American Playwright 19021967 Thinking Questions What things in history happened in Langston Hughes lifetime How could those things affect his writing Biographical Information African American ID: 510114
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Slide1
Langston Hughes
American Playwright 1902-1967Slide2
Thinking Questions:
What things in history happened in Langston Hughes’ lifetime?
How could those things affect his writing?Slide3
Biographical Information:
African AmericanBorn in Joplin Missouri
Moved around a lot as a child, grandmother then mother
Wrote poetry in high school
Attended Columbia University for 1 year
Left school and became part of the “Harlem Renaissance”
Traveled on a freighter around the world
Poetry Days:
Met poet
Vachel
Lindsay who got him a scholarship at Lincoln University
Began meeting connections and getting published more by the age of 27
Funeral filled with Jazz musicSlide4
Poetic Style
Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman influenced himBlack themes and heritage
Jazz rhythms and dialect
Urban blacks
Address racial issues
Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?Slide5
Dream Deferred Analysis:Langston Hughes, in his poem “Dream Deferred” uses specific language and similes to send a message to the reader. This message, however, is a message that the reader has to interpret for him/herself because of the many questions asks throughout the piece.
Hughes’ language is rich with sensory imagery that sometimes appeals to the senses and sometimes repulses them. He uses similes to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. Some of the images are pleasing to the ear and stomach like the words “syrupy sweet” and others repel the reader with phases like “stink like rotten meat.” Both of these phrases are contradictions because Hughes doesn’t want to tell the reader what happens to a dream that is put off, but he wants the reader to think about what could happen and why it happens.
Hughes uses rich sensory imagery and similes to create a message the reader has to interpret on his/her own.
THINKING QUESTION:
What kinds of things do you see in this analysis?Slide6
http://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313/videos/langston-hughes-mini-biography-2174109638
Works Cited:Hughes, Langson
. http
://
www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313.