Another poem that expresses Hughes' (1720) frustration and genius of "otherness" is "Song for a Dark Girl," which is meant to be analyse to the beat or cadence of the popular minstrel song, "Dixie." In this poem, Hughes writes "they hung my subdued young lover/to a crossroads maneuver" and goes on to write "I asked the white Lord deliveryman/what was the use of prayer" (1720). Again, one is immediately made conscious(predicate) in the poem that the subjects or narrator is an "other" in society. The singer is distanced from deity, who is white and who is therefore not a God who is responsive to "the black young lover" who has been killed for no sheer reason. The isolation and vulnerability of a once proud people who lived as Hughes (1717) commented in "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" near the Congo and who helped to open fire the pyramids along the Nile, has become nothing more than the victim o
Editor. The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature. naked York:
Hughes, Langston.
"Refugee in America." In Nina Baym, Editor,
W.W. Norton & Company, 1994, p. 1721.
Taken as a whole, this sample of poems by Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes illustrates the many interrelated concerns of a black artistic creationist seeking to produce a racial art or to identify a "Negro" poetry that would speak for an oppressed people. To create such a poetry, it was clearly necessity for Hughes to challenge the status quo and to affirm the primacy of the African-American culture, its validity, and the manner in which it had been denigrated by mainstream society. These poems could not have been written by a white, Latino, or Asian poet simply because they emerge from the collective unconscious mind of the African-American people with their own unique experiences and long, ancient history.
W.W. Norton & Company, 1994, p. 1720.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994, p. 1717.
Ordercustompaper.com is a professional essay writing service at which you can buy essays on any topics and disciplines! All custom essays are written by professional writers!
No comments:
Post a Comment