Langston Hughes Poetry :: essays research papers

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) absorbed America. In doing so, he wrote astir(predicate) some(prenominal) issues critical to his time period, including The Renaissance, The Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the cruddy Power movement, pick out, Blues, and Spirituality. Just as Hughes absorbed America, America absorbed the blue poet in just about the only way its mindset allowed it to by absorbing a unappeasable writer with all of the patronizing egoism that that entails. The contradiction of being both black and American was a heavy(p) one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an well-nigh begged status due to his place as a black American poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes black experience was sensationalized. Using his black experience as a faade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his double sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his sta tus as a public figure.One of Hughes most distinctive styles stemmed from urban nightclubs in which black artists performed for a white audience. Hughes heavy(p) appreciation for the black urban music style is obvious end-to-end the various rhythms, patterns, and unpredictable improvisations that mirror the chaotic and pulsating tempo of city life. Jazz and black oral influences, as well as societal duality are pervasive elements end-to-end Hughes poetry. Like nightclub entertainers, Hughes used the progression of Afro-American music (jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, and be-bop) in order to show the growth and castrate of a community in conflict, as is shown in Subway charge Hour. This poem, brimming with sudden and broken rhythms, is characteristic of jazz riffs popular in the 1920s. In Subway Rush Hour, Hughes uses the musicality of his poetry and incorporates it with an consequential social statement regarding the relation status between blacks and whites. Equality is an ev er- designate antecedent throughout Hughes poetry. In Theme for English B, Hughes presents us with musical and good speech, an intense social statement, and a very important sense of equality, surprise us into reality.Although Theme for English B was published in 1949, it has many of the characteristics that his earlier works from the Harlem Renaissance possessed. The rhythmic rhyming adds to the musicality of the poem. The language is simple, yet effective in making a very important social statement. An especially intense aura of American separatism is present throughout the poem. A sense of egalitarianism is also present throughout the poem the instructor is just as much student as the student is professor, young and old each have much to allege the other, and black and white partake of each other.