Langston Hughes

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Hughes photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1936

James Langston Hughes (born February 1, 1902 in Joplin , Missouri , † May 22, 1967 in New York ) was a poet and American writer of the African-American artist movement Harlem Renaissance . His poem I, Too, Sing America became an icon of the civil rights movement.

Hughes was "unfortunately", as he himself said, not black, but relatively fair-skinned. Among his white ancestors were, among many others, the English poet Francis Quarles (1592–1644), a Jewish slave trader and a French merchant. Hughes' black ancestors were slaves who had mixed with Indians from the Iroquois tribe .

Life

1902-1929

Hughes, whose parents divorced when he was very young, grew up with his grandmother. At the age of 13 he moved to live with his mother, first to Lincoln, Illinois, and then to Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes began writing poetry while he was still at school. After graduating from school in 1920, he moved to live with his father in Mexico City for a year . Hughes' father, a rather headstrong person, did not want to be hindered in his business activities by segregation or racism and discrimination in the United States and therefore moved to Mexico shortly after Hughes was born, where he subsequently lived as a respected businessman.

In the relationship between Hughes and his father, however, there was little understanding. Hughes' father, who was very ambitious, most importantly, his son had a career. To escape the closeness of his father, Hughes agreed to study and enrolled at Columbia University in engineering in 1921 , but dropped out in 1922. He then traveled to Africa and finally to France, where he worked temporarily as a dishwasher in the Club Le Grand Duc in Montmartre .

Back in the USA he worked and tried to publish poetry at the same time. For example, while working as a bus-boy (German auxiliary waiter), he took the opportunity of a restaurant visit by the avant-garde poet Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) to put three of his poems under the menu, which Lindsay immediately called the poems of a new one discovered black bus boy poet published. In the art salon of Georgia Douglas Johnson in Washington he met the painter and writer Richard Bruce Nugent , with whom he had an intense friendship from the first minute.

Hughes finally found a publisher through a contact with Carl Van Vechten . In 1925 he won the poetry prize of Opportunity magazine . His first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues , was published in 1926. That year Hughes began studying at the African American College at Lincoln University (Pennsylvania). His poems, which were influenced by blues and jazz , gained some fame during the Harlem Renaissance . In November 1926 his poem Lift Boy was published in Fire !! -Magazine in which Hughes played a major role and through which he, after its financial failure, got into debt and had to put every income in the next few years into paying off the debt. His works have also appeared in The Crisis magazine, alongside works by other representatives of the Harlem Renaissance such as Claude McKay , Jean Toomer , Nella Larsen , Georgia Douglas Johnson , Countee Cullen , George Schuyler and Anne Spencer .

1930-1945

His first novel, Not Without Laughter , was published in 1930 and won the Harmon Gold Medal for Literature . Hughes visited the American South in the early 1930s. In 1932 he traveled to the Soviet Union (in Ashgabat , the capital of Turkmenistan , there was a chance encounter with Arthur Koestler , which he described as a witness of time in his memoirs ) and subsequently praised the achievements of socialism. From 1939 he published a number of plays.

During the Second World War, Hughes stood up for the Allied cause, always emphasizing that victory abroad must be followed by victory at home, that is, the elimination of racial segregation. After the war, he worked with Kurt Weill on Broadway and with William Grant Still, among others, and created Street Scene, one of the first African-American operas.

1946-1967

In the 1950s, Hughes was one of the victims of the anti-communist persecution of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Cold War . On the one hand he distanced himself from his earlier views, on the other hand he tried to maintain his humanistic vision. However, this only led to his being rejected by conservatives as well as despised by former political companions. In 1961 Hughes was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1964 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Up until his death, Hughes published numerous other books, including volumes of poetry and short stories, but also historical works, books on black music, books for young people and children, and autobiographical writings.

Works

Danse Africaine in Leiden

Poems

  • Mother to Son (written 1923)
  • I, too, sing America , 1926
  • The Weary Blues , 1926
  • Fine Clothes to the Jew , 1927
  • Dear Lovely Death , 1931
  • The Dream Keeper and Other Poems , 1932
  • Scottsboro Limited , 1932
  • Ballad of the Landlord , 1937
  • Shakespeare in Harlem , 1942
  • Freedom's Plow , 1943
  • Fields of Wonder , 1947
  • One-way ticket , 1949
  • Montage of a Dream Deferred , 1951
  • Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz , 1961
  • The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times , 1967
  • Dreams , (release date unknown)
  • As I Grew Older , (release date unknown)
  • Let America be America again , (release date unknown)
  • Merry-Go-Round , 2002
  • Life is fine

prose

Langston Hughes' autobiographical volumes at a glance
  • Not Without Laughter , 1930
  • The Ways of White Folks , 1934
  • The Big Sea , 1940
  • Simple Speaks His Mind , 1950, Simple advocates , 2009 Milena Verlag
  • Laughing to Keep From Crying , 1952
  • Simple Takes a Wife , 1953
  • Sweet Flypaper of Life , 1955; with photographs by Roy DeCarava
  • I Wonder as I Wander , 1956
  • Simple Stakes a Claim , 1957
  • Tambourines to Glory , 1958
  • Something in Common and Other Stories , 1963
  • Simple's Uncle Sam , 1965
  • Thank you, ma'm , 1965

theatre

  • Mule Bone , 1930, with Zora Neale Hurston
  • Little Ham , 1935
  • Mulatto , 1935
  • Soul Gone Home , 1937
  • Don't you want to be free? , 1938
  • Simply Heavenly , 1957
  • Black Nativity , 1960.

German broadcasts

  • Langston Hughes with photographs by Roy DeCarava : Harlem Story. The Sweet Flypaper of Life / The sweet glue of life ; translated by Paridam von dem Knesebeck : Edition Langewiesche-Brandt, Ebenhausen near Munich 1956.
  • Hanna Meuter : I sing America too. Bilingual. Ed. And transl. Together with Paul Therstappen . Wolfgang Jess, Dresden 1932. With short biographies. 1st row: The new negro. The voice of the awakening Afro-America . Part 1; New edition ibid. 1959. pp. 86–91 and inlet.
  • Eva Hesse , Paridam von dem Knesebeck (ed.): Langston Hughes, poems . Langewiesche-Brandt, Ebenhausen near Munich 1960. Authorized transmissions by Eva Hesse.
  • Langston Hughes, poetry album , No. 40, Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1971. Translator: Stephan Hermlin, Eva Hesse.
  • Langston Hughes, 1902-1967 . Althea-Verlag, Zurich 2002. Translator: Norman Elrod.

Film adaptations

  • 1988: "Looking for Langston", British Film Institute (BFI)
  • 2000: Cora Unashamed

Aftermath

  • In honor of the poet, the City University of New York (CUNY) holds an annual Langston Hughes Festival and has awarded the Langston Hughes Medal since 1978 . The winners include Alice Walker (1988) and Wole Soyinka (2000).
  • Under the name Busboys and Poets , several bars have sprung up in and around the US capital Washington since 2005 , combining a restaurant, bookstore and cultural center. Hughes worked at times as an assistant waiter (English busboy).

Secondary literature

  • Monika Plessner : I am the darker brother · The literature of black Americans · From the spirituals to James Baldwin. Fischer Verlag Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-596-26454-5 , pp. 204-223.

Web links

Commons : Langston Hughes  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Langston Hughes  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Monika Plessner: I am the darker brother · The literature of black Americans · From the Spirituals to James Baldwin. Fischer Verlag Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-596-26454-5 , p. 13 ff.
  2. ↑ a b See Monika Plessner: I am the darker brother · The literature of black Americans · From the Spirituals to James Baldwin. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-596-26454-5 , pp. 209 f.
  3. ↑ a b See Monika Plessner: I am the darker brother · The literature of black Americans · From the Spirituals to James Baldwin. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-596-26454-5 , p. 210.
  4. ^ Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates Jr .: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience . Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-517055-9 , pp. 340 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Arthur Koestler: As a witness of time. The adventure of my life. Scherz, Bern / Munich 1983, ISBN 3-502-18388-0 ; Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-596-16143-6 , p. 171 f.
  6. ^ Members: Langston Hughes. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 5, 2019 .
  7. ^ CUNY, Langston Hughes Festival , accessed July 27, 2013
  8. ^ CUNY, recipient of the Langston Hughes Medal since 1978 , accessed July 27, 2013
  9. ↑ Homepage Busboys and Poets, “About us” , accessed on July 27, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Hughes, Langston
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hughes, James Langston
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Joplin , Missouri, USA
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1967
Place of death New York , New York, USA