Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes

• Vanessa Chung, Melissa Feriozzo, Sofia
  Ferreyro-Mazieres

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Langston Hughes

• Birth February 1, 1902.
• Place of Birth Joplin, Missouri.
• Ethnicity African American
• Education White school in Topeka, KS
• Death May 22, 1967.

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Langston Hughes

• Honors and Awards
• - A leading runner and high jumper
• - In 1921, he published his first poem, The Negro
  Speaks of Rivers, in Crisis magazine.
• - In May 1925 his first book was The Weary Blues
  it got first place in poetry.
• - In 1967, his last book of poetry, The Panther
  and the Lash, was published.

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Langston Hughes

• Interesting Facts
• - In 1925, Hughes showed his work to American
  poet Vachel Lindsay. The following day, the media
  identified him as the "busboy poet."
• - Hughes wrote the lyrics for the 1947 opera
  Street Scene.

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Love Song for Lucinda

•  
• Love
• Is a ripe plum
• Growing on a purple tree.
• Taste it once
• And the spell of its enchantment
• Will never let you be.
• Love
• Is a bright star
• Glowing in far Southern skies.
• Look too hard
• And its burning flame
• Will always hurt your eyes.
• Love
• Is a high mountain
• Stark in a windy sky.
• If you
• Would never lose your breath
• Do not climb too high.

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes - 1994.
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Theme

• - Love is bittersweet enchanting, but hurtful
• - The speaker is talking from his own experience
  with love
• - Love can be kind, yet also painful
• - Take chances with love, because it will reward
  you, but be careful because love can be dangerous
• - Dont look too hard for love, but let it come
  to you

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Lines That Show Theme

• - Taste it once
• And the spell of its enchantment
• Will never let you be.
• - Look too hard
• And its burning flame
• Will always hurt your eyes.
• - If you
• Would never lose your breath
• Do not climb too high.

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Figurative Language

• - Love is compared to different objects in each
  stanza - metaphors
• - The readers can grasp a better understanding of
  love through the use of examples
• - There are three different analogies of love,
  that show it can be sweet, hurtful, and dangerous
• - Metaphors help portray the theme in this poem
  because the author shows how different three
  objects are, yet they can all represent love
• - Figurative language helps enhance the theme by
  directly comparing love to inanimate items

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Lines That Show Figurative Language

• - Love Is a ripe plum
• - Love Is a bright star
• - Love Is a high mountain

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Imagery

• Use of vivid or figurative language to represent
  objects, actions, or ideas.
• In this poem, Langston Hughes allows us to
  visualize and picture the different thoughts he
  is feeling.
• Imagery is used for a reader to feel the poem,
  not just understand it.
• Enhances the theme by
• Putting images into the readers mind so they
  can imagine the setting and tone more clearly.

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Imagery Examples

• Growing on a purple tree. makes poem come more
  alive because we are able to picture this tree
  growing out of the ground with a different
  appearance since it is purple.
• High Mountain, stark in a windy sky. This
  example allows us to see images of the mountains
  and feel the wind blowing across our face.
• bright star, glowing in far southern skies
  allows us to picture a beautiful shining star
  looking down at us from the sky, but then he
  writes and its burning flame, which switches
  our image to a painful, flaming fire. This
  demonstrates that love can be beautiful but it
  can also hurt you or cause pain in your heart if
  you get too attached.

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Figures Of Sound

• Rhyme this poem is a free verse poem, therefore
  there is no set rhyme pattern, but when read
  aloud, you can hear the rhyme between each line,
  for example, Growing on a purple tree / Will
  never let you be.
• An interesting figure of sound that is discovered
  when this poem is read out loud, is that Langston
  Hughes wanted you to read the end of the poem as
  if you were out of breath
• If you
• Would never lose your breath
• Do not climb too high.

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Figures Of Sound

• Consonance
• windy sky

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Goodbye My Lover - James Blunt

• 'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun, Yes I saw
  you were blinded and I knew I had won. So I took
  what's mine by eternal right. Took your soul out
  into the night. It may be over but it won't stop
  there, I am here for you if you'd only care. You
  touched my heart you touched my soul. You changed
  my life and all my goals. And love is blind and
  that I knew when, My heart was blinded by you.

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Works Cited

• Langston Hughes. Encarta. 21 Jan. 2005.
  http//encarta.msn.com/media_461577250_761556401_-
  1_1/Langston_Hughes_Quick_Facts.html
• Langston Hughes. Books and Writers. 2003. 21
  Jan. 2005. http//www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lhughes.htm