How Did Langston Hughes Contribute To The Harlem Renaissance

Racism is a prominent issue or a serious problem in the American society since the beginning and the Americans are still struggling to eradicate this problem from their land. American soil has witnessed civil rights movements concerning this issue in the past. However in 1920, a movement got initiated to promote black identity known as Harlem Renaissance. It was also a fine arts movement that led to an increase in black confidence, literacy rate, and black culture. Writers wrote about their roots and the current society.

His life work is important to all of us because it shaped the artistic of Harlem." My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America. "(Hughes qtd. In Brainly Quote) Unlike other notable black poets of in this period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black Americans. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes has touched major social and racial problems in his works. The issues of racial transition, discrimination and exploitation of the black population in American society and the questions interracial marriages were among them. Literary critics have noted the symbolic beginning of the feminine presence, even in the works of the writer, where a woman

This style has been around since the 1950’s and is still used today. This writing style is when authors use tragic events for stories, for example war. These two period of writing styles have importance to American culture, but talk about different To begin with The Harlem Renaissance poems main points the author tries to get across are about African - American culture. The authors try to tell the readers how they were treated, how they feel in society, and what they do, “I, too sing America. I am the darken brother.” (Hughes).

Langston Hughes’ The Negro Speaks of Rivers is a poem that dramatizes the conflict that occurred during the Harlem Renaissance era. I am able to see that Hughes had an dynamic and intense meaning for this specific poem. We are able to see that African Americans played a vital part in history. In this poem we are able to see our speaker break down the heritage and history of African Americans. There are many different references made throughout this poem starting with the Middle East civilization and ending with images of slavery viewed from the Mississippi River.

The destinies of blacks living in America, however, took a long time and a lot of effort in order to change. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the civil rights movement – a struggle for African Americans to achieve rights equal to those of whites including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as rights to vote- helped change their destinies. August Wilson, a well-known playwright during this time period, was famous for his plays such as Fences and The Piano Lesson. His plays are based off of his own experiences and explore a century’s worth of African American struggle and triumph. One of his plays, Fences, is about four generations of black Americans and how they have passed on a legacy of morals, mores, attitude, responsibility, and patterns.

The Harlem Renaissance and Post Modernism time periods are very different. So many things happened during their time period like the Great Depression, WWII, and the African American civil rights movements. However in the midst of all this worldly change the lesser known changes have occurred in literature. The Harlem Renaissance tends to focus on inspiring people and the struggle of people unified by a race, but Postmodernism focuses on the feelings and the attitude of humanity. First, the Harlem Renaissance occurred around the time of the African American civil rights movement.

The modern African American, according to Hughes, feels the discrimination and hate against themselves just as their ancestors did, how they are ‘lynched still’ in the United States, which further connects past Africans to present African Americans (16). In addition to connecting the modern African American to their ancestors, this idea of unity among other modern African Americans can be felt with the commiseration due to the universal suffering from discrimination. Hughes wrote this poem in the 1920s, which, while a time of postwar celebration, still contained heavy racial tension and discrimination against African Americans. By contributing to the Harlem Renaissance and resisting the racial prejudice in this era of segregation, Hughes’ narrator in “Negro” also unifies isolated and downtrodden African Americans of the 1920s, and many African Americans today, through a universal pain felt in African Americans. The historical context and personification combined also emphasize the unity between African Americans of the 1920s through a universal understanding of pain and

Throughout much of his poetry, Langston Hughes wrestles with complex notations of African American dreams, racism, and discrimination during the Harlem Renaissance. Through various poems, Hughes uses rhetorical devices to state his point of view. He tends to use metaphors, similes, imagery, and connotation abundantly to illustrate in what he strongly believes. Discrimination and racism were very popular during the time when Langston Hughes began to develop and publish his poems, so therefore his poems are mostly based on racism and discrimination, and the desire of an African American to live the American dream. Langston Hughes poems served as a voice for all African Americans greatly throughout his living life, and even after his death.

Toomer experienced many conflicts, internally and externally, which he processed in his writings, poetry became another channel for his thoughts. Kenneth Rexroth, a painter and poet labeled as a radical through association, hailed Toomer as the most important African American poet. Toomer’s poems were written almost like a dance, often beginning and closing with a similar stanza. His poetry gives a surreal feeling in each line, but they often describe some brutally honest events that many people will experience in their lifetime. In example, Toomer’s poem, “Her Lips Are Copper Wire” describes a rebellion against being silenced, “then with your tongue remove the tape/and press your lips to mine/till they are incandescent” followed by a tale of bright passion (PoemHunter V5).