The importance of “The Weary Blues”
Langston Hughes
Introduction
The 1920s was a time of racial divide between whites and blacks; however, the Harlem Renaissance gave rise to black intellect, literature, art, and music. Through his work, Hughes enlightened many people to the joys and struggles of African Americans. The Weary Blues is a wonderful representation of the power of blues music to demonstrate the hardship of black people through the sad rhythm, use of diction, and use of figurative language. The power of blues was also able to unite people together during the time of racial divide which inspired other types of music such as jazz, rock, and hip-hop.
About the Author
Langston Hughes was a huge figure in the Harlem Renaissance because he portrayed the highs and lows of black people’s lives that weren’t publically expressed during that time. He was born in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri, and was raised by his grandmother. As a teenager, Hughes began writing poetry and after graduating high school he traveled around Africa and Europe as a Seaman. Hughes’s first poetry book he wrote was The Weary Blues which was inspired by other poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. The book won him many prizes including a scholarship to Lincoln University. Hughes’s writing contained musical aspects that refelted the influence of jazz and blues on African American culture. He also wrote about many of his own experiences and opinions of the life he saw from his years of travel. After he died in 1967 due to complications of prostate cancer, his ashes were later brought to Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. A quote from his poem I, too, am American was engraved on a wall of the National Museum of African American Culture and History. Hughes’s work made a lasting impact on African American society and in American history because of the emotional context of his works.
About the Book
The purpose of The Weary Blues was to demonstrate the power and pain of black art. Hughes’s novel gave a voice to the voiceless during a time of oppression for the black community. The poem is about a black man who plays his sorrows through his music on the piano. The music the man makes comes from his soul which relates to the way many black artists played with their souls during the Harlem Renaissance. The poem says, “He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man’s soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone” (lines 13–17). This suggests the poem has a sense of sadness that comes from the man’s soul which is why he sings the blues. Hughes was one of the first poets to write in the blues form (Young). This way of writing incorporated aspects of African American folk music which gives the poem more music. Since the poem has so much musical rhythm and movement poem was intended to be read aloud so readers could get the full impact of the words Hughes chose to write in the poem.
Legacy
The Weary Blues was influential in American society and literature due to the light it shined on African American lives during the 1920s. In the poem, Hughes uses personification to demonstrate the emotion of sadness and heaviness when he says, “He made that poor piano moan with melody” (line 10). By making the piano moan it demonstrates to the reader the amount of sorrow the man felt as he played the piano and the power of his skill to make such music. Hughes also demonstrates the use of movement in the poem when he says, “He did a lazy sway. . . .To the tune o’ those Weary Blues” (lines 7–8). This line has a deeper meaning because in black culture dancing and movement are used as a way to express emotion which is seen in the language of Hughes’s poem. Finally, Hughes used colloquial diction to demonstrate the way African Americans talked. For example, he says, “I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan — “Ain’t got nobody in all this world, Ain’t got nobody but ma self. I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’And put ma troubles on the shelf”(lines 18–22). This gives the poem a feeling as if the man in the poem was speaking to you and makes the poem less formal which correlates to the informal and friendly way in which black people would speak to others. Therefore, this poem is powerful due to Hughes’s literary context to create the environment of life as a black person.
Works Cited
Hughes, Langston. “The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47347/the-weary-blues. Accessed 14 June 2024.
Young, Kevin. “On Langston Hughes’s the Weary Blues.” Poets.Org, Academy of American Poets, 10 Oct. 2023, poets.org/text/langston-hughess-weary-blues#:~:text=The%20Weary%20Blues%20also%20pioneers,him%20capture%20on%20the%20page.