LANGSTON HUGHES HARLEM RENAISSANCE-MAN

HISTORICAL SUMMARY  Born in Joplin, Missouri.  Raised in Lawrence, Kansas, and Lincoln, Illinois.  High School in Cleveland Ohio.  Came from a “distinguished” family:  Maternal grandmother’s first husband died in John Brown’s band fighting at Harpers Ferry, second husband was a famous black congressman from Virginia, founding dean of Howard University law.  Langston, however, grew up “near poverty in Lawrence, Kansas,” ( Gates & McKay, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, pg. 1289).

CONT.  Came to New York to study at Columbia University with ulterior motive of seeing Harlem.  Published mainly and primarily in the literary magazine Crisis, beginning with his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”  “By 1924, his poetry showed the powerful influence of the blues and jazz.”  “The Weary Blues” won first prize in Opportunity Magazine’s 1925 literary contest’s poetry section.  The Weary Blues became Hughes’ first published collection in  1926, published Fine Clothes to the Jew, which was harshly criticized by many critics within the African American literary community.

INFLUENCES  Carl Sandburg  Claude McKay  “stood for him in the early 1920s as the embodiment of the cosmopolitan and yet racially confident and commited black poet Hughes hoped to be.”  W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson  Both aided Hughes in his career.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT  Adapted traditional poetic forms “first to jazz, then to blues, in which Huges sometimes used dialect but in a way radically different from that of earlier writers.”

SELECTED WORKS  Madam and the Rent Man The rent man knocked. He said, Howdy-do? I said, What Can I do for you? He said, You know Your rent is due. I said, Listen, Before I'd pay I'd go to Hades And rot away! The sink is broke, The water don't run, And you ain't done a thing You promised to've done. Back window's cracked, Kitchen floor squeaks, There's rats in the cellar, And the attic leaks. He said, Madam, It's not up to me. I'm just the agent, Don't you see? I said, Naturally, You pass the buck. If it's money you want You're out of luck. He said, Madam, I ain't pleased! I said, Neither am I. So we agrees!  Analysis  Denotes self-recognized authority in the face of systemic oppression, i.e. rent strikes when living conditions were left to decay.  Humorous, though still critical.

SELECTED WORKS  The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain  "The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites. "Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are," say the Negroes. "Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter out illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you," say the whites… But in spite of the Nordicized Negro intelligentsia and the desires of some white editors we have an honest American Negro literature already with us. Now I await the rise of the Negro theater, Our folk music, having achieved world-wide fame, offers itself to the genius of the great individual American composer who is to come. And within the next decade I expect to see the work of a growing school of colored artists who paint and model the beauty of dark faces and create with new technique the expressions of their own soul-world. And the Negro dancers who will dance like flame and the singers who will continue to carry our songs to all who listen-- they will be with us in even greater numbers tomorrow.”  Hughes uses literature to call for the creation of a unique, proud, independent culture that seeks to please no one while forming its own styles and movements.

 “Motto” I play it cool And dig all jive. That’s the reason I stay alive. My motto, As I live and learn, is: Dig And Be Dug In Return.  Analysis:  Jazz-like interpretation of the Golden Rule- much more effective, smooth, relatable.  Insight on Hughes’ literary longevity  Rule for human rights/civil rights