perspective on what being black has meant during different times. “I’ve been a slave..I’ve been a worker…I’ve been a singer…I’ve been a victim.” (American Writers). As he writes on being a worker he also talks about how blacks built pyramids and buildings; symbolizing African Americans having plenty of knowledge in the area of architecture and mathematics. He proceeds to talk about being a victim, “they lynch me still in Mississippi.” Referring to when blacks were enslaved and being forced to leave their families and work on a plantation.
Langston Hughes uses the word “Negro” in a number of his works to symbolize how society labeled African American during the time of Harlem Renaissance as well as the Civil Rights Movement. His first mature poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” tells his proud story of the African American race from early slave times to his present time of the poem. Most white Americans during the early 20th century viewed other Americans with darker skin than them as less than human, as if they were not worth anything; Hughes gives solid meaning to why we need equality. Connecting his ancestors to ancient rivers of the world, and making his soul grow as deep as rivers. Throughout this poem he mentions a few ancient rivers that are still here, two of them being the Euphrates River and the Congo River. The Euphrates River is commonly known to be the “birthplace” of human civilizations from early Mesopotamians. The Congo, which goes through Africa, many civilizations in Africa thrived off of. These two rivers are an example of old, amazing, architecture that still stands strong from those who created and featured them (Student Gradesaver). His whole analysis of this poem was just like ancient rivers have meaning and importance to the world, and so does The Negro. Hughes wrote an essay called “The Negro and The Racial Mountain”, where he states “We build our temples for tomorrow as strong as we know and stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.” He shows us that he is not ashamed to be black during times when being black and proud was not the “trend”, his main idea of not only this essay but all of his works was to portray common people with all of their joys and sorrows in their everyday life. In this essay there is a young writer that comes up to Hughes expressing that he wants to be a poet, but, not a negro poet. Hughes then broke it down to the young man saying he desired to be white. This young man was talking to a writer who absolutely loved every single aspect about being black and following the “black is beautiful” and Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement. Since this was the person Hughes was, he was very confused and troubled as to why this young man would even desire to be someone else among not even wanting to be his race, and the young man should not put any effort into trying to be a poet because he is afraid of being himself. As the essay continues, Hughes argues about the wants and expectations of what society wants African Americans to believe what all of society believes. He emphasizes and encourages African Americans to not pay any attention to society’s wants and expectations and to just live up to their own standards and love their roots and heritage. The feelings Hughes had toward this young man was he felt bad for the kid because he did not love himself enough (Harlem Renaissance 595). Langston Hughes was very prideful, rejoiceful, and self-confident about being black. He loved to tell his readers about being a black man ,as well as person and his ideas on black life through his poems. He used his poetry to illustrate that there was not any lack of anything within negro people that have beauty and strength (Black Writers 281).
Although Hughes enjoyed writing and informing his readers and audience on black life, there was plenty of critics that did not. There were people that did not agree with the work Langston Hughes was publishing because on what his work consisted of. Often times his criticism came from African Americans. Most black critics grudgingly admired him. Other black poets felt Hughes was exposing too much of his feelings, ideas and aspects of black culture to a white world. The blacks felt as if he was portraying an unattractive view of black life (Black Writers 282-283). On the other hand, whites expected this from a black writer; to write about being black, to be stereotyped but not go too far and destroy their image of him. Whites believed a “better class negro” would tell artist what to do and follow instructions , where as Hughes did not, making him a “regular class negro.”(Harlem Renaissance). Hughes did not care nor pay mind to what White critics had to say because he didn’t care for them if they weren’t saying anything that were consistent with his thoughts. For the black critics, Hughes had his own opinions which questioned why they did not like him to expose black culture and his thoughts, feelings and pride behind being black. However, Hughes never changed how he wrote, nor what he wrote about because he loved his work and he loved being black.
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Works Cited Page
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