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Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues"

BIOGRAPHY

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Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes was one of the writers, visual artists, and musicians associated with the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote several of the key documents of the Harlem Renaissance and was close friends with many of its other participants, including Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen, who is discussed in another LITWEB workshop.

To learn more about the Harlem Renaissance, visit some of the Related Links in the Countee Cullen workshop or the James Baldwin workshop. In what ways is "The Weary Blues" typical of the themes and styles of the Harlem Renaissance? Hughes was sometimes accused of contradicting the principles of the Harlem Renaissance in his poetry. What themes, subject matter, or poetic style do you see in "The Weary Blues" that might support that accusation?

Literary Comparisons

Read reviews, articles, and introductory material about Harlem Renaissance writers in your text. Here you will find poetry by Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Angelina Grimke, Arna Bontemps, and Helene Johnson. Compare "The Weary Blues" to the works of one or two of these other Harlem Renaissance poets. Consider subject matter, theme, tone, word choice, and structure.

You will find another Hughes poem, "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)," in your text. "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)" was published in 1951, long after the Harlem Renaissance. How does it differ from "The Weary Blues," published in 1926, in tone, structure, and purpose? How might those differences reflect a shift in the cultural, social, and political times?

Writers other than Hughes have set their stories in Harlem and woven the sounds of jazz and blues into their works. If you are interested in investigating these themes further, you might read "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. You will find this short story in your text. After you read the story, explore the LITWEB workshop related to it, paying particular attention to ideas that remind you of those associated with the poetry of Langston Hughes. How does Baldwin depict Harlem in this story? How does Baldwin use the sounds of jazz? What does music represent thematically in the story? What is the significance of the title? Does Baldwin use the setting, the music, the "blues" in the same way that Hughes does? Is there a connection between how music makes Sonny feel and how it affects the singer in "The Weary Blues"? "Sonny's Blues" was written twenty-five years after "The Weary Blues." What differences do you find that might be attributed to social, political, or economic change?

Influences

The key to understanding the poetry of Langston Hughes is an understanding of African American colloquial speech and the importance of the oral tradition in African American cultural history. For an excellent overview of this tradition, listen to a lecture given by Herbert Woodward Martin at the University of Dayton. Although this is a fairly academic lecture, Martin adds interest to the performance by actually singing many examples. In the lecture, you will also hear references to other authors you may have studied in your text, including Robert Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin. As you listen to the lecture, consider how these various aspects of the African American oral tradition might be present in "The Weary Blues."

No reading of the poetry of Langston Hughes is complete without a discussion of the influence of the blues and jazz on his poetry. To begin to understand the blues, you must hear the blues. Listen to these original 1939 blues recordings from the Smithsonian Institute: I Ain't Got Nobody, Lighthouse Blues, and Dupree Blues. In "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes encourages his readers to listen to the blues of Bessie Smith. You can hear recordings of Bessie Smith and other jazz and blues greats at the Drop Me Off in Harlem media exhibit. Before you do any further reading about the blues, consider how the sound you have heard in these recordings is reflected in "The Weary Blues." Can you hear the blues in the words of the singer in the poem? Can you hear the blues in the voice of the speaker in the poem?

To learn more about the blues and how Hughes incorporated it into his poetry, read the essay "The Blues Poetry of Langston Hughes," by Kathryn Gray. This essay includes a brief history of the blues, a description of its musical characteristics, and identification of its major themes. If you are considering writing an essay discussing the relationship of "The Weary Blues" to the characteristics of blues music, you might look at the essay "Langston Hughes Blues," written by a Pepperdine University student.

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