The Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance... -

07.11.2018

The Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an early 20th century social, political, literary and artistic movement which brought together all classes and colours and inspired poetry, literature, music, dancing, painting...

It started shortly after the First World War and ended in the early years of the Great Depression.

Langston Hughes said about the period that "the Negro was in vogue"

14/11

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
     flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
     went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy 
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

19/11

Work on pronunciation and intonation :

When he uses the pronoun "I", he refers to the whole of his people and their history which is depicted in chronological order using rivers as symbols of the different events or landmarks.

Thus each river represents a period or event:

The Euphrates refers to the beginning of time as seen from a human perspective: the cradle of humanity.

The Nile evokes the building of the Pyramids by slaves.

The Congo symbolizes the life of Africans in their country of origin.

The Mississippi epitomizes their life of toil in the southern states of the US and the end of slavery (reference to Abraham Lincoln).

The poem is also an ode to nature as the mother of humanity which provides nourishment to its children. ("its muddy bosom")

21/11

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Harlem or the dream deferred :

In this poem, Langston Hughes means to point out that because the dream (equality of rights) is constantly deferred, it rots from the inside (Harlem : ghetto). It triggers criminality and violence, rioting. It causes frustration and resentment which "festers". He compares the nonfulfillment of the dream to a festering sore...to rotten meat, in other words disgusting things that make the reader uncomfortable, which is the goal of the author.

He raises the question of the possible evolution of such a situation : will people just be discouraged ("does it sag like a heavy load?") or will there be a revolution...? ("does it explode?")

26/11

I, Too
Poem by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmKf9nZ_4I (Denzel Washington saying the poem)

28/11

Still I rise,
Poem by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
Just 'cause I walk as if I have oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hope springing high,
Still I rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't take it so hard
Just cause I laugh as if I have gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You can shoot me with your words,
You can cut me with your lies,
You can kill me with your hatefulness,
But just like life, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness offend you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance as if I have diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past rooted in pain
I rise
A black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling, and bearing in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak miraculously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the hope and the dream of the slave,
And so, naturally,

I rise
I rise
I rise.

January 7th:

The First Day

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