Langston Hughes Poetry
Steven R. Goodman AASP100 England May 5, 2010 Reaction #2 Langston Hughes Poetry A Literary Analysis of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” The Harlem Renaissance can be considered as “the cultural boom” in African-American history. Spanning from the 1920s into the mid-1930s, the Harlem Renaissance was an apex in African-American intellectualism. The period is also recognized as the “New Negro Movement”—named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. Alain LeRoy Locke was an American educator, writer, and philosopher, who most consider as the father of the Harlem Renaissance. Historians recall him as a leader and chief interpreter of the movement. In his anthology, he brings out a montage of works by many well-known Africans and African-Americans
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The poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was Hughes’ first published poem and it was his signature too. Only 17 years old when he wrote it, Hughes created the poem while he was on a train headed to Mexico where he would live with his father for a year. As his train crossed the Mississippi River, he was astonished by how beautiful the river was and the thought of how that river had a role in maintaining slavery in America came into his mind and he started writing. Let’s start off with the title. The title has the term “negro” in it. Now how can we identify this? Well, the term “negro” tells us about the time period which takes us back to the early 20th century when “negro” was self-identifiable with the black community for that is the term that they adopted. However, we see that the term is only used in the title which places emphasis on its overall collective meaning of the ideas it …show more content…
We see that Hughes is very descriptive when he introduces darkness and light throughout the poem. In lines nine and ten we see Hughes describing how the Mississippi R. goes from “muddy” to “golden” as the sun departs and the night arrives. So we can also take from this as muddy being a metaphor for skin color when talking about slavery. Once the river becomes golden, slavery is abolished and slaves are freed. As we view the word “dusky” when describing the nature of the rivers, the metaphor can be not just for skin color, but also to remind our reader about the author’s past which haunts
The poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was Hughes’ first published poem and it was his signature too. Only 17 years old when he wrote it, Hughes created the poem while he was on a train headed to Mexico where he would live with his father for a year. As his train crossed the Mississippi River, he was astonished by how beautiful the river was and the thought of how that river had a role in maintaining slavery in America came into his mind and he started writing. Let’s start off with the title. The title has the term “negro” in it. Now how can we identify this? Well, the term “negro” tells us about the time period which takes us back to the early 20th century when “negro” was self-identifiable with the black community for that is the term that they adopted. However, we see that the term is only used in the title which places emphasis on its overall collective meaning of the ideas it …show more content…
We see that Hughes is very descriptive when he introduces darkness and light throughout the poem. In lines nine and ten we see Hughes describing how the Mississippi R. goes from “muddy” to “golden” as the sun departs and the night arrives. So we can also take from this as muddy being a metaphor for skin color when talking about slavery. Once the river becomes golden, slavery is abolished and slaves are freed. As we view the word “dusky” when describing the nature of the rivers, the metaphor can be not just for skin color, but also to remind our reader about the author’s past which haunts