Langston Hughes



Outline

Introduction: This section of the paper provides with the brief introduction of Langston Hughes and his works in literature. The writer has contributed his efforts in the poetries, stories and humorous books, novels, biographies, autobiographies and cultural works, lyrics, translations, plays, and the scripts.

Thesis Statement: The thesis statement stated that most of the work of Langston is based on the fact that blacks are being discriminated on the basis of racism. He supported blacks since he was also a black.

Discussion: Discussion part provides the detailed discussion on the contributions of Langston in the field of literature and his achievements throughout his life.

Conclusion: This part will conclude all the points that have been discussed in the paper.

Langston Hughes

Introduction

Langston Hughes has been known mostly for his poetic achievements; however, he has also written stories and humorous books, novels, biographies, autobiographies and cultural works, lyrics, translations, plays, and the scripts. His full contribution consists of almost 70 volumes, and he also wrote a number of poems, articles and stories. Many of his work are not published yet.

Langston and his fellow writers wanted to represent the low class life in their art, which was mostly the life of black people in the lower middle class. All of them criticized the prejudices and discriminations that were based on the color of skin of the black people. He also wrote his manifesto which was, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain". It was published in 'The Nation' in 1926. Although, the biggest achievement of Langston Hughes was his poetry, which focused on the experiences of African American people, but he was also a dramatist, a novelist, a short story writer, and a journalist, which make him one of the most versatile writers of the black origin in American history. His overall writing, integrity and commitment to clarity are obvious in his works.

The paper will present general background of the achievements and contributions of Langston Hughes in the history of literature. After that, we will briefly discuss some of his famous works.

Thesis Statement

Langston focused on the theme which was "black is beautiful". He concentrated on uplifting his black people, whose resiliency, strengths, humor and courage has been recorded by him as part of the general experience of American people.

Discussion

The writing career of Hughes has been spanned for almost half a century. He was a diverse writer in his themes, which consisted of transitoriness, connectedness, integration, racism, poverty, history, myth and the universal freedom. Specifically, the integration of his writing with blues and jazz has been unique to his work. He also wrote operettas (West, 2003).

Langston, like most other writers, also objected to reduce authors to labels, such as “woman” “or black” or “American.” His name is certainly related to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920's and 1930's. This movement that was centered in the city of New York marked an awakening of black American artists. Furthermore, many of the books of Hughes, for example, Famous American Negroes (1954), A ...