Source: Norton Anthology: The TwentiesNorton Outline: Langston Hughes
Literary Movement: Hughes was a significant writer in the Harlem Renaissance movement.
Writing Style: "He wanted to capture the dominant oral and improvisatory traditions of black culture in written form."
"He could use stanza forms deriving from blues music and adapt the vocabulary of everyday black speech to poetry without affirming stereotypes."
Political Alliance: He was part of the Communist Party "which made racial justice an important plank in its platform, promoting an image of working class solidarity that nullified racial boundaries."
Genres: Hughes wrote drama, screenplay writing, autobiography, and poetry.
Writing About Race: : "Harlem poets, aware that the audience for their poetry was almost all white, had to consider whether a particular image of black people would help or harm the cause." It was a brave and difficult feat for Hughes to have written such poetry about African-American pride and the fight for racial equality before the 1960's. A time where racism and discrimination where still prevalent.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 8