Langston Hughes Research Paper

Langston Hughes is an African American poet, novelist, playwright and more. He was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. He was raised by his grandmother until he was 13 years old, because his parents divorced when he was still young. He then “moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband”. Eventually they settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His full name is Jame Mercer Langston Hughes. He published his first poetry book in 1926, wich was called “the weary blues”(kopf,1926). He wrote this book after all his travels to Mexico, and Europe ect. He would later go on to publish many more books. People found the book amazing and really liked it, and that they “empathized with the musicians pain”. He got his college education at Lincoln …show more content…
In this time period blacks were still discriminated, so he had a harder time becoming successful. The traditionalists would discriminate more against blacks, then the modernists because they had a futuristic outlook and were more open to new things. So the traditionalists would not support Hughes as much as the modernists.

Hughes wrote many books like “Montage of a Dream Deferred” (holt,1951)and his first novel called “Not Without Laughter” (knopf,1930). He is know to use the influence of jazz music in all his writings. And was the creator of Jazz poetry, because of it. He wrote a big variety of things like plays , novels ,poems, and short stories. His novel “Not Without Laughter” (knopf,1930) won the Harmon gold medal for literature. What set Hughes apart from the other African American writers was how he “refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience” of the black community.