HUGHES’ POETRY: A PICTORIAL PRESENTATION OF BLACK BEAUTY
Keywords:
African Americans, diversity, patronize, BeautyAbstract
African AmericansDuring the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes turns outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who has the ability simply to read. Hughes wants to celebrate, but not sanitize, the African American heritage that he cherishes. As Blacks have very few rights and privileges in society due to the color of their skin for that Hughes suggests that until black people think of themselves as not inferior to anyone, no one else will. He always tries to encourage his own people to feel proud of their individuality, of their own heritage, to appreciate their own diversity and culture. He just want African Americans to patronize their own business, see beauty in their own race and learn African history.
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References
Quoted in Raymond Smith, “Langston Hughes: Evolution of the Poetic Persona,” American
Poetry: 1915 to 1945, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publication, 1987), p.
Onwuchekwa Jemie, Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry (New York:
Columbia Uni. Press, 1976), p.xv.
Hughes’ Spingarn Medal Acceptance speech, NAACP Convention, St Paul, Minnesota,
June26, 1960. Hughes Archive, schomburg Collection.
Langston Hughes, “Lament For the Dark People,” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes,
ed. Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel (New York: Vintage Classics, 1994), p. 39. All
subsequent references from the book, abbreviated as CP, are included in the text.
Onwuchekwa Jemie, Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry (New York: Columbia
Uni. Press, 1976), p. 98.
Harold Bloom, Bloom’s BioCritiques: Langston Hughes. (Philadelphia: Yale University,
Chelsea House Publishers, 2001), 46.
“Ulysses” in Fifteen Poets, 1941; rpt. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 410.
John Milton, Paradise Lost: Books 1 and 11, ed., F.T.Prince (Delhi:Oxford University
Press,1962), p. 38.
Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art,” in Richter, The Critical Tradition, 570.
