What Other Groups Does Langston Hughes Mention in Let American Be American Again

Andrew has a bully interest in all aspects of poesy and writes extensively on the subject. His poems are published online and in print.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes And A Summary of "Let America Be America Again"

"Let America Be America Again" focuses on the idea of the American dream and how, for many, attaining liberty, equality, and happiness, which the dream encapsulates, is nigh on impossible.

The speaker in the poem outlines the reasons why this ideal America has gone, or never was, merely could still be.

For the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the reality of solar day to 24-hour interval existence makes the dream a cruel illusion. The poem explores the darker areas of life, the history of exploitation for instance, and outlines the unique struggles of the poor who make up America, both black and white.

Whilst pessimistic and difficult hit, the poem does have an optimistic ending and lights the mode forrard with promise.

Langston Hughes was going through a difficult menses in his life when he wrote this poem. He knew he wanted to earn a living through writing, but couldn't sustain his efforts, despite verse book publication, nearly notably The Weary Blues.

It was on a train journey through Depression-struck America in 1935 that inspired him to pen this archetype plea for a resurgence of the truthful American spirit.

Publication followed in the Esquire magazine and Hughes went on to become a noted if controversial effigy in the world of black literature, following his earlier work in the and so-called Harlem Renaissance, an upbeat black artistic move peaking in the 1920s.

"Permit America Be America Once more" reflects the many influences in Hughes's poesy - from the expansive piece of work of Whitman to street language, from jazz rhythm to the steady iambic lines of before blackness poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Let America Be America Again

Let America be America over again.

Let it be the dream information technology used to be.

Allow information technology be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

Curl to Continue

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(America never was America to me.)

Permit America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that swell strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(Information technology never was America to me.)

O, allow my land exist a country where Liberty

Is crowned with no faux patriotic wreath,

Just opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery'south scars.

I am the cerise man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid program

Of dog eat canis familiaris, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, total of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient countless chain

Of profit, power, proceeds, of catch the land!

Of grab the aureate! Of take hold of the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of have the pay!

Of owning everything for i's ain greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the auto.

I am the Negro, servant to yous all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry all the same today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got alee,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Nevertheless I'm the ane who dreamt our basic dream

In the Former World while yet a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream and so strong, so dauntless, so true,

That fifty-fifty yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That'south made America the country it has go.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'1000 the i who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's manifestly, and England'due south grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The costless?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely non me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when nosotros strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes nosotros've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have zip for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The country that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is gratuitous.

The state that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's,

ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose organized religion and pain,

Whose paw at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring dorsum our mighty dream again.

Sure, telephone call me any ugly name yous choose—

The steel of freedom does non stain.

From those who live similar leeches on the people'southward lives,

Nosotros must take back our country over again,

America!

O, yes, I say information technology plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will exist!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the countless patently—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America over again!

Line-Past-Line Analysis of "Let America Be America Once again"

This whole poem is a crying out, a passionate plea for America to re-establish the Dream. It is a kind of personal hymn, a lyrical speech, to freedom and equality. To enable that plea to be heard and felt, the speaker has to take the reader through some night times, through history, to explain just why that Dream needs to live again.

Lines 1 - iv

Alternating rhyme, repetition and alliteration are all at play in this the first stanza, nearly a song lyric. It's a direct call for the old America to be brought dorsum to life again, to be revived.

Notation the mention of the pioneer, those get-go seekers of liberty who with tremendous volition and endeavour established themselves a dwelling, against all the odds.

Line five

Almost every bit an aside, merely highly meaning, the unmarried line in parentheses reveals that, for the speaker, America as an ideal just hasn't happened. For him, this romantic notion of the American Dream never has been. Why is that?

Lines six - 9

The second lyrical quatrain, with similar rhyme pattern, places stronger emphasis on the dream, the original vision people had for the United states, one of love and equality. There would be no feudal arrangement in identify, no dictatorships - everyone would be equal.

Note the dissimilarity of the language used here. There is the dream and love of those who would be equal, against those who would connive, scheme and beat.

Line 10

Some other line in parentheses, as if the speaker is quietly reasserting his inner voice - again making the point that this America hasn't existed for him, implying that he is far from the Dream. He is dubious to say the least.

Lines 11 - fourteen

The 3rd quatrain, with alternating rhyme for familiarity, highlights the outer ideals - the dressing upwards of Liberty merely for show, which is phoney patriotism. The capital L reinforces the idea that this could be the Statue of Liberty, the famous icon, based on a goddess, who holds the Annunciation of Independence in one hand and the torch in the other. Broken chains lie at her feet.

The plea continues, to brand the dream possible, to make it manifest in opportunity and equality, for all. The suggestion that equality could be in the air people breathe, means that equality should be a natural given, office of the fabric that keeps us all alive, sharing the common air.

Lines 15 - xvi

The rhyming couplet in parentheses one time again repeats that, for the speaker personally, equality has been out of reach, peradventure just has never existed. Same goes for freedom. (Homeland of the free - could be based on the Star-Spangled Imprint lyrics 'land of the free.')

Further Assay

Lines 17 - eighteen

In italics for special reasons, these lines, two questions, represent a turning point in the poem; they are a different aspect of the speaker's identity. These two questions await dorsum, questioning the speaker's negativity (in parentheses) and also look forwards.

The metaphor of the veil has biblical connections (in Corinthians) alluding to a darkening of reality, of non being able to see the truth.

Lines 19 - 24

The beginning of the sextets, six lines which express all the same some other aspect of the speaker, who now speaks as and for, one of the oppressed, in the commencement person, I am. Yet, this voice too expresses the collective, articulating a mass sentiment.

And note that all types of person are included: white, blackness, native American, the immigrant. All are subject to the vicious competition and the hierarchical systems imposed upon them.

Lines 25 - 30

The second sextet focuses on the young man, whatsoever swain no matter, caught upward in the industrial chaos of profit for turn a profit'southward sake, where greed is good and power is the ultimate goal. The ugly, unacceptable face of capitalism encourages only selfishness at any expense.

Lines 31 - 38

Again, use of the repeated phrase I am brings abode the bulletin loud and clear in this octet: the system is cruellest to those who are poorest. From the farmer to the servant, from the land to the fine houses of the wealthy, for many the Dream ways simply hunger and poverty.

Workers become de-humanized, become mere numbers and are treated as if they are commodities or coin.

Lines 39 - 50

The longest stanza in the poem, 12 lines, concentrates on the history of those immigrants who dreamt of fundamental freedoms in the first place. This is the cruel irony. Those fleeing poverty, war and oppression; those forced to get out their native lands, had this dream inside, a dream of beingness truly free in a new land.

They travelled to America in the hope of realizing this dream. People from Old Europe, many from Africa, all prepare out for a new life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Thomas Jefferson).

More Line By Line Analysis

Line 51

A single line, another potent question. The previous twelve lines (the previous 50 lines) all led to this acute point. A simple yet searching inquire.

Lines 52 - 61

The next ten lines explore this notion of the free. Simply the speaker seems perplexed - where did this crazy question originate? It's every bit if the speaker doesn't know himself any longer, or the reasons why the question of the complimentary should arise. Only exactly who are the costless?

There are millions with little or nothing. When labor is withdrawn and legitimate protest arranged, the authorities counteract with the bullet. Protestation songs and banners and hope count for petty - all that's left is a barely breathing dream.

Lines 62 - 70

The speaker takes a deep breath and repeats the opening line, simply with more than emotional input.....O, let America be America once again. This is a plea from the eye, this time more personal - ME - notwithstanding taking in many different types of people.

In these nine lines the reader truly gets to know the speaker's intention and demand. Liberty for all. It's almost a call to rise upwardly and take back what belongs to the many and non the few.

Lines 71 - 75

No matter the abuse, the pursuit of freedom is pure and strong. Those who have exploited the poor and sucked out their lifeblood (note the simile - similar leeches) need to kickoff thinking again virtually buying and rights to holding.

Lines 76 - 79

A curt quatrain, a kind of summing up of the speaker's whole take on the American Dream. A straight declaration - the Dream volition manifest at some time. Information technology has to.

Lines 80 - 86

The final septet concludes that, out of the old rotten, criminal system, the people volition renew and refresh and rebuild something wholesome and sustainable. In that location remains promise that the cherished ideal - America - tin can be made expert once more.

Literary Devices in Let America Be America Over again

Let America Be America Again is an 86 line poem split up into 17 stanzas, 3 of which are single lines, two of which are couplets. In addition, there are 4 quatrains, 2 sextets, 1 octet, a twelve liner, ten liner, nine liner, quintet, and a seven liner.

The layout is quite unusual. On the page the poem looks more like an extended song lyric, with quatrains followed by single lines and very short lines turning up in mid-stanza.

Let's take a closer look at the literary devices:

Rhyme Scheme

Rhymes tend to bring familiarity and assistance reinforce meaning. In poetry, there are simple rhyme schemes and in that location are challenging ones. In this verse form the rhyming pattern starts in a conventional manner but gradually becomes more complex.

For instance, have a look at the first 6 stanzas:

• abab - (b) - cdcd - (b) - bebe - (bb)

This is relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to follow. There is an alternating pattern in the kickoff iii quatrains, with the stiff full vowel rhyme e ascendant:

exist/free/me/me/Liberty/free/me/free.

The total end rhymes leave the reader in no doubt most one of the main themes of this poem - freedom and me. A potent pairing ensures a memorable bond.

So, the commencement 16 lines are straightforward plenty. After this the rhyme scheme gradually loses its regular pattern and becomes stretched.

• However further downwards the line and so to speak, there are still loose echoes of the familiar alternating pattern established at the beginning of the poem.

Each of the larger stanzas contains some grade of full rhyme, or total and slant rhyme:

soil/all with machine/hateful and get/complimentary with lea/free.

Slant rhyme tends to challenge the reader because it is about to full rhyme but isn't total rhyme to the ear, equally in soil/all. Information technology ways things aren't clicking in full, they're a little bit out of harmony.

As the poem progresses, rhyme becomes more intermittent and tends to condense in certain stanzas, as in stanza thirteen, pay/today and stanza 14, pain/rain/again. The poet's aim with such concentrated rhyme is to make the words stick in the reader's mind and retentivity.

Literary Device (2)

Anaphora

Repetition plays an important role in this verse form and occurs throughout. When words and phrases are repeated this has a similar effect to chanting, reinforcing significant and giving the experience of ability and aggregating of energy.

From the starting time stanza - Let America/Permit it be/Let information technology exist - to the last - The country, the plants, the mines, the rivers - there are repeats. Some critics accept likened them to song lyrics, others to parts of a political speech, where ideas and images are built upwards again and again.

Alliteration

There are numerous examples of alliterative lines - when words with leading consonants are close together - which bring texture and interest to lines and a challenge to the reader.

In the first four stanzas:

pioneer on the plain/home where he himself/dream the dreamers dreamed/land exist a state where Freedom/slavery's scars.

Enjambment

Enjambment, when a line continues without punctuation on into the next, keeping the flow of sense, occurs in several stanzas. Look out for the 'open' end lines which encourage the reader to not interruption but proceed straight into the next line.

For example:

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a dwelling house where he himself is free.

and over again:

We, the people, must redeem

The state, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

Metaphor

Tangled in that endless ancient chain

of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Personification

That even however its mighty daring sing

in every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

Sources

world wide web.poets.org

Norton Anthology,Norton, 2005

https://uwc.utexas.edu

100 Essential Mod Poems, Ivan Dee, Joseph Parisi, 2005

© 2017 Andrew Spacey

akerssentort.blogspot.com

Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Let-America-Be-America-Again-by-Langston-Hughes

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