LANGSTON HUGHES

(1902-67)

BACKGROUND

  • 1902-67

  • Born in Joplin, Missouri

  • Mexico, NYC, Paris

 

BACKGROUND

  • Fiction

  • Drama

  • Essays

  • Biographies

  • Newspaper column

    •  In the Chicago Defender

    •  Jesse B. Simple (fictional Everyman)

  • Poetry

    •  “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race”

 

"HARLEM"

  • literature:

    • “Harlem” (1951)

      •  re-titled in 1959

      • as “Dream Deferred”

      •  Which do you prefer?

    STRUCTURE:

    • 11 lines

    • 1st and last –

      • questions

      •  1-line stanzas

    • Middle stanzas = 4 questions (possibilities)

      •  2 lines, 2 lines, 1 line, 2 lines

      •  similes

      •  last = not a question

    • Last line =

      • italicized  

    THESIS QUESTION:

    • “What happens to a dream deferred?”

     ANSWERS:

    • dries up (raisin in sun)

    • festers (sore)

    • stinks (rotten meat)

    • crusts over (sweet syrup)

    • sags (heavy load)

    • explodes (bomb)

     DICTION:

    • Dream =

      •  hopes, aspirations, wishes, talents

      •  delusion

    • Fester = 

      •  to rot, puss, ulcerate

      • (ugly, repulsive images)

    • Heavy load & sag =

      •  Burden

      •  Slaves carrying bales of cotton, supplies

    • Raisin, sore, black meat, syrup, bomb =

      •  Black in color

    • Syrup =

      •  Not so disgusting

      •  Why?

"HARLEM"

TITLE:

  •  Harlem Renaissance (1920s)

    •  “New Negro Movement”

    •  post-Civil War, move North

    •  Harlem, Manhattan, New York

    •  @ 3 miles, @ 175,000 blacks

    •  WEB DuBois, Langston Hughes

    •  Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston,

    •  Jazz Age, Roaring ’20s

    •  Great Depression, Harlem Riots

  •  Harlem, 1950s

    •  Racial inequality

    •  Riots:  1935, 1943, 1964 (Watts 1965, Detroit 1967)

  •  How did people react?

    •  Rot

    •  Anger, frustration festers

    •  “Uncle Toms”

    • Anger, frustration, explodes

QUESTIONS:

  • Why are the 1st and last lines separated?   

  • Why is the last line italicized?

  • Why is the last line w/o simile?

  • Why is the “heavy load” not a question?

  • What is the answer to the thesis question?

  • Why are “load” and “explode” the only rhymes?

  • Why the break from disgusting images with syrup?

 

 

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