Present Theme Throughout Hughes Poetry example essay topic

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) absorbed America. In doing so, he wrote about many issues critical to his time period, including The Renaissance, The Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, Jazz, Blues, and Spirituality. Just as Hughes absorbed America, America absorbed the black poet in just about the only way its mindset allowed it to: by absorbing a black writer with all of the patronizing self-consciousness that that entails. The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost 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 facade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure. One of Hughes' most distinctive styles stemmed from urban nightclubs in which black artists performed for a white audience. Hughes' great appreciation for the black urban music style is obvious throughout 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 social dichotomy are pervasive elements throughout 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 change of a community in conflict, as is shown in "Subway Rush Hour".

This poem, brimming with sudden and broken rhythms, is characteristic of jazz riffs popular in the 1920's. In "Subway Rush Hour", Hughes uses the musicality of his poetry and incorporates it with an important social statement regarding the relation status between blacks and whites. Equality is an ever-present theme throughout Hughes' poetry. In "Theme for English B", Hughes presents us with musical and effective language, an intense social statement, and a very important sense of equality, shocking 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 offer the other, and black and white partake of each other. Both "Subway Rush Hour" and "Theme for English B" were printed in Hughes' 1951 publication titled "Montage of A Dream Deferred". This entire collection of poems shows Hughes' perception of Harlem's deterioration. In "Montage of a Dream Deferred", Hughes contrasts the drastically altered conditions of the 1950's Harlem to the Harlem he had known growing up in the 1920's.

The energetic nightclub life and vitality of Harlem's cultural renaissance had given way to an urban ghetto full of poverty, ignorance, and crime. This image of Harlem and its inhabitants is noticeable in "Children's Rhymes", a poem also from the "Montage of a Dream Deferred" collection. Although Langston Hughes was best known for his poetry (and he considered himself to be first and foremost a poet, ) he produced a great deal of work in other genres as well, including autobiography, fiction, plays, children's books, newspaper pieces, and anthologies. Because he supported himself solely through his writing, Hughes wrote constantly. Not only does this divert our attention from his chief (and strongest) genre, it also obviously distracted him from concentrating on and producing good work.

I believe that his need for money caused him to write for the sole purpose of writing, rather than to convey a message. This, surprisingly, resulted in a lot of bad poetry - more than would have been present had he completely devoted himself and his efforts to the production and development of his thoughts and feelings rather than to the yielding of his monetary means. Hughes faced criticism from black intellectuals who denounced him for showing only those "bad" aspects of black lower class race, and he also faced criticism from militants of the civil rights movement because he failed to address controversial issues. Despite these criticisms, however, Hughes' position in the American literary scene seems to be secure. Davis Littlejohn wrote: " [Hughes is] the one sure Negro classic... His voice is as sure, his manner as original, his position as secure as, say Edwin Arlington Robinson's or Robinson Jeffers'...

By molding his verse always on the sounds of Negro talk, the rhythms of Negro music, by retaining his own ken honesty and directness, his poetic sense and ironic intelligence, he maintained through four decades a readable newness distinctly his own.".