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Music from the Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes’s Depiction of freedom in his poetry

The Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes’s Depiction of Freedom in his Poetry

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural association that spanned the 1920s. It was known as “New Negro Movement,” and was successful in bringing the Black experience within the corpus of American cultural and intellectual history. The legacy of Harlem Renaissance refined how people from different places of the world viewed America. The image of African Americans changed from undereducated rural peasants to urban cosmopolitan when the southern blacks migrated to the north. Their new found identity led to greater social consciousness. The African Americans expanded their social contacts internationally and became players in the world stage. Their progress; both real and symbolic became a point of reference where the African Americans gained the spirit of self determination and enabled to build upon the civil rights struggles in the 50’s and 60’s. The urban setting of the rapidly developing Harlem provided a platform where African Americans started appreciating the variety of black culture and life. Consciousness sprung forth in the form of a united racial identity through sharing the cultural experiences in art music and literature. Langston Hughes was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and embraced its power to create a cohesive cultural identity that allowed diverse voices to become one. Hughes desired to liberate poetry from the traditional iambic pentameter form, which he viewed as limiting the freedom to express himself more directly. Jazz music inspired Hughes to be a poet of the people as he demonstrated that the voice of one captured the unspoken voice of the many. In his essays, he argues that jazz has a revitalizing power as it brought out the best in African Americans during the critical time of self-evaluation (Hughes 1). Hughes’ poetry diverged from regular meter and rhythm to reveal how the Harlem Renaissance was based on the freedom of African Americans to recognize their unbreakable emotional and intellectual bond to each other. This paper will try to analyze the element of poetry in Hughes Harlem Renaissance years.

Song for a dark girl

The poem “song for a dark girl” espouses the blues music mood of the period and oppression the blacks had to endure. It paints an unforgettable picture of a woman lamenting the killing of her lover in the south. The first stanza sets of with a blues music mood which fits perfectly in the popular black culture of the Harlem period. Mood is also perfect for lamentation. Love and white domination are dominant themes in this poem. The persona in the first stanza refers to her battered black lover lamenting, his death. The leaver her heartbroken and she state it saying “(Break the heart of me)” in line 2 (Ramazani, 167). The young woman reveals her helplessness about the death of her lover with the phrase “break the heart of me” in lines 2 and 10 (Ramazani 167). She emphasizes her loss and that her heart was broken just like the body of her lover. White domination is best seen in the sentence “Way down south in Dixe” pointing to the racial divide that existed in the south during the period. The persona stands Jesus white the whites stating “I asked the white Lord Jesus/What was the use of prayer” (Ramazani, 167). She feels that Jesus has purposefully failed to answer his prayers. The domination goes hand in hand with oppression that is why her lover is lynched. The poem has only three stanzas each with four lines and emphasizes the setting by repeating the first line in every stanza “Way Down South in Dixie.” He also capitalizes each word of the first line so as to make sure every person knows that the poem takes place in the south. The second line of every stanza is enclosed in brackets to point out on the emotions going through the girl’s heart “(Break the heart of me)” in line 2 & 9 (Ramazani, 167) or the vision she sees “(Bruised body high in air)” (in line 6). Hughes used vivid symbols and language to exemplify the suffering felt by the woman when there seems to be no savior and visualizes the setting of the ordeal. The poem has numerous references comparing the young woman’s lynched lover to Jesus. This makes him (lynched man) a symbol of wrongful execution. The poem says that the man is hanged “to a cross roads tree” (line 4) this creates the symbol that the lynched man is a martyr who sacrificed his life in an unfair world. The persona wants readers to see the young man as Jesus like by not spelling the word cross roads as “crossroads” its traditional spelling. Crossroads is a place where people frequently pass, thus used it to symbolize that he would be an example anyone passing by the location. The appearance of the young man’s body is described as hangs on a tree. The descriptions are similar to those used to describe Jesus during his crucifixion. In the second stanza, the man is described as “bruised body high in air” (line 6).

Jazzonia

Jazzonia is has a clear musical depiction of the jazz in the Harlem in 1920s. It has a smooth flowing rhythm and feel of a ballad and smooth flow of emotional expression. The repetition of the word “oh” helps create the musical effect. The fire two lines “Oh, singing tree!/ Oh, shining rivers of the soul!” in Stanza 1, 3, 5 (Anderson, 34) are repeated after every stanza giving an impression of chorus. There is also an aspect of rhymes in the second and fourth stanza. Hughes wrote this poem as a declaration of his anger on the oppression of black people who were not allowed to go to New York’s high end jazz clubs. Symbolism I widely use here since the oppression of black in the Harlem is equated to the oppression of the Jews during captivity in Babylon. The repetition of “oh” and “soul” and Eve symbolically views the banishing of Eve and Adam from Eden as the banishing of blacks from high end white jazz clubs.

The repetition of the word “oh” in the first, third and fourth stanzas makes it sounds as if the author is a praying mode when the poem is read out aloud. Such a sound is an indication of oppression one of the themes in the poem. Likewise, Hughes might have been astounded by the girls who wore knee high skirts thus were in a kind of trance.

The dancing girl in the second stanza is symbolic of victory for women who were conservatives during the 1920. The dancing woman is an indication of the move from conservatism. Hughes alludes to her beauty by symbolically connecting her with Eve and Cleopatra. Her bold eyes also symbolize the determined to be and feel free. Those were times when women got voting rights thus were a little empowered. This points to emancipation the second theme of the poem.

The poem also brings the concept of acceptance of jazz music by the whites. Jazz music during the Harlem Renaissance was considered an African American music. It was a channel of airing out their grievances. In the poem, white Americans are dancing to it meaning that they like and accept it. When the poet says, “Oh! Shining rivers of the soul” (Anderson, 34), to signify the flow of jazz just like a river flows. Jazz music was felt and appreciated because it awoke the mind and soul of the stressed and lets a person be independent and free.

The trumpet player

The poem The Trumpet Player is about an African American playing the trumpet. The title pretty much sets the scene and is quite literal. The poem talks about music and its effect on sadness, it also talks about alcoholism in the line “desire/that is longing for the sea/where the sea’s a bar-glass/sucker size” in stanza 4 (Hughes, 114). It brings out the meaning that the narrator is longing for a big drink or alcohol, and the drink is like the sea. In order to let go of the pain, he drowns himself in a sea of alcohol. There are lots of parts in the poem that talks about music and its effect on sadness. It also implies that past sufferings will be with us as a reminder.

One way that the poem symbolically shows that suffering of the past will be with us is the line, “Has dark moons of weariness beneath his eyes where the smoldering memory of slave ships blazed to the crack of whips about thighs” in stanza 1 (Hughes, 114). The bags under his eye symbolize that he remembers the past difficulties of being a slave. Moreover, the oppression had but the better part of the African Americas as a whole. They were not allowed to use the same bus as their white counterparts and used to walk on designated lanes so as not to interact with the white people. Racial segregation was a hindrance to their progress and livelihood. Their street protests landed on deaf ears, and the police were not used to arrest them and jail them for no apparent reason. Thus, the bags under his eyes meant a lot more than just old age.

Hughes talks about music and how it helps the African Americans soothe their suffering and their hardship. In stanza 3, Hughes explains how the music in his lips is like honey mixed with liquid (Hughes, 114). He explains of how the rhythm from the trumpet exists him and that the ecstasy he feels is filled from old desires. Hughes suggests that the music is hot and sweet and that rhythm is sheer happiness taken from what he wanted before. This shows music as a great and glorious thing, and it is the opposite of the suffering stated in the first stanza.

Dream boogie

This poem is about the “boogie-woogie” rumble of a dream deferred. The narrator asks the reader to listen intimately to the beat which the “you” in the poem has assumed to imply happiness. The narrator claims that she is pleased, and the poem ends with some bebop sounds-exclamations.

The main themes in this poem are injustice, poverty, racism, and deferred dreams. The narrator in the first stanza asks whether his friend has heard the beat of differed dream, the letter describe the bean as a very unhappy beat. This is because people are sad when their beat dreams are deferred due to racism. The beat is symbolic of peoples feeling.

The poem has stanzas with short lines sometime one word lines and sues scant music or musical imagery, a characteristic of the Harlem renaissance music he uses words such as Hey pop! (Line 18), Re-bop! (Line 19), and mop! (Line 20). Hughes expresses that the only thing they have once their dreams are differed is music. He tries to make believe that everything is okay even when nothing is okay.

The musical rhythm in this poem is undeniable. He rhyme scheme is stanza 1. a, b, c, b; stanza 2. D; stanza 3. e, f; stanza 4. g, e; stanza 5. d, b, h, f; stanza 6. d; stanza 7. i, j, j; stanza 8. k, k, k; stanza 9. l; . The rhymes serve to create a musical effect.

The Harlem night life

Nowhere was the merging of African American culture more evident than in Harlem during the 1920s. African Americans were encouraged to assert themselves in society, participate in intellectual exchanges with other races and uphold their unique culture. In this spirit, many Black intellectuals migrated to Harlem since it had evolved into a Mecca for writers, musicians’ artists, and activists. Their night life soon progressed to club jazz music and blues. Since they were not allowed at any exclusive “white” clubs, they moved downtown and established their clubs. Jazz music and alcohol was a way of forgetting the oppressiveness and slavery there had endured for many years. Moreover, racial segregation was a hindrance to them; thus jazz and blues music calmed and soothed them. They created an amazing jazzy nightlife where blues and jazz such as the above poems were the norm. Jazzonia best depicts the Harlem nightlife through the dancing of the beautiful girl. These are also evident in the “The trumpet player”.

Conclusion

Hughes poems clearly depict the African life in the Harlem. The jazzy blues beat and bear/ alcohol were a common place in the Harlem nightlife. The poems have common themes, mainly the oppression, racial segregation, love, inability to realize their dreams and struggle for emancipation, which were a characteristic of the African Harlem experience during this period. They are characterized by unique stanzas, creative use of words and repetitions.

Work Cited

Ramazani, Jahan. Poetry of Mourning: Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney. Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1994. Print.

Anderson, T J. Notes to Make the Sound Come Right: Four Innovators of Jazz Poetry. Fayetteville: Univ. Of Arkansas Press, 2004. Print.

Hughes, Langston. Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1999. Print.

Hughes, Langston. Dream Boogie. Web. April 29, 2013 <http://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/hughesdreamboogie.html>