Books that Changed the World: Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues”
Introduction and Thesis
In the early twentieth century a new creation of music, literature, and social customs were about to impact the life and impression of black cultural America. The explosion is also known as the golden age in African American culture. The Harlem Renaissance started in the small African American neighborhood in Harlem New York. From about 1910 to the 1930’s the Harlem Renaissance created a platform for unrecognized African American’s in literature, musical and performing arts.
This new culture and African American pride created a platform for African Americans to speak out for the civil rights movement that would soon follow. One of the most significant and well-known writers and poet that shaped African American culture during the Harlem Renaissance is Langston Huges. Langston Huges was able to hide deep, complex meaning in his work that reveals the truth about the struggles that African American’s were facing in the early 19th century.
About the author
Born and raised in Joplin, Missouri, “ Hughes’s racially mixed ancestry had especially powerful links to American antebellum and Civil War history. His paternal grandfather was a Civil War soldier, his maternal great-grandfather Ralph Quarles was a white Virginia Revolutionary War captain, and his maternal great-uncle was John Mercer Langston, the first elected African American from Virginia to serve in the House of Representatives. “(Lois Brown).Langston Huges impression of African American history was first impressed upon him by his grandmother. When his mother remarried, Langston Huges then moved to Cleveland. Huges attended Central High School in Cleveland where he became immersed in books, became an avid reader, and involved himself in art and dramatic activities. In 1925 Langston Huges won his first award for “The Weary Blues”.
Langston Huges graduated from Lincoln University, “the first college established in the North for African-American men” (Lois Brown), in 1929. Langston Huges continued to write and became known for his style of combination of blues and jazz. Although his writing are focused on the hardship of the African American community, the African American community criticized Huges for the reflection of their life.
Langston Huges saw a beauty and unique characteristics and continued writing. Throughout all of Huges literary career from age 13 until his death he has always remained focused on writing for social influence. Huges influenced many generations and will remain one of Americans most significant writers during the nineteenth century.
About the book
“The Weary Blues” by Langston Huges was published in 1925. Langston Huges was the first poet to incorporate blues in poetry. Langston Hughes was twenty-four years old when he published “The Weary Blues”. Because of the publication, “The weary Blues” won multiple awards and the awarded money allowed Huges to complete his degree.
The poem begins describing an African American piano player performing a sorrowful blues song that is a musical reflection on his own life. The setting is in a night club in Harleman, an African American segregated neighborhood in New York. The song of the “piano man” describes a song of injustice of the African American in America. The song then transformers the pain and suffering into a charming melody showing the beauty of African American art through the pain.
The legacy
Langston Huges legacy started five generations ago and will live on for many more. The incites within “The Weary Blues” will always provide a light to the life African Americans in the 1920’s. Although “The Weary Blues” was published in the 1920’s African Americans ignored Langston Huges because of his poetry and writings focused on the pain and suffering on average African Americans in America during this segregated time. How towns were split in half by the white and blacks. Schools and children taught to amplify the differences between African Americans and Caucasians. This segregation fuel Langston Hughes writing. Langston Huges celebrated the challenges that African Americans suffered and sought the beauty and prevalence through jazz and literature. Today students study the writings of Langston Huges and use his writings as a transport to the 1920’s to better understand history and the development of the United States that is known today.
Work cited
Kelley, James B. “How to Write about Langston Hughes.” Bloom’s How to Write about Langston Hughes, Chelsea House, 2017. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=95547&itemid=WE54&articleId=45732. Accessed 14 June 2020.
Legacy of Langston Hughes Lives Strong Fifty Years After His Death. (2019, March 12). Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/article/legacy-langston-hughes-lives-strong-fifty-years-after-his-death
Equality. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://thelangstonhughes.blogspot.com/p/civil-rights-movement.html
History.com Editors. (2009, October 29). Harlem Renaissance. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/harlem-renaissance
The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes — Poems | Academy of American Poets. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://poets.org/poem/weary-blues
Langston Hughes (1902–1967). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/contributors/langston-hughes
The Weary Blues (1926) dust cover by Miguel Covarrubias suggests Langston Hughes’s ability to suffuse h… (With images): Vintage music posters, Book cover art, Harlem renaissance. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/229261437266257913/
