Langston Hughes is one of the greatest and most versatile poets of the twentieth century. His voice has defined and influenced his own age as well as the following centuries, imposing new artistic values in the literary world. Hughes is considered to be one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance, the literary movement which aimed at the revival and assertion of the African American culture and its traditions. Naturally, his works are filled with African folklore and important cultural motifs, following the rhythms of the native tradition. But, most of all, Hughes’ work is similar to that one of the greatest voices of America: Walt Whitman. In his poems, Hughes gives voice to the African American spirit in the same manner that Whitman sang the spirit of the New World. His work was equally influenced by his own life experience, the historical background through which he lived and naturally by his sense of belonging to the African American tradition.
A famous early poem by Hughes is thus The Negro Speaks of Rivers, where the poet remembers the very distant and dark past of the African race. As it shall be seen, the poem incorporates many themes and symbols, despite its brevity and apparent simplicity. The river symbol in the text lends itself to several different interpretations. First of all, the poem reaches far back in time, to the roots of the black culture. The river valleys are associated with the beginnings of culture, since the ancient people gathered around their banks, in need of a good source of water. The ever flowing, restless rivers are a symbol of continuation of black culture through time. As Cary Wintz observes, Hughes makes an analogy here between the rivers he has known at home, in America, and the ancient rivers where his race was actually born: “In his first mature poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, he found an analogy between the rivers that flowed through his native Midwest and the ancient rivers that watered the lands where his race was born.”(Wintz 63) The African culture was born on the banks of these rivers and is probably as old as them. The direct analogy between the rivers and the blood flow in the human veins points to the close connection between these places and the people that inhabited them:
“I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”(Hughes 33)
Hughes shows the black race to be as old as time itself. The poem unmasks the falsity of the premises the white race usually used in order to oppress and dominate the black race. It takes on an almost mythological perspective, peering into the soul of the black culture and its ancient roots. Moreover, the poem points to the specifics of black culture and its close relationship to nature. The rivers and the soul both run deep, connected by a special course. Black culture is based on this symbiosis between the people and the rivers, as well as other natural elements. Instead of merely exploiting them as natural resources, the black people found a kindred spirit in the force and beauty of the rivers. As such, black culture has mingled its tortuous progress with the flow of the rivers that crossed the land. Hughes effectively confers identity to the black race, seeking its beginnings and showing its endurance. The rivers represent moreover freedom and show that black spirit is and has always been free despite the historical adversity. The poet recreates therefore the beginnings of his race, emphasizing the fact that the black people have a history which is different from that of slavery. The black people have left their traces along with the other civilizations, and the deep rivers have witnessed their beginning. Like every other culture, the black culture had its cradle on the banks of these waters. As an African American, Hughes announces the legacy left by the ancient black people to the generations to come. The poem alludes to the necessity of reviving the essence of black culture and of creating a group consciousness for the black people. With a vision as broad at that of Walt Whitman, Hughes encompasses the streaming of the rivers as part of the souls of the black people.
What is significant however is that the river symbolism has another meaning as well. Hughes envisions first the Euphrates that saw the dawn of civilization, then the Congo and the Nile, and finally the Mississippi. While the Euphrates, Congo and Nile express the long and deep tradition of the black people, the Mississippi points to the more recent African American history. The black culture is as old and deep as the rivers but its history of oppression is also very old. Baxtill comments that, in this poem, Hughes creates a geography of places, in which the ancient rivers, like the Nile and the Congo are seen as being extremely instrumental in the slave trade:
“The muddy Mississippi made Hughes think of the roles in human history played by the Congo, the Niger, and the Nile, down whose water the early slaves once were sold. And he thought of Abraham Lincoln, who was moved to end slavery after he took a raft trip down the Mississippi. The draft he first wrote on the back of an envelope in fifteen minutes has become Hughes’s most anthologized poem.”(Tracy, 28)
Hughes uses a compelling metaphor in his poem to refer to the connection between the geographical space and the human world. There is an analogy between the souls of the black people and the deep rivers: the people have carried with them the weight of oppression and slavery throughout history. Thus, the flowing rivers are also a symbol of the flowing time. The text contains obvious allusions to the Old Testament iconography of space as well, concluding that, like the people of Israel, the black people were also in search of the ‘Promised Land’: “Allusions to the Old Testament iconography of place by which enslaved blacks identified themselves with the enslaved Israelites in Egypt and Babylon in the geography of their song reverberate distinctively in The Negro Speaks of Rivers, the debut poem of young Langston Hughes.”(Tracy 65) The Promised Land, the American continent, fails in the expectancy first elaborated in the dream.
In the poem, the speaker identifies himself with his ancestors, for whose lives the flowing rivers act as sole witnesses:
“I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.”(Hughes 33)
The fact that Hughes chooses to integrate a hint at the gradual liberation and emancipation of the black people is extremely significant in the context of the poem. Lincoln is one of the greatest figures in African American history and the one who managed to lead the black people back to light. The metaphor which closes these lines shows the progressive emergence of the black race towards an identity and a place in history. The “muddy bosom” of the river is an allusion to the dark epoch of slavery in the history of the black race, while the golden waters shimmering in the sunset light predict the beautiful and hopeful future. Hughes thus takes his place not only among the African people, his ancestors, but also claims recognition for the blacks on the American land.
James de Jongh highlights the fact that Hughes’ acknowledged preoccupation with space in his poetry emphasizes his unique African American vision: “In his usage of the legacy language of place in his poetry, one perceives the clarity and coherence of Langston Hughes’s vision of himself as an African American citizen-poet…”(Tracy, 66) Although not explicitly, the poem hints at the ‘American Dream’ and its connections with the African American culture. The poet revaluates the decline of the American Dream and its intrinsic relationship with the African American destiny. With optimism and vitality, Hughes opens the way for an assertion of the African American culture precisely through the clear and natural voice of his poems. He analyzes the loss of the American Dream as the ‘dream deferred’, a dream of greatness, liberty and of universal rights for mankind. This dream has worn off in time, as the nation has ignored the very democratic principles it had been founded on. Naturally, the dominance of the white culture over the black and the enforcement of slavery are seen as the major threats to democracy and the initial dream of perfect equality. In the hands of history, the dream has been indefinitely deferred, and other principles have taken over the nation and its politics. Nevertheless, Hughes prophesizes that America is only now fit to fully embrace its ideal and rebuild the New World. The abolition of slavery makes it possible for the dream to be reborn from its own ashes. The African Americans are naturally part of this dream and their integration into the mainstream culture brings hope for the realization of the ideal. First, America needs to recognize its true principles and act on them, so as to finally get close to the vision of the land as a great ‘Garden of Eden’. The abolition of slavery together with the increasing awareness and understanding of the society of a different culture is central to Hughes’ argument for the continuation of the dream. Thus, the crux of Hughes’ work lies in his interpretation of the American Dream as a ‘dream deferred’ and in waiting and not as a permanently lost one. This is why Mississippi ranges along with the other rivers to express the identity of the black race. Hughes takes therefore a symbol which is usually associated with the long –lasting sufferings of the black race and transforms it into a bright harbinger for the future. The black culture will gain its own place in the American culture at large and the American Dream will be reborn. The dream is associated here with the ideal brotherhood of all races. Hughes therefore connects the two parts of African American history into a single one.
Langston Hughes holds therefore a definitely significant place among the other writers of the twentieth century. As a Harlem Renaissance poet, Hughes militated for the rebirth of the African American people as well as for the coming back to life of America as a nation. Instead of the timid and uncertain search for selfhood that had characterized the literature of the previous century, the new writers begin to voice their pride and enthusiasm of being ‘colored’, understanding that the only way to gain an identity is through their collective efforts as a cultural group.Thus, Hughes’ poetry is a major cultural phenomenon and an extremely important contribution to the African American canon. The African American literature can thus be defined as a people’s continuous search for identity and an attempt to create a strong ground that would overcome the white dominance. Throughout the ages, the African American literature has grown with the black race, emerging with it from slavery and finally finding its own voice and identity.
Works Cited:
Dawahare, Anthony. “Langston Hughes’ Radical Poetry and the ‘End of Race’”. MELUS. Vol. 23(3). 1998. 56-65.
Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage, 1995.
Tracy, Steven C. A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Wintz, Cary D. “Langston Hughes: A Kansas Poet in the Harlem Renaissance.” Kansas Quarterly. Vol. 7 (3) 1975. 58-69.
