Hughes, Langston
Webpages concerning "Hughes, Langston"
|
The contents has been generating using technology developed by scientec.
Wikipedia-Article "Langston Hughes"
Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaper columnist.
Contents |
Life
Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes in Joplin, Missouri, the son of Carrie Langston Hughes, African American, teacher, and her husband, James Nathaniel Hughes, also African American, who left the United States for Mexico due to enduring racism. In Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry by Onwuchekwa Jemie, Hughes is quoted as saying his father, a black man, "despised Negroes". This distant relationship with his father heavily influenced his work. After the separation of his parents, young Langston was raised mainly by his grandmother Mary Langston, a longtime activist. He spent most of childhood in Lawrence, Kansas, and he began to write poetry when he was 13. His childhood was not a happy one, but it was one that heavily influenced the poet he would become. He lived with his by-then-remarried mother as an adolescent in Lincoln, Illinois; it was there that he discovered his love of books. Upon graduating from high school in 1919, Hughes spent a year in Mexico with his father, but he was unhappy there and often contemplated suicide. Hughes soon spent a year attending Columbia University, where he studied engineering. He then left school and joined the Navy as a ship's steward, traveling to West and Central Africa and Europe. Hughes died from prostate cancer in New York City in 1967, at the age of 65.
On the issue of the sexual orientation of Hughes, academics and biographers generally agree that Hughes was gay and included gay codes into many of his poems similar in manner to Walt Whitman and most patently in his short story, Blessed Assurance. The main biographer of Hughes has determined that Hughes exhibited a preference for other African American men in his work and life.
Career
Like many writers of the post-WWI era, such as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, Hughes spent time in Paris during the early 1920s. For most of 1924 he lived at 15 Rue de Nollet. In November 1924 Hughes moved to Washington D.C. His first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926. In 1929 he graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically Black institution. In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature. Hughes, who claimed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the 1920s through the 1960s.
Hughes received a B.A. degree from Lincoln University in 1929, and was awarded a Lit.D. in 1943. He taught at a number of colleges. He wrote novels, short stories, plays and poetry. Much of his writing was inspired by the blues and jazz of that era; an example is "Harlem" (sometimes called "Dream Deferred") from Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951), from which a line was taken for the title of the play Raisin in the Sun.
-
- 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?
Hughes' life and work were enormously influential for the Harlem Renaissance of the '20s. His poetry and fiction centered around the lives of blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Much of Hughes' poetry tries to capture the rhythms of blues music, the music he believed to be the true expression of the black spirit. His published works through 1965 including nine volumes of poetry, eight of short stories and sketches, two novels, seven children's books, a number of plays, essays, and translations, and a two-volume autobiography. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935. Hughes was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1961. ==
Political views
Hughes, like many black writers and artists of his time, was drawn to the promise of Communism as an alternative to a segregated America. One of his lesser-known works is "Good Morning Revolution": The Unpublished Social Protest Writings of Langston Hughes. Hughes traveled extensively to the Soviet Union, including parts usually closed to Westerners, and also in Central Asia. Hughes' poetry was frequently published in the CPUSA’s newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported by Communist organizations, such as the drive to free the Scottsboro Boys and support of the Spanish Republic. Hughes was also involved in other Communist-led organizations like the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, but he was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. He signed a statement in 1938 supporting Joseph Stalin's purges and joined the American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep the U.S. from participating in WWII.
Hughes was accused of being a Communist by many on the political right, but he always denied it. When asked why he never joined the Communist Party, he wrote "it was based on strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept." He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. Following his appearance, he distanced himself from Communism and was subsequently rebuked by some who had previously supported him on the Radical Left.
Bibliography
Poetry
- The Weary Blues. Knopf, 1926
- The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. Knopf, 1932
- Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1932
- Shakespeare in Harlem. Knopf, 1942
- Montage of a Dream Deferred. Holt, 1951
- The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times, 1967
- The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Knopf, 1994
Fiction
- Not Without Laughter. Knopf, 1930
- The Ways of White Folks. Knopf, 1934
- Something in Common and Other Stories. Hill & Wang, 1963
- Short Stories of Langston Hughes. Hill & Wang, 1996
Other
- The Langston Hughes Reader. New York: Braziller, 1958
- Five Plays by Langston Hughes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963
- Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes. Lawrence Hill, 1973.
- Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten. by Emily Bernard.Knopf 2001
- Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem. Faith Berry.Citadel Press 1983, 1992
- The Life of Langston Hughes. Vol.2 1941-1967 I dream a world. Arnold Rampersad.New York: Oxford University Press, 1988
- Encyclopedia of The Harlem Renaissance. Sandra West & Aberjhani.Checkmark Books 2003
- A Pictorial History of the Negro in America. Crown Publishers, Inc.
References
- Rampersad, Arnold (1988). The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 2: I Dream A World. In Ask Your Mama!, p.336. Oxford University Press
- Schwarz, Christa A.B. (2003). Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. In Langston Hughes: A "true 'people's poet",pp.68-88.Indiana Unversity Press
- Joyce, Joyce A. (2004). A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes. In Steven C. Tracy (Ed.), Hughes and Twentieth-Century Genderracial Issues, p.136. Oxford University Press
External links
- Langston Hughes on Poets.org With poems, related essays, and links, from the Academy of American Poets
- A Centennial Tribute to L. Hughes at Howard University
- Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto
- Montage of a Dream Deferred
- Review of Hughes’ I Dream A World
- Hughes' Homosexuality
- A selection of Langston Hughes's more political poetry