Langston Hughes is known as one of the most renowned Harlem Renaissance writers in his day and even into the present. His poem called “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, published in 1926, illustrates the lengthy history of blacks that are descendants of Africa. More specifically, Hughes depicts himself as an African in the poem and highlights his history by using captivating imagery.
Hughes starts off the poem by stating that he knows rivers that have an ancient past and is older than the existence of humans. He talks of these rivers as a crucial aspect to history: “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human/ blood in human veins” (2-3). These rivers that he is referring to are located in Africa and are the roots of his heritage. Hughes goes more in depth of these rivers as he describes life for Africans that used them as a means of survival and prosperity. In the words of Hughes, “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” (5-7). He depicts himself as his ancestors and imagines himself living the same way they did hundreds and even thousands of years ago. The first two rivers mentioned are the Euphrates and the Congo. The activities that Hughes encases himself in deals with everyday life in Africa as they lived day to day by living off the land. He then references the Nile and the great Ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids which showcases his ancestors as being innovative and intelligent.
Hughes moves on past the grand times of Africa’s prosperity to when slavery was starting to be abolished in the United States. He discusses the Mississippi River and it’s importance to black heritage: “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” (8-10). The Mississippi River signifies the important turning point of blacks being able to regain their power and self-worth by the hands of Abraham Lincoln whose mission was to abolish slavery. When Hughes says, “I’ve seen it’s muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset” (9-10), a feeling of hope and determination can be felt by Hughes’s words that blacks can regain what was lost. Overall, this poem brings forth the importance blacks embracing their African roots despite the injustices that occurred in the past. Moreover, letting the beauty of Africa’s past shine proves that even though blacks had horrendous lives as slaves in the United States, the innovative and intelligent charm of Africa is still rampant in blacks in any era.
Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. By Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. 687-88. Print.
Nicely put, T’Rese. I hope we get to talk more about this in class. You say that this is a deep tracing of Hughes’s African roots. I also think it offers a very interesting “route” towards his own version of modernism. Whereas Eliot’s modernism is based in a strictly western tradition–very much locked in the European mind–Hughes offers a different route to modernism: one that flows through Africa, and through the difficult history of slavery, and towards this authentic expression in which the golden sun seems to sanction and reveal the beauty of racial difference.