{"id":128,"date":"2015-07-08T20:22:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T20:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/americanlit2x22x1\/?post_type=chapter&p=128"},"modified":"2015-07-08T20:22:37","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T20:22:37","slug":"biography-langston-hughes","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-eng242-17fa\/chapter\/biography-langston-hughes\/","title":{"raw":"Biography: Langston Hughes","rendered":"Biography: Langston Hughes"},"content":{"raw":"James Mercer Langston Hughes<\/b> (February 1, 1902 \u2013 May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri.\r\n\r\nHe was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that \"the negro was in vogue\", which was later paraphrased as \"when Harlem was in vogue.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Langston Hughes<\/span><\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
\"Black\r\n
1936 photo by Carl Van Vechten<\/div><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Born<\/th>\r\nJames Mercer Langston Hughes\r\nFebruary 1, 1902\r\nJoplin, Missouri, United States<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Died<\/th>\r\nMay 22, 1967 (aged\u00a065)\r\nNew York City, United States<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Occupation<\/th>\r\nPoet, columnist, dramatist, essayist, novelist<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Ethnicity<\/th>\r\nAfrican American, White American, Native American<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Period<\/th>\r\n1926\u201364<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n

Career<\/h2>\r\nFirst published in The Crisis<\/i> in 1921, \"The Negro Speaks of Rivers,\" which became Hughes's signature poem, was collected in his first book of poetry The Weary Blues<\/i> (1926).\u00a0Hughes's first and last published poems appeared in The Crisis<\/i>; more of his poems were published in The Crisis<\/i> than in any other journal.\u00a0Hughes's 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,\u00a0Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas.\r\n\r\nHughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class. They criticized the men known as the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance: W. E. B. Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Alain LeRoy Locke, as being overly accommodating and assimilating eurocentric values and culture to achieve social equality.\r\n\r\nHughes and his fellows tried to depict the \"low-life\" in their art:\u00a0that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community.\u00a0<\/span>Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto, \"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,\" published in\u00a0The Nation<\/i> in 1926:\r\n
The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves.<\/blockquote>\r\nHis poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. \"My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind,\"\u00a0<\/span>Hughes is quoted as saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America\u2019s image of itself--a \"people's poet\" who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality.\r\n
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\r\n\r\nHughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people of African descent and Africa across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic. Hughes was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists.\u00a0In addition to his example in social attitudes, Hughes had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nView Upton Sinclair\u2019s\u00a0full biography on Wikipedia.<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

James Mercer Langston Hughes<\/b> (February 1, 1902 \u2013 May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri.<\/p>\n

He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that “the negro was in vogue”, which was later paraphrased as “when Harlem was in vogue.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Langston Hughes<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Black<\/p>\n
1936 photo by Carl Van Vechten<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Born<\/th>\nJames Mercer Langston Hughes
\nFebruary 1, 1902
\nJoplin, Missouri, United States<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Died<\/th>\nMay 22, 1967 (aged\u00a065)
\nNew York City, United States<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Occupation<\/th>\nPoet, columnist, dramatist, essayist, novelist<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ethnicity<\/th>\nAfrican American, White American, Native American<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Period<\/th>\n1926\u201364<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Career<\/h2>\n

First published in The Crisis<\/i> in 1921, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which became Hughes’s signature poem, was collected in his first book of poetry The Weary Blues<\/i> (1926).\u00a0Hughes’s first and last published poems appeared in The Crisis<\/i>; more of his poems were published in The Crisis<\/i> than in any other journal.\u00a0Hughes’s 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,\u00a0Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas.<\/p>\n

Hughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class. They criticized the men known as the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance: W. E. B. Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Alain LeRoy Locke, as being overly accommodating and assimilating eurocentric values and culture to achieve social equality.<\/p>\n

Hughes and his fellows tried to depict the “low-life” in their art:\u00a0that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community.\u00a0<\/span>Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” published in\u00a0The Nation<\/i> in 1926:<\/p>\n

The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. “My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind,”\u00a0<\/span>Hughes is quoted as saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America\u2019s image of itself–a “people’s poet” who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality.<\/p>\n

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Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people of African descent and Africa across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic. Hughes was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists.\u00a0In addition to his example in social attitudes, Hughes had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

View Upton Sinclair\u2019s\u00a0full biography on Wikipedia.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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