The poem begins with a speaker telling someone about a piano player he heard a couple nights ago. Poem analysis the weary blues this speaker gives a detailed description of listening to a blues musician in harlem. In 1925, he was awarded the first prize for poetry from the magazine opportunity for the weary blues, which gave its title to this, his first book of poems. It makes the reader stop and pronounce each word, breaking the easy current of the blues form. Reception the weary blues is one of hughes most famous poems. Oct 16, 2012 this is precisely what hughes poem, the weary blues, describes. Poetic analysis of the weary blues by langston hughes langston hughes was truly able to make a name for himself through the reaction he gained from creating the revolutionary collection of poems the weary blues in 1926 where this poem with the same title can be found.
The poets blues poetry was influenced by the music he heard during his childhood. The singer stopped playing and went to bed while the weary blues echoed through his head. A major poet, hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. The speaker starts to really get into the sad music. Got the weary blues and cant be satisfied i aint happy no mo and i wish that i had died 2730. Tracys 1988 book langston hughes and the blues gives us the fullest account of this history, working through the rich culture of blues by popular blues singers, folklorists, literary artists like hughes, researchers, and aficionados all with the aim of showing that the blues were on hughess mind and that, in fact, blues. Poems study guide contains a biography of langston hughes, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters. Aug 06, 2016 poetic reading of weary blues by langston hughes.
Langston hughes the weary blues focuses on a musician in upper manhattan. Poetry analysis examplethe weary blues decroly language. Poetic devices are literary techniques used by good writers in all professions from novelists, to poets, to lyricists, to journalists that emphasize the meaning or sounds of words. The weary blues is among the first works of langston hughes and is a benchmark in history of africanamerican poetic history. Essay literary stylistics and the creation of weariness. The weary blues by langston hughes droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, i heard a negro play. Langston hughes droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, i heard a negro play. The poem was written by langston hughes in 1925 during the harlem renaissance, a period of time when africanamerican artists, musicians, and writers. Hughes uses a somber tone in the weary blues to communicate his feelings about the situation of harlem during the middle of the 1900s. Sound patterns of hughes the weary blues essay help. The term droning may refer to the fact how he labouredly delivered music for a living.
The album was recorded in 1958 and first released on the mgm label. In the poem the weary blues, langston hughes describes an evening of listening to a blues musician in harlem. The poem is a morose, sad elegy that wonderfully describes the feelings associated with grieving. The weary blues is one of langston hughes s blues poems. Hughes uses the rhythmic structure of blues music and the improvisational rhythms of jazz in his innovative development of the weary blues. While hughes obviously had a strong desire to link the lowly blues to formal poetry, locking him into the poem ignores its efficacy as cultural commentary. The weary blues droning a drowsy syncopated tune, droning a drowsy syncopated tune, the academy of american poets is the largest membershipbased nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting american poets.
Essay on langston hughes the weary blues 1421 words bartleby. Down on lenox avenue the speaker heard a mellow croon lines 2 and 4. The blues is a musical style invented and propagated by african americans, which historians often label as the secular counterpart. Nearly ninety years after its first publication, this celebratory edition of the weary blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of langston hughes, who was just twentyfour at its first appearance. The weary blues is written in free verse, but it contains a number of rhyming couplets throughout. It was first published in the years poetry in 1938. The weary blues is the title of a ragtime song that artie matthews wrote in 1915.
The poem uses repetition to create a mood and emphasize ideas. The blues player is extremely distraught as he moans that he is so unhappy he wants to be dead. Like all writers, langston hughes chooses words carefully and organizes them to share his insights with you, his reader. Poetic devices and the weary blues poetic devices revisited main poetic devices. Hughes wrote the first draft of the poem early on in his. The weary blues by langston hughes poem reading by. The weary blues is a poem by american poet langston hughes. Beginning with the opening proem prologue poem i am a negro. May 30, 2018 the early blues structure based itself off of the early english ballad, which was perfect for the sharing of stories, and that evolved into the nowtraditional twelvebar aab blues form. Though the poem is written in verses that are still clearly indebted to conventional poetic forms, there are moments that break with these forms and give voice to the pianists own moaning words. The weary blues langston huges by hanalei lewine on prezi.
The poem itself is a thirdperson description with some interpolated firstperson, eight and twelvebar blues lyrics, giving it a sophisticated structure not unlike some vaudeville blues songs. Its possible that hughes could have lifted the title from matthews. Blues poets remain true to the traditional lyrical content and structure of blues songs, while using poetic devices to make the blues lyric a natural for a. The childminded south scratching in the dead fires ashes for a negros bones. The blues are a universal feeling and are something everyone has experienced at one point. The poem describes a black blues singer playing in a bar in harlem late into the night, whose music. The weary blues by langston hughes poems academy of. Analysis of the poem the weary blues 539 words bartleby. In his poem minstrel man, langston hughes writes about african american performers. Use of the word negro, used at the time as a derogatory term, serves to stress the subject of the piece as an outsider and member of the lower class. Funeral blues, also known as stop all the clocks is arguably audens most famous poem. Langston hughes the weary blues, and robert frost s directive.
Hughes thought of himself as a poet, but like most modern poets, found that he had to write in other. Langston hughes the weary blues, and robert frosts directive, offer a limbo between the past and the present. Critics have claimed that the poem is a combination of blues and jazz with personal experiences. The central narrative voice describes an african american or negro, in this 1923 poem, in harlem, new york.
He had written the weary blues i think in washington, d. What this implies is that the weary blues can also be read as an antijazz age poem. It suggests that the entire volume begins with and is informed by the weary blues, and the tradition with which one must come to grips. The central narrative voice describes an african american or negro, in this 1923 poem, in harlem, new york, who is observed singing and playing. The early blues structure based itself off of the early english ballad, which was perfect for the sharing of stories, and that evolved into the nowtraditional twelvebar aab blues form.
No one knows exactly who created the blues verse structure. The weary blues by langston hughes poem reading by gilberto. If hughes hasnt yet mined the blues form as fully in the weary blues as. The weary blues is about a piano player hughes knew in harlem. It was awarded the magazines prize for best poem of the year. The weary blues is a prime example of blues poetry, a genre stemming from. The title poem of hughes first book, the weary blues, is also an excellent example of a blues poem. Langston hughes was just twentyfour years old when his debut poetry collectionthe weary blues was published in 1926.
Mullen, hughes called the weary blues his lucky poem because it placed first in a. Langston hughes was a central figure in the harlem renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of american cities, particularly harlem. On langston hughess the weary blues academy of american poets. The central narrative voice describes an african american or negro, in this 1923 poem, in harlem, new york, who is observed singing and. This poem about the struggle of black people in the america. Langston hughes and the weary blues girl in blue music. Its filled with clever twists and heartwrenching statements that give it a real poignancy, features that may explain the poems enduring.
His first book of poems, the weary blues 1926, won him all kinds of awards. Blues songs written using the 12bar blues structure usually include three. The weary blues is an enjoyable poem and song, yet its message is one of sadness. Got the weary blues and cant be satisfied i aint happy no mo and i wish that i had died. The weary blues describes the performance of a blues musician playing in a club on lenox avenue in harlem. Poetry has been defined as putting the best possible words in the best possible order. It appears in the collection of poetry by the same name, which was published in 1926 not long after hughes had moved to harlem and immersed himself in the flourishing arts and culture scene there. Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, i heard a negro play. Langston hughes and the exemplary blues poem grogan. The poem was written by langston hughes in 1925 during the harlem renaissance, a period of time when africanamerican artists. Finally, as anthony dawahare argues, in let america be america again, the true america of the future will embody jeffersonian political ideals. Blues, were published as hughess first book of poetry, the weary blues.
The weary blues is from the first collection of langston hughess poetry, titled the weary blues. The piece mimics the tone and form of blues music and uses free verse and closely resembles spoken english. His first poem published in a nationally known magazine was the negro speaks of rivers, which appeared in crisis in 1921. Throughout the poem, the poet followed traditional blues form and rhythm, but at the end, hughes plays with the form to disturb the reader. Down on lenox avenue the other night by the pale dull pallor of an old gas light he did a. Essay on langston hughes the weary blues 1421 words. Down on lenox avenue the other night by the pale dull pallor of an old gas light he did a lazy sway. Written in 1925, the weary blues was first published in the urban league magazine, opportunity. The somber tone of the weary blues primarily comes from the readers ability to empathize with the emotions that are expressed in the poem. Langston hughes poem the weary blues essay 4380 words. The weary blues by langston hughes poetry foundation. It is famous for its incorporation of syncopated jazz rhythms.
Blues poetry blues and jazz poetry of langston hughes. A poem by langston hughes, the weary blues, has many hidden meanings. The poems structure enables this reading, if only because the speaker quotes the lyrics, but never allows his own voice to give way to them. Hughess life and work were enormously influential during the harlem renaissance of the 1920s, alongside those of his contemporaries, zora neale hurston, wallace thurman, claude mckay, countee cullen, richard bruce nugent, and aaron douglas. Naturally the past seems to fade from the forefront of our minds as new times encroach. In may 1925, his first book the weary blues, won first prize in poetry in a major literary contest ran by opportunity, the magazine of the urban league. Historical and literary context for langston hughess the weary blues. Read each of the statements below and circle the number on the scale that most accurately. The weary blues is about the power and pain of black art. The poem was included in hughes first book, a collection of poems, also entitled the weary blues. The poem was awarded as the best poem of the year by opportunity magazine where it was first published in 1925.
But the weary blues is the first poem for which langston hughes got an award. This musician was playing a slow blues song with all his body and soul. The musical instrument of the whites is taken over by a black, for, music is universal. Weary blues also referred to as the weary blues is an album by american poet langston hughes reciting over jazz composed and arranged by charles mingus and leonard feather. All that remain are brief fragments of a previous time. Black as the night is black, black like the depths of my africahughes. Critical analysis of the poem the weary blues by langston.
Beginning with the opening proem prologue poemi am a negro. These two elements of black heritagedialect and songare represented in the weary blues. The weary blues poem by langston hughes poem hunter. This is precisely what hughes poem, the weary blues, describes. The poem, the weary blues, by langston hughes describes the performance of a blues musician playing in a club on lenox avenue in harlem.
Stylistics and the creation of weariness in the weary blues this paper will focus to use the relative knowledge of literary stylistics, deviation and foregrounding to analyze langston hughess poem the weary blues, and use strong evidence from the poem to support the argument of hughess use of literary stylistics to. This poem has a mournful tone and tempo of blues due to its diction, repetitive lines and inclusion of blues lyrics thus, giving the reader an appreciation of the state of mind of the blues musician in the poem. Langston hughes cort person educaton in or ts tes a rts resere scoring guide preassessment 22 students name. Langston hughess first book, published by knopf in 1926, is one. The weary blues poem summary and analysis litcharts. That is, a case can be made in which we need not equate the speaker in the poem with hughes at all. His early poem i, too the weary blues, 1926 is testimony to his faith 45.
By the time he got to new york, he had already written his first book and had already established the themes of working class black life, of the street, of blues, of jazz in his writing. Langston hughess the weary blues, first published in 1925, describes a black piano player performing a slow, sad blues song. After its publication, the book won several awards, and the prize money allowed hughes to complete his college education in lincoln, pennsylvania. The weary blues langston hughes poets life the publication of the weary blues in 1925 was the centerpiece of one of the most successful publicity stunts in literary history, one that elevated its author, langston hughes, to fame as a leading african american writer. In a nutshell, the weary blues is a poem about a musician that wears himself out by singing the blues. Traditional form dictates that twelve measures contain three sets of two lines of repeated text followed by a third, differing line. Through the words and the circumstance hughes speaks to the true nature of the blues in the final part of the poem. This performance takes place in a club in harlem, a segregated neighborhood in new york city. Starting at line 19, we get the first verse to the song. The last three lines of the poem rhyme, the last two being while the weary blues echoed through his head. He tries to explain the contrast by saying that ebony hands for each ivory key hughes 400.
1262 914 568 208 950 723 424 877 174 872 1343 35 1199 966 880 132 1202 353 496 128 126 941 1409 1373 686 853 1284 980 1465 90 1395 257 1200 1095 255 1213 693 1361 1394 859 857 339 72 153 1399