DAILY INTELLECTUAL BLOG: I, Too, Sing America ~Langston Hughes (Literature) Langston Hughess I, Too, Sing America (1926) is one the great poems of the Harlem Renaissance, the resurgence of African-American cultural awareness and artistic productivity that occurred during the 1920s. In just a few elegant lines of free verse, Hughes expresses both the sad reality of blacks second-class status in American society and his own confident optimism for the future. I, Too, Sing America is a direct response to Walt Whitmans poem I Hear America Singing (1881). Whitman had written about the glorious cacophony of different voices that make up America - the mechanic, the carpenter, the mother, and so on. Hughes, in his poem, contends that one major voice has been forgotten and that Whitmans song is thus incomplete. The power of Hughess poem stems from its minimal, direct language. The narrator begins with the bold declaration, I, Too, Sing America, set into a stanza for emphasis, followed by a proud, unadorned assertion of his identity - I am a darker brother. He describes how he is denied a place at the American table, an extended metaphor in which eating in the kitchen stands for all types of segregation and unequal opportunity. But the narrator displays virtually no resentment or anger. Rather he laughs off the slights against him and brims with confidence that he is strong and beautiful regardless of the denigration he has endured. Moreover, he is certain that his own strength and achievement will inevitably cause the rest of America to come to its senses. Poem I, Too, Sing America posted in the comment section below.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 18:02:59 +0000
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