Langston Hughes
Comments & Themes
- Langston Hughes’ central purpose in writing was, in his own words, “to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America.” How do the poems in this volume (Selected Poems) illustrate his attempt?
- What effect does the image of rivers create in the Black’s history? Why are the rivers ancient and dusky?
- What is the dream Hughes refers to in “Harlem”? Why might it explode rather than dry up? Why should the poem be called “Harlem”?
- Discuss what Hughes’s poetry tells a reader about his theory of poetry.
- Place Hughes's work in the context of Black musical forms invented in Harlem in the early twentieth century. Is Black poetry the way Hughes writes it, like jazz, a new genre? If so, is it invented or derivative? What are its characteristics? If “Black poetry” is a genre, does Countee Cullen write in it?
- Hughes’s poetry makes room for the experiences of women. Analyze “Mother to Son,” “Madam and Her Madam,” and “Madam’s Calling Card,” and explore the way he turns women’s experiences into emblems of African-American experience.
- Traditional critics have not called Hughes’s poetry “modernist”, and yet his poetry reflects modernism both in his themes, his use of the image, and in terms of style. Locate specific points where you can see Hughes’s modernism and prove it in an essay.
- Langston Hughes’ central purpose in writing was, in his own words, “to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America.” How do the poems in this volume (Selected Poems) illustrate his attempt?
- What effect does the image of rivers create in the Black’s history? How does it apply to Hughes’s work?
- What is the dream Hughes refers to in “Harlem”? Why might it explode rather than dry up? Why should the poem be called “Harlem”?
- Discuss what Hughes's poetry tells a reader about his theory of poetry.
- Place Hughes’s work in the context of Black musical forms invented in Harlem in the early twentieth century. Is Black poetry the way Hughes writes it, like jazz, a new genre? If so, is it invented or derivative? What are its characteristics?
- Hughes’s poetry makes room for the experiences of women. Analyze “Mother to Son,” “Madam and Her Madam,” and “Madam’s Calling Card,” and explore the way he turns women’s experiences into emblems of African-American experience.
- Traditional critics have not called Hughes's poetry modernist, and yet his poetry reflects modernism both in his themes, his use of the image, and in terms of style. Locate specific points where you can see Hughes’s modernism and demonstrate it in an essay.
- Characterize Langston Hughes’s disdain for Jim Crow mannerisms in “Harlem” and “Ferry-Go-Round.” Apply his warning to prose predictions in Richard Wright’s Black Like Me and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
- Contrast Hughes’ ear for native dialects with Countée Cullen’s preference for polished literary lines and Mari Evans’s standard English.
- Determine the source of rage in Hughes’s poems “Notes on Commercial Theater” and “Harlem”, August Wilson’s play Fences, and Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “Blues Ain’t No Mockin’ Bird.”
- What does the image of night symbolize in “Dream Variation”?