Langston Hughes Poetry Analysis: I, Too

Some of the significant subjects were music, literature, poem, and art. The poets Langston Hughes and Claude McKay were some of the most influential poets from the renaissance. The poems “The Harlem Dancer” by Claude McKay and “I, Too” by Langston Hughes will be used to compare and show how two poems form the same era could be similar yet different based on their subject, purpose, style, tone, and rhythm. “I, Too” creates the world where people are treated equally. With so much discrimination and segregation occurring in the 20th century, it was a world that people wished for.

Paul Laurence Dunbar showed the potential struggles of being African American in his poem “We Wear the Mask”, written fifty-five years prior to “Dream Deferred”. Both poems share similar tones and themes. “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes can serve as a sequel to “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar through displaying a cause and effect relationship which highlights the strength of neglect and disguises.

The Harlem Renaissance was of the embracing of literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts it was set apart for whites. Many of Hughes writings were derived from the African American culture and the struggles of their society. The infusion of jazz into his writings created a positive stain in the community. One of Hughes biggest writings was of “The Weary Blue,” which was one of the original Jazz infused poetry. Many of Hughs writings envolved societal culture issues.

In Narrative of the Lift of Frederick Douglass, Douglass succeeds in grasping the attention of his audience by using countless rhetorical strategies, enabling him to portray slavery as it truthfully was. Written 20 years before the Civil War, the memoir served as a tool to influence and alter the minds of those supportive of slavery. While times have changed and slavery has been abolished, the memoir is continually used as a means to remember the past, preventing recurrence. Throughout the memoir, Douglass recounts his experiences as a slave, illustrating to his audience how slaves were brutally treated. His experiences consist of violence upon a fellow slave or upon himself.

Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.

“Unification Via Personification: Revisioned Version” Langston Hughes is known as one of the most influential African American poets. He has a large collection of works that still influence African American society today. Hughes contributed towards the Harlem Renaissance, which produced a surge of African American works in the 1920s. In addition, Langston Hughes is also known as one of the most inspiring African American civil rights activists and advocated for African American unity and solidarity.

Langston Hughes was an American poem born in the early nineteen hundreds, who became known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He published many poems that brought light to the life of people of color in the twentieth century. There are three poems that the speakers are used to portray three major themes of each poem. Racism, the American Dream, and Hopes are all the major themes that Hughes uses to highlight the average life of a person of color. Theme for English B,” “Harlem,” and “Let America Be America Again” were three of Hughes’s poems that was selected to underline the themes.

In “Theme for English B” and “I, Too,” Langston Hughes uses many literary devices and his personal experiences, as well as his use of pronouns to convey and portray tone, theme of the poems, and to create a mood for the readers. Hughes was an African American man in the 1920’s, who used his life experiences to base the poems “Theme for English B” and “I, Too,” off of. He grew up struggling for acceptance in American society, as it was dominated by white Americans in his time period, and expresses that in his poetry. Poetry gives readers a chance to interpret different circumstances in ways they wouldn't normally, as every time they read and interpret a poem the meaning can slightly alter.

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.

Langston Hughes was known for being one of the most favored, if not the most favored, African-American poet and short story writers of the twentieth century. He was commemorated for being a people’s poet, “his life’s work was about bringing people together socially, politically, and artistically” (Shawn Alexander, 42). Hughes was influential for writing about the everyday struggles, racial injustices, and dreams of the African-American men and women during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s. This period in history was a time of vast changes and explorations for African-Americans.

Poetry, perhaps more than other genre of writing, often sparks controversy and discussion. Authors Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes are two authors in American Literature whose poetry is both debated and praised by critics. "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman and "I, Too, Sing America" by Langston Hughes have sparked many discussions on their controversial content. Walt Whitman was the first of the two authors to write, followed by Langston Hughes who was influenced by Whitman's work. While Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing" reflects the happiness of the American people, the poem written by Hughes takes a different approach.

The Black Poet of The Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes was an important and well-known figure in the Harlem Renaissance, which occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. Hughes’ main influences were Paul Laurence Dunbar, Walt Whitman, and Carl Sandburg, all of whom wrote about the lives of African-Americans in the 1960s. Langston Hughes’ works mainly use uplifting words to empower minorities because of their mistreatment in America.