Public domain photo of Langston Hughes, by Carl Van Vechten
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
A selective list of online literary criticism for African American poet Langston Hughes, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Sites
main page | 20th-century literary criticism | African American literature | Harlem Renaissance poets
introduction
"Langston Hughes." Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. Excerpts from reputable critical articles on Langston Hughes. Contents: "Hughes's Life and Career," by Arnold Rampersad; The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926); The Negro Speaks of Rivers; The Weary Blues; Harlem; The Cat and the Saxophone; Negro; Justice; Mulatto; Lynching Song; The Bitter River; Ku Klux; Letter from Spain; About the Spanish Civil War; A Hughes Spanish Civil War Broadside; Hughes, Negroes in Spain (1937); Goodbye Christ; Christ in Alabama; Claude McKay's The Negro's Tragedy and Langston Hughes' Christ in Alabama; Let America Be America Again; Flight; Madam and the Phone Bill; About Come to the Waldorf-Astoria; White Shadows; A Right-Wing Anti-Hughes Flier; The Backlash Blues; Hughes in the 1930s; To Negro Writers (1935); Three Hughes Book-Jackets; Hughes Bibliography; Three Songs about Lynching; About Lynching; About the Great Depression.
"Langston Hughes." A brief introduction to Langston Hughes, contextual articles for Harlem Renaissance poets, reliable text for some of most famous poems. Academy of American Poets.
"An Introduction to Langston Hughes." Extended essay on Langston Hughes's use of blues traditions and formal techniques, plus Q&A with Afaa Weaver, discussion questions, and suggested reading. Academy of American Poets.
"Langston Hughes." Encyclopedia-type introduction to the poet's themes, style and techniques, with a biography and samples of poems. Poetry Foundation, a project of Poetry magazine.
"Langston Hughes." A biography from educational publisher Gale/Cengage.
"The Black Poet as Canon-Maker: Langston Hughes, New Negro Poets, and American poetry's segregated past," by Elizabeth Alexander. Poetry Foundation.
An interview with Langston Hughes's biographer, Arnold Rampersad, by Don Swaim, November 19, 1988. "Intrigued by Hughes, Arnold Rampersad has researched every aspect of Hughes's life. From communist accusations to hospital problems, the trials and tribulations Hughes endured are discussed in this interview." Audio file at Wired for Books.
"Langston Hughes." Brief biography. "I Hear America Singing," PBS.
"Langston Hughes." A web site on Langston Hughes created by C-SPAN to accompany its American Writers series.
literary criticism
Banks, Kimberly. 'Like a Violin for the Wind to Play': Lyrical Approaches to Lynching by Hughes, Du Bois, and Toomer [and W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer]. African American Review Fall 2004.
Borden, Anne. "Heroic 'hussies' and 'brilliant queers': genderracial resistance in the works of Langston Hughes." African American Review Fall 1994.
Dawahare, Anthony. "Langston Hughes' Radical Poetry and the 'End of Race.'" Melus Fall 1998 [first page of article only].
Evans, Nicholas M. Evans. A review of Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. Melus 22 (Spring, 1997) [first page of article only].
Giaimo, Paul. "Ethnic outsiders: the hyper-ethnicized narrator in Langston Hughes and Fred L. Gardaphe." Melus Fall 2003.
Hammer, Langdon. "Lecture 15 - Langston Hughes." "The poetry of Langston Hughes is considered as a representation of the African-American experience. The distinctive concerns of Hughes's poetic project are juxtaposed with the works of other modernists, such as [Ezra] Pound, [T.S.] Eliot, [Robert] Frost, and [Wallace] Stevens. Hughes's interest in and innovative use of musical forms, such as blues and jazz, is explored with particular attention to their role in African-American culture, as well as their use by Hughes to forge an alternative to dominant modes of expression within the modernist canon" [1 lecture]. Audio, video, and transcript from Professor Hammer's class at Yale, ENGL 310: Modern Poetry, Spring, 2007.
Johnson, Dianne, ed. A review of The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for Children and Young Adults: Poetry, Fiction, and Other Writing. Vol. 11 (U of Missouri P 2003). Reviewed in Melus Spring 2005, by R. Baxter Miller.
Kim, Daniel Won-gu. "'We, Too, Rise with You': Recovering Langston Hughes's African Turn 1954-1960." African American Review Fall 2007.
Lamb, Robert Paul. "'A Little Yellow Bastard Boy': Paternal Rejection, Filial Insistence, and the Triumph of African American Cultural Aesthetics in Langston Hughes's 'Mulatto.'" College Literature Spring 2008 [first page only].
Maryemma, Graham. "Langston Hughes Centennial, 1902-1967." On the lasting influence of Langston Hughes in Crisis, an early publisher of his work. New Crisis Jan./Feb. 2002 [subscription service].
Metress, Christopher. "Langston Hughes's 'Mississippi-1955': A Note on Revisions and an Appeal for Reconsideration." African American Review Spring 2003.
Miller, R. Baxter. "Reinvention and Globalization in Hughes's Stories." Melus Spring 2005 [first half of article only].
Moore, Marlon Rachquel. "Black Church, Black Patriarchy, and the 'Brilliant Queer': Competing Masculinities in Langston Hughes's 'Blessed Assurance'" [Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood]. African American Review Fall-Winter 2008.
Nichols, Charles H., ed. "Langston Hughes." Teaching Hughes, his themes, style, blues lyrics. From educational publisher Heath.
Opoku-Agyemang, Naana; Paul E. Lovejoy; David V. Trotman, eds. Africa and Trans-Atlantic Memories: Literary and Aesthetic Manifestations of Diaspora and History. Africa World 2008.
Patterson, Anita. "And bid him translate: Langston Hughes's translations of poetry from French." African American Review Fall 2007.
Rampersad, Arnold. On Newly Discovered Langston Hughes Poems. "Facing racism every day with the Great Depression looming, Hughes wrote these political poems on the inside covers of a book." Poetry Foundation.
Sanders, Leslie Catherine. "'I've Wrestled with Them all My Life': Langston Hughes's Tambourines to Glory." On Langston Hughes's treatment of religious subjects. Black American Literature Forum 25, 1: The Black Church and the Black Theatre (Spring, 1991) [first page of article only].
Scott, Jonathan. "Advanced, repressed, and popular: Langston Hughes during the cold war." College Literature 2006 [first page only]
Simms-Burton, Michele L. Not So Simple: The "Simple" Stories By Langston Hughes. Studies in Short Fiction Summer 1997.
Smethurst, James. "Lyric Stars: Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes." In Hutchinson, George, ed. The Cambridge Companion to The Harlem Renaissance (Cambridge UP 2007). Publisher's site, which provides an excerpt through the "Look Inside" tab.
Thurston, Michael. "Black Christ, red flag: Langston Hughes on Scottsboro." College Literature Oct. 1995 [first page only].
Tkweme, W.S. "Blues in Stereo: The Texts of Langston Hughes in Jazz Music." On performances of Hughes's texts by jazz musicians. African American Review Fall-Winter 2008.
web sites
Draft of Langston Hughes's "Ballad of Booker T." [Booker T. Washington] A digital image of the Langston Hughes's typescript, with his autograph revisions, for "Ballad of Booker T." The Langston Hughes Collection at the Library of Congress.
The Langston Hughes National Poetry Project. From a centennial symposium on Langston Hughes, streaming audio files of lectures (which are also available in text) include the keynote address by Dr. Arnold Rampersad, the biographer of Langston Hughes. Also, streaming audio of "Remembering Langston" presentations by Ishmael Reed, Mari Evans, Roy DeCarava, and Sherry Turner; and streaming audio files on the following topics by authorities on Langston Hughes: 'Caged in the Circus of Civilization': The Life and Times of Langston Hughes: "From Boys to Men: The Challenge of Black Male (Auto)Biography," John Edgar Tidwell, Hazel Rowley, and Amritjit Singh. "Revisiting the Harlem Renaissance," Emily Bernard and Cary D. Wintz. 'That Tune that Laughs and Cries': Modernist Inventions and Interventions in the Writings of Langston Hughes: "Plain and Simple Folk," Akiba Sullivan Harper, John Lowe, and Trudier Harris-Lopez. "Negro Mothers, Midnight Dancers, and Madame Alberta K. Johnson: Hughes Womenfolk," Valerie Boyd, Thadious Davis, and Sandra Govan. "Hughes from Blues to Bop to Hip-Hop," Steven Tracy, Guenter Lenz, Amiri Baraka, and Kevin Powell. "Hughes on Stage," Leslie Sanders, Olga Barrios, and Val Gray Ward. "Teaching Langston Hughes: A Workshop," William Cook and Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper. "The Collected Works of Langston Hughes Editorial Collective," Chris De Santis, Dolan Hubbard, Dellita Martin-Ogunsola, Joseph McLaren, R. Baxter Miller, Leslie Sanders, and Arnold Rampersad. In the Company of Langston: An Appreciation and Critical Reassessment: "Performing the Word: The Hughes Legacy," Fahamisha 'Patricia Brown, Jerry Ward, and Joan Stone. "Hughes Criticism and the Critics," Onwuchekwa Jemie, Nikolay Anastasyev, and R. Baxter Miller. "I've Known Rivers": Hughes and the Geographies of Place: "A World of Words: From the Midwest to Moscow," Katie Armitage, Elizabeth Schultz, and Alexei Zverev. "Hughes in Asia and Africa," Hiroko Sato, Mamadou Kandji, and Chiekh Amadou Dieng. "Searching for Color Everywhere," Lorenzo Thomas, Edward Mullen, and Ugo Rubeo. "Multiple Passings," James Stevens, George Hutchinson and Juda Bennett. Much more is available at this excellent site, including lesson plans. Univ. of Kansas.
An online exhibit of material related to Langston Hughes, from the Beinecke Library at Yale.
Information about ordering Langston Hughes: Working Towards Salvation (2003), a film by Bruce R. Schwartz, based on Hughes's autobiographical sketch, "Salvation," which appeared in his 1940 autobiography, The Big Sea, and additional biographical material.
main page | 20th-century literary criticism | African American literature | Harlem Renaissance poets
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