Langston Hughes uses countless themes throughout his poetry. Some important themes noticed in his works are music, dignity, racism, survival, collective memory, and american identity. My analysis focuses on two main themes that are prevalent in his poems. These are collective memory and american identity.

Hughes poems seem to focus more on being accepted into the American culture, than they do about accepted the African heritage of African Americans. An idea of focusing more on the American than on the African. Cullen’s poems seem to focus a lot more on the African heritage than on being an African American.

Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers Theme of Perseverance. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” as our speaker charts the heritage of black Americans, beginning with the cradle of civilization in the Middle East and ending with references to slavery as seen from the Mississippi River, he traces over four thousand years of history.

In addition to giving a voice to black immigrants, McKay was one of the first African-American poets of the Harlem Renaissance. As such, he influenced later poets, including Langston Hughes. He paved the way for black poets to discuss the conditions and racism that they faced in their poems.

Early Life and Influences He was greatly influenced by his African pride and love of British poetry. His other influences were Walter Jekyll and Uriah McKay. Uriah McKay was Claude’s brother and a schoolteacher. He helped Claude study the British masters and European philosophers.

The poem ends with “little lads, lynchers that were to be, / Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee” again, playing on pathos by making the reader feel distraught that young children would find amusement in dancing around the corpse, and by the perpetuation of a hate culture.

Deceased (1889–1948)

‘America’ by Claude McKay balances ideas of loving and hating the United States. McKay explores the good parts of the country, the strength and vigor it contains as well as the bad. Yet, he also comments on the ‘bitterness’, violence, and corruption the country is known for.

The theme of the poem is don’t give up hope or fight through the problem. In the poem he says “she steals my breath of life, I will confess i love this cultured hell that tests my youth.” Giving through life as an African American is hard I will work hard to make it better is what I think that he is trying to say.

McKay’s poem is a 14 line “Shakespearean” sonnet about America—though we only know that from the title, as McKay never references America in the poem itself.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “America” “America” is a sonnet, and, more specifically, an English sonnet. This form consists of 14 lines divided into three quatrains followed by a final couplet.