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Essay on The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes eloquently expressed a deep admiration for the race in one of his best early poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." This poem is an epic tribute to the Negro race, rich in expression and moving in its message. Hughes's poem has a beauty and distinction all its own. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" Hughes emphasized the dignity and sensitivity of the Negro, a theme he was to use throughout his career. The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "My People," "I, Too," and "Mother to Son," are as moving today as when they were first written.
They remind us that for all its unpleasantness there is no shame in being a Negro in America. On the other hand, there is every reason for pride in the dignity and laughter of the Negro people. Hughes brought a fresh point of view to racial writing. He described his people with love and enthusiasm, but avoided the trite, over-assertive style of the propagandist. Hughes's poems of pride have lasting quality because they are natural, sensitive interpretations of the Negro.
In studying this poem line by line, the reader is able to understand Hughes's language literally. Hughes detains history and brilliance but does it with a simple delivery. In the first stanza “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 it's muddy” it’s obvious that Hughes is making reference to the history of African Americans. The phrase “I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins,”...............
