Analysis Of Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks Of Rivers

Langston Hughes was considered one of the principal and prominent voices of Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s and 1930s. His poetry encompasses heterogeneity of subject matters and motifs concerning working African-Americans who were excluded and deprived of power. His choice of theme was accentuated and manifested through the convergence of African-American vernacular and blues forms. My attempt is to analyze the implications of the most significant poems by first introducing the author, examining the relevance of the poems and then, contrast them with Richard Wright’s antagonistic perspective.
Langston Hughes (born in 1902) became one of the major representatives of the Harlem Renaissance. His priority was to capture the Negro essence and manifest it through his writings omitting racial stereotypes. His first volume of poetry was published in 1926 and it was sponsored by wealthy patrons. In the 1930s, Hughes got involved in politics, and joined the American Communist Party because of its intention to suppress race as the latent and deciding factor of social class. The most idiosyncratic feature that characterizes Hughes is, and as Johnson and Farrell point out, that he is “the first poet in
The speaker of the poem describes the rivers to be ancient and then he identifies himself with the rivers saying that [his] “soul has grown deep like the rivers”. He then enumerates different rivers (Nile, Euphrates and Mississippi) and places with historical implications: Congo and New Orleans. The latter appears in the same line with Lincoln, which clearly alludes to emancipation of the slaves. The poem ends with the repetition of the line “my soul has grown deep like the rivers”, which emphasizes the significance of identifying his soul with the rivers, establishing some similarities which we will examine