ipl-logo

Alliteration In Harlem

745 Words3 Pages

Langston Hughes was probably one the greatest poets ever lived. He was better known as the Jazz Poet during the Harlem Renaissance, and he was also one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance too. In history I learned, that the Harlem Renaissance was a rebirth period of African-American arts using dance, music, poems, articles, stories, plays and paintings. Most of the arts reflected on the hardship of the African-American community past and present during that time. Hughes wrote "Harlem" in 1951, the poem addressed as one of his most common themes of the American Dream for African Americans. The poem has eleven short lines in four stanzas, and all but one line are questions. In the poem the author is explaining what could happen when dreams …show more content…

The author is explaining their situation and how it is quite difficult for them to escape their reality to achieve a better life for themselves. “Harlem”, is a lyric poem that is short, expresses the thoughts and emotions of the speaker. With irregular rhyme and an irregular metrical, the poem has a rhythmic, repetition of certain words, rhyme, lyrical quality achieved through alliteration and carefully placed stressed syllables. Hughes uses alliteration and similes in the poem. Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound. “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up” (lines 1-2). Similes use like, as, or than to make comparisons. Hughes was comparing a dream to a heavy load. “Maybe it just sags /like a heavy load.” (lines 9-10). This poem reflects on reality for many of the individuals who lived in poverty and the ones who are trying to get out of these types of situations. The speaker wonders what happens to a deferred dream. It is not entirely clear who the speaker is, perhaps the poet, or a professor, or an undefined black man or woman. In stanzas 2-11, the speaker wonders “if it dries up like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore- / and then run?”. Hughes uses imagery such as: a dried up raisin that festers, a sore, rotten meat, syrupy sweet, heavy load, explode (Harlem 2-11). Each image is strong enough to make the reader smell, feel, and taste these delayed

Show More
Related
221 Words | 1 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance is a movement that began in the 1920’s. It was a product of centuries of African American oppression. Therefore, during the Great migration occurred where thousands of African Americans migrated from the southern states to the north and created a culture of their own, which included but not limited to poetry, music, and art. The objective of the research is to determine how Claude McKay’s poetry connected different countries during the Harlem Renaissance.

Read More
268 Words | 2 Pages

This article explains the situation of Alisa, who was disheartened that due to her undocumented status, she was excluded from financial aid and would be unable to attend college like 65,000 other undocumented students that graduate from high school every year. This is a common situation that many undocumented students go through. Alisa’s life story can be used as an example to show how it does not matter if you are the top of your class, undocumented students are just considered undocumented immigrants. Their rights are oppressed and this is a strong point I would like to state in my essay. I could use this article to show how the DACA act could have changed this situation if Trump continues to push for the repeal.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a period in American history, which occurred in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The cultural movement was an opportunity for African Americans to celebrate their heritage through intellectual and artistic works. Langston Hughes, a famous poet, was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. One notable piece of literature by Hughes is “Dream Deferred”. However, the discussion of African American culture isn’t limited to the 1920s.

Read More
1198 Words | 5 Pages

shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering, love of music, laughter, and language itself (Ham). Along with literary works, the music of the Harlem Renaissance appealed to a wide audience and marked a proliferation of African-American cultural influence. No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz.

Read More
1800 Words | 8 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance was a “outpouring of writing, music, and social criticism” (Baker, 1987) aimed at destroying the ever-present racism of the 1920s. Langston Hughes, an artist of the Harlem Renaissance, was a big contributor to change, inspiring those of his own time and later on to stand up for African American rights. Penning the 1926 manifesto The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes encapsulated the thoughts of Harlem, and urged African Americans to be proud of their own culture, “without fear or shame” (Hughes in Bernard, 2011).

Read More
846 Words | 4 Pages

Today we remember Langston Hughes for his insightful, and his very vivid portrayal and personal views on the black life in America from the 1920’s throughout the 1960’s. He wrote many novels throughout his life along with short stories and plays, as well as poetry. His life work were important in the early shaping of the artistic contributions to follow after him. Some have considered him to be one of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry. Langston Hughes passed away from complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York

Read More
783 Words | 4 Pages

“The Harlem Renaissance and the Blues” Birthed in the Mississippi Delta, the blues would have un-denying roots from the South. However, long before any form of blues genre came about, slave music expressed the sorrows of the African American experience. At the turn of the 20th century black communities in the south continued the tradition of musical expression by performing in small shacks all around the Delta. It was in these juke joints, that famous artist such as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters first performed. With the cotton industry taking a turn for the worst many African Americans were living very undesirable.

Read More
109 Words | 1 Pages

Langston Hughes was influential in the Harlem Renaissance I’ll even go to the extent of naming him the “father of the movement.” Hughes literary work had a significant impact on African American literature during the Harlem Renaissance. Aside from the movement he brought life to Harlem. Most of his work centered around the neighborhood or make mention of it such as the notable “Harlem (Dream Deferred)”, “Night Funeral in Harlem” to “Theme for English B." Granted, African American Literature has only been a thing before the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes helped and gave prominence to black cultures during that time greatly paving the way for more Black poets and creatives.

Read More
225 Words | 1 Pages

When you and I look at these similes, the meaning we derive from them may greatly differ from the intended meanings provided by the author. Dreams are wonderful, mysterious, imaginative, basically your own little world you can escape to paradise whenever you close your eyes. Dreams aren’t always perfect, every now and then you will run into the flame storm of nightmares. Which can either make you “dry up like a raisin

Read More
1409 Words | 6 Pages

Langston Hughes poems “Harlem” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” are two poems that have a deeper meaning than a reader may notice. Hughes 's poem “Harlem” incorporates the use of similes to make a reader focus on the point Hughes is trying to make. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Hughes shows how close he was to the rivers on a personal level. With those two main focuses highlighted throughout each poem, it creates an intriguing idea for a reader to comprehend. In these particular poems, Hughes’s use of an allusion, imagery, and symbolism in each poem paints a clear picture of what Hughes wants a reader to realize.

Read More
207 Words | 1 Pages

A famous Harlem Renaissance poet was Langston Hughes. He was one of the most inspiring people during his time in the Harlem Renaissance. His work was known

Read More
1903 Words | 8 Pages

," illustrates the irony of the cumulation of the American dream as it begins to crumble. The Youngers desperately pursue this American dream, hoping for opportunities of prosperity, upward social mobility, and the hope that their next generation should thrive unlike theirs. Working together, Hughes’ lines of his poem reflect the dreams of Hansberry’s characters and through this parallel, shows the effects on the Younger family when their long-awaited dreams are deferred by endless economic and family hardships as well as arduous racial boundaries. “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes 2-3).

Read More
762 Words | 4 Pages

The poem’s title refers to the way people feel when their dreams are put their dreams to the side. When you think “What happens to a dream deferred?” It provokes a feeling of gloominess. The words “What happens,” makes the reader think in general what comes as a result from it.

Read More
937 Words | 4 Pages

‘Ballad of Landlord’ lays an emphasis on the conflict with social injustice between people of different social level. Langston Hughes stresses the idea of unfair advantage given to people of higher ranks in society by subtly raising the idea of racial segregation between the blacks and whites. He develops a unique rhythm to represent the different stances between a Negro tenant and a white landlord through uses of dialogue, rhetorical question, and hyperbole. The poem opens up with a repeated structure in the first two stanzas to show the dependence of a tenant on a landlord.

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

Analysis of a Poem: “Ballad of the Landlord” by Langston Hughes “Ballad of the Landlord,” by Langston Hughes is a poem about a negro man who will not pay his $10 rent, a $138 value today, until his home is in satisfactory condition. In turn, the landlord could evict him or have the negro arrested for not paying rent regardless if the landlord takes care of the upkeep. Hughes uses diction, style, and imagery to reveal the inequalities that existed between blacks and whites in the 1930s and 1940’s. Diction is the foundation of any poetry. There are three ways that the author uses diction.

Read More

More about Alliteration In Harlem

Related Topics

Open Document