"American author Langston Hudges (1902-1967)," "is considered one of the most influential and prolific African-American Poets of the twenieth century. He published poetry from the Harlem Renaissance, a period during the1920s when African-American artists and their works flourished in Harlem, to the Civil Rights and Black Arts movements. Following the Civil Rights movement, the Black Arts movement of the 1970scombined militant black nationalism with outspoken art and literature." "And lasted until the middle of the 1930s Depression." "The short but inspiratioal poem"Harlem" by Langston Hudges addresses what happens to aspirations that are postponed or lost.
"With the increase of in a poor population, it was also the time when the neighborhood began to deteriorate to a slum, and some of the storied traditions of Harlem Renaissance were driven by poverty, crime, or other social ills." "In 1951-the year of the poem's publication-frustration characterized the mood of American blacks. The Civil War in the previous century had liberated them from slavery, and federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property, and so on. However, continuing prejudice against blacks, as well as laws passed since the Civil War, relegated them to second-class citizenship. Consequently, blacks had to attend poorly equipped segregated schools and settle for menial jobs as porters, ditch-diggers, servants, shoeshine boys, and so on. In many states, blacks could not use the same public facilities as whites, including restrooms, restaurants, theaters, and parks. Access to other facilities, such as buses, required the to to take the back seat, literally, to whites. By the mid-Twenieth Century, their frustration with inferior status became a powder keg, and the fuse was burning. Hudges well understood what the future held, as he indicates in the las line of the poem."
I really like how you connected two lines to the political context of the poem. I feel what you did was both simplistic and very clever, which in my opinion, makes this post very good. I also like how you ended the post with the same question that Hughes ended his poem with. It makes it as if you are questioning the same thing that Hughes was when he wrote his poem "Harlem."
ReplyDeleteI thought that your post was very insightful. You analyzed the two most controversial and perhaps most important lines within the poem. furthermore, I liked how you emphasized this importance by isolating those lines. This was quite clever. The post itslef is clearcut in terms of its political association, as a result as the previous commentor mentioned simplistic and clever. Nice work :)
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