Langston Hughes Influences

Langston Hughes, who is a dominant poet of the Harlem Renaissance, has been significantly influenced by both the sounds and traditions of the growing blues and jazz community. The Harlem Renaissance is a 1920’s movement in Harlem, New York that sparked an increased growth in the art scene/community, largely seen in music, literature, and fashion. Considering Hughes such a strong advocator and lover of both jazz and blues music, he then began to write poetry in a style which was very heavily influenced by these two musical styles. Because of this, he was one of the first poets to thrive in this prospering genre of jazz poetry, a literary genre where poetry is based around jazz and incorporates a variety of the same forms, rhythms, and sounds …show more content…
After the abandonment of his father, the separation of his parents, and a departure to Mexico in attempt to escape the ongoing battle of racism, Langston was raised mainly by his grandmother in Kansas. Eventually after the death of his grandmother, he then lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was in high school. During these years, Hughes actually wrote his first piece of jazz poetry, “When Sue Wears Red”. Proceeding high school, he ends up continues his education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1929 with a B.A degree. As a writer, Hughes main goals include exemplifying the everyday lives of working class African-Americans in the USA, and exhibiting the fact that these lifestyles are all filled with happiness, music, beauty, and struggles. During the time of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes decided to try and grow from just focusing on poems which are about the ongoing racial issues, and also began to expand and explore the even more controversial topics of homosexuality. In terms of his technical writing style during these years, his more apparent development is seen in his new usage of more descriptive and vivid language within his poetry