The Depths of My Africa: Travelogues on the Land of Ancestors by Claude McKay and Langston Hughes

The article is devoted to the image of Africa in the travelogues by poets Claude McKay (A Long Way From Home, 1937) and Langston Hughes (The Big Sea, 1940), the significant figures of Harlem Renaissance; and also compares this image with Africa in the poems of both writers. The image of Africa as the land of ancestors and the foremother of the Negro people was popular among the artists and philosophers of the Harlem Renaissance, but at the same time, it was often idealized. That is why meeting a real Africa becomes, to some extent, a moment of truth for an African-American artist, the reason to take a new look at himself and his values. Biographies of Hughes and McKay reveal why equally motivated, at first glance, writers united by a common dream of a black peoples home, when faced with the real Africa, react to it in exactly the opposite way. The article shows that young cosmopolitan poet Langston Hughes did not find respond to his poetic ideals in real Africa and after that forever divided Africa into real and poetic, while Claude McKay, who kept up the reunification of the Negro people and had traveled around the whole Europe, only in Africa for the first time in his life went native. At the same time, Hughes is significantly influenced by his mixed origins and McKay - by his colonial background. The article contains materials of correspondence, fragments of the travelogues never been translated into Russian before.

1. American poetry’s two characteristics

“American poetry’s two characteristics” explains the two characteristics which mark American poetry. On the one hand, several of its major figures promoted American poetry as essentially different from any other nation’s. Although the reasons they offer vary, they typically claim that American experience demands a different kind of expression. Such poets advocate for novelty, for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry might be more rightly called profoundly transnational. American poetry often welcomes techniques, styles, and traditions originating from outside it. The two characteristics do not exist separately from each other. Rather, they work in a productive dialectic, inspiring both individual accomplishment and the broader field. Examples include Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Langston Hughes.

Vom Problem einer demokratischen Ästhetik zur Ästhetik einer problematischen Demokratie

From the Problems of a Democratic Aesthetic to the Aesthetics of a Problematic Democracy In analyses of poems from the 18th, 20th and 21st century, this article juxtaposes different degrees of trust in a democratic political order and the role of poetry in it. Philip Freneau, who supported a radical interpretation of the American Revolution as initiating a new and better social order, searched for a democratic poetics commensurate with the value placed on common people. For Muriel Rukeyser and even more so, Langston Hughes in the 1930s, democracy felt threatened not only by fascism abroad but by racism and exploitation at home. In 2014, Claudia Rankines Citizen: An American Lyric registers, like Rukeyser and Hughes, the difficulties in constructing a consensual reality and pushes this notion much further; surprisingly, perhaps, her work continues to see art as important to alert us to this difficulty of modern democracies and divers societies.

Post Slavery and the Plight of Black Americans: An Analysis of Langston Hughes’ “Not without Laughter”

This paper discussed the lives of black Americans in the Post Slavery period. It was believed that black Americans who were former slaves were then free from being treated brutally by the slave masters and that the whipping of the so called offenders was a thing of the past. On the contrary, Black Americans were not free to receive education, have access to legal marriages, own properties and enjoy all other benefits that an American should enjoy. Life after slavery was still difficult. The reality was that black Americans were free only in a narrow sense as they were still discriminated by the government institutions. This gave rise to activism and movements such as Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement. Great Black scholars, The Talented Tenth, such as Alice Walker, Du Bois, and Langston Hughes emerged. Not without Laughter is one of the books that Langston Hughes wrote. This paper is an analysis of civil injustices that Black Americans had to endure according to Hughes in Not without Laughter. Today, the situation has not changed much as racism is still rampant as depicted by violence still perpetrated against the Blacks. The rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement worldwide against the death of Floyd in the USA gives evidence to such. One encouraging aspect, though, is that the current President, Joe Biden is against racism as he has ordered that those that killed Floyd should face the full wrath of the law.

Racism towards Black American: Intersectionality in Constructing Social Racist through Poetical Depiction by Langston Hughes and Amy Saunders

In this research, the development of racism based on the different formations of socio-cultural and historical aspects was the standpoint that was shown by the interpretation of poetical depiction of meaning and messages. The gap between Langston Hughes in “I, too, sing America” (1926) and Amy Saunders in “You’re not Black” (2019) as the data advocates for racist transformation in natural past and present American socialization. Several critical studies have examined the racial issues reflected in poems however they didn’t elaborate on racism specifically rather than segregation and discrimination although racism is classified in several types. Moreover, the critical studies have been done only analyzed the racism happened on the past while this study compares the past and present racism as the concern of social construction among black American as the target of unfair treatments. The descriptive qualitative method using documentation, descriptive analysis, and note-taking technique was used to identify and elaborate meaning correlation with racial issues in the poems. This research aimed to classify the figurative language and its meaning related to racism while illustrating the development of racism from the perspective of socio-cultural and historical aspects that influenced the poets and their poetry. Theory of Critical Race was used to demonstrate that racism was developing in a different formation. The research has found the interconnection between historical values of slavery system constructed stereotypes of black people as minor American. Social construction formed a cultural differentiation which led to segregation and discrimination towards black in any form of everyday aspects.

Écriture Feminine and the Poetry of Langston Hughes

This paper attempts to locate Hughes’s poetic diction as Ecriture feminine since like feminist poetry the diction of his poetry is rebellious and questions the hierarchical structure of society where White people hold more power and promote the idea of racial superiority. His desire to express the angst of the Blacks finds currency in the definition and explication of feminine writing. The focus of this paper will be on analysis of the poetry of Langston Hughes in the light of ecriture feminine in order to show how Hughes counters hegemony’s repressive rhetoric, challenges the loss of agency through the language of the dominant class and recreates another symbolic order.