Let America Be America Again- Poem by Langston Hughes

Andrew has a not bad interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject area. His poems are published online and in print.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes And A Summary of "Permit America Be America Again"

"Let America Exist America Once more" focuses on the idea of the American dream and how, for many, attaining freedom, equality, and happiness, which the dream encapsulates, is about on impossible.

The speaker in the verse form outlines the reasons why this ideal America has gone, or never was, but could still be.

For the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the reality of day to day existence makes the dream a brutal illusion. The poem explores the darker areas of life, the history of exploitation for case, and outlines the unique struggles of the poor who make up America, both blackness and white.

Whilst pessimistic and hard hitting, the poem does accept an optimistic catastrophe and lights the way forward with hope.

Langston Hughes was going through a difficult menstruation in his life when he wrote this verse form. He knew he wanted to earn a living through writing, simply couldn't sustain his efforts, despite verse volume publication, most notably The Weary Blues.

It was on a railroad train journeying through Low-struck America in 1935 that inspired him to pen this classic plea for a resurgence of the truthful American spirit.

Publication followed in the Esquire mag and Hughes went on to become a noted if controversial effigy in the world of blackness literature, post-obit his earlier work in the so-chosen Harlem Renaissance, an upbeat black creative movement peaking in the 1920s.

"Let America Exist America Again" reflects the many influences in Hughes's poetry - from the expansive piece of work of Whitman to street linguistic communication, from jazz rhythm to the steady iambic lines of earlier black poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Let America Exist America Over again

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it exist the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

Curl to Go on

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(America never was America to me.)

Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Permit it exist that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That whatsoever man be crushed past 1 above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, permit my country be a land where Freedom

Is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath,

Merely opportunity is real, and life is gratis,

Equality is in the air we exhale.

(At that place's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the costless.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil beyond the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro begetting slavery'due south scars.

I am the carmine man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding but the same old stupid plan

Of dog consume domestic dog, of mighty beat the weak.

I am the young man, total of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, ability, gain, of grab the land!

Of catch the golden! Of grab the means of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for i'south own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten all the same today—O, Pioneers!

I am the human being who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'1000 the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream then potent, and so brave, so true,

That fifty-fifty notwithstanding its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That'south made America the land it has get.

O, I'thou the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'yard the 1 who left nighttime Ireland's shore,

And Poland'south plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa'due south strand I came

To build a "homeland of the complimentary."

The free?

Who said the gratis? Not me?

Surely non me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when nosotros strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes nosotros've held

And all the flags nosotros've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that'due south almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The country that never has been even so—

And yet must be—the country where every man is costless.

The land that's mine—the poor human'south, Indian'southward, Negro's,

ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Certain, telephone call me whatsoever ugly proper name you choose—

The steel of liberty does non stain.

From those who live similar leeches on the people's lives,

We must accept back our country again,

America!

O, yeah, I say it apparently,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will exist!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster expiry,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And brand America again!

Line-Past-Line Analysis of "Let America Be America Again"

This whole poem is a crying out, a passionate plea for America to re-establish the Dream. It is a kind of personal hymn, a lyrical voice communication, to freedom and equality. To enable that plea to exist heard and felt, the speaker has to take the reader through some nighttime times, through history, to explain just why that Dream needs to alive again.

Lines one - 4

Alternating rhyme, repetition and alliteration are all at play in this the beginning stanza, most a song lyric. It'southward a direct call for the quondam America to exist brought dorsum to life once again, to be revived.

Note the mention of the pioneer, those outset seekers of freedom who with tremendous will and endeavour established themselves a home, confronting all the odds.

Line 5

Near as an aside, but highly significant, the unmarried line in parentheses reveals that, for the speaker, America equally an ideal just hasn't happened. For him, this romantic notion of the American Dream never has been. Why is that?

Lines vi - 9

The second lyrical quatrain, with similar rhyme design, places stronger emphasis on the dream, the original vision people had for the USA, one of love and equality. At that place would be no feudal system in place, no dictatorships - everyone would be equal.

Annotation the contrast of the linguistic communication used here. There is the dream and love of those who would exist equal, against those who would connive, scheme and vanquish.

Line 10

Another line in parentheses, as if the speaker is quietly reasserting his inner voice - over again making the indicate that this America hasn't existed for him, implying that he is far from the Dream. He is dubious to say the least.

Lines eleven - 14

The third quatrain, with alternating rhyme for familiarity, highlights the outer ideals - the dressing up of Liberty merely for show, which is phoney patriotism. The capital 50 reinforces the thought that this could be the Statue of Liberty, the famous icon, based on a goddess, who holds the Announcement of Independence in one hand and the torch in the other. Cleaved chains lie at her feet.

The plea continues, to make the dream possible, to get in manifest in opportunity and equality, for all. The proposition that equality could be in the air people breathe, means that equality should be a natural given, role of the fabric that keeps u.s.a. all live, sharing the mutual air.

Lines 15 - 16

The rhyming couplet in parentheses once again repeats that, for the speaker personally, equality has been out of reach, perhaps simply has never existed. Same goes for liberty. (Homeland of the costless - could exist based on the Star-Spangled Imprint lyrics 'land of the free.')

Farther Analysis

Lines 17 - 18

In italics for special reasons, these lines, 2 questions, represent a turning bespeak in the poem; they are a different aspect of the speaker'due south identity. These 2 questions look back, questioning the speaker's negativity (in parentheses) and also await forward.

The metaphor of the veil has biblical connections (in Corinthians) alluding to a darkening of reality, of not being able to see the truth.

Lines 19 - 24

The first of the sextets, six lines which limited yet some other aspect of the speaker, who now speaks as and for, ane of the oppressed, in the first person, I am. Notwithstanding, this vocalization also expresses the collective, articulating a mass sentiment.

And note that all types of person are included: white, blackness, native American, the immigrant. All are field of study to the brutal competition and the hierarchical systems imposed upon them.

Lines 25 - thirty

The second sextet focuses on the swain, any fellow no matter, defenseless up in the industrial chaos of profit for profit's sake, where greed is good and power is the ultimate goal. The ugly, unacceptable face of capitalism encourages just selfishness at any expense.

Lines 31 - 38

Again, use of the repeated phrase I am brings dwelling the message loud and articulate in this octet: the system is cruellest to those who are poorest. From the farmer to the servant, from the land to the fine houses of the wealthy, for many the Dream means only hunger and poverty.

Workers get de-humanized, get mere numbers and are treated equally if they are bolt or money.

Lines 39 - 50

The longest stanza in the poem, 12 lines, concentrates on the history of those immigrants who dreamt of fundamental freedoms in the offset place. This is the roughshod irony. Those fleeing poverty, war and oppression; those forced to go out their native lands, had this dream inside, a dream of being truly complimentary in a new land.

They travelled to America in the promise of realizing this dream. People from Sometime Europe, many from Africa, all set out for a new life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Thomas Jefferson).

More Line By Line Analysis

Line 51

A single line, another potent question. The previous twelve lines (the previous 50 lines) all led to this acute betoken. A simple yet searching ask.

Lines 52 - 61

The adjacent ten lines explore this notion of the costless. But the speaker seems perplexed - where did this crazy question originate? Information technology's equally if the speaker doesn't know himself any longer, or the reasons why the question of the free should arise. Simply exactly who are the free?

There are millions with little or cipher. When labor is withdrawn and legitimate protest bundled, the authorities annul with the bullet. Protest songs and banners and hope count for piddling - all that's left is a barely breathing dream.

Lines 62 - 70

The speaker takes a deep breath and repeats the opening line, only with more emotional input.....O, let America be America again. This is a plea from the heart, this time more personal - ME - however taking in many different types of people.

In these ix lines the reader truly gets to know the speaker's intention and need. Liberty for all. It's almost a call to ascension up and accept back what belongs to the many and not the few.

Lines 71 - 75

No matter the corruption, the pursuit of freedom is pure and stiff. Those who have exploited the poor and sucked out their lifeblood (note the simile - like leeches) need to start thinking once again nearly buying and rights to property.

Lines 76 - 79

A curt quatrain, a kind of summing up of the speaker's whole have on the American Dream. A direct declaration - the Dream will manifest at some time. It has to.

Lines 80 - 86

The final septet concludes that, out of the old rotten, criminal system, the people will renew and refresh and rebuild something wholesome and sustainable. There remains hope that the cherished ideal - America - can be made adept over again.

Literary Devices in Permit America Be America Again

Allow America Exist America Once more is an 86 line poem split into 17 stanzas, three of which are unmarried lines, ii of which are couplets. In addition, at that place are 4 quatrains, 2 sextets, 1 octet, a twelve liner, ten liner, nine liner, quintet, and a seven liner.

The layout is quite unusual. On the page the verse form looks more like an extended song lyric, with quatrains followed by single lines and very short lines turning up in mid-stanza.

Let'south take a closer look at the literary devices:

Rhyme Scheme

Rhymes tend to bring familiarity and help reinforce meaning. In poesy, at that place are unproblematic rhyme schemes and at that place are challenging ones. In this poem the rhyming pattern starts in a conventional fashion but gradually becomes more circuitous.

For case, take a expect at the outset six stanzas:

• abab - (b) - cdcd - (b) - bebe - (bb)

This is relatively easy to follow. There is an alternating pattern in the first 3 quatrains, with the strong full vowel rhyme e dominant:

be/free/me/me/Liberty/gratis/me/gratuitous.

The full stop rhymes leave the reader in no doubt well-nigh one of the main themes of this poem - freedom and me. A strong pairing ensures a memorable bail.

So, the kickoff 16 lines are straightforward plenty. Later on this the rhyme scheme gradually loses its regular pattern and becomes stretched.

• Even so farther downward the line and so to speak, there are still loose echoes of the familiar alternating blueprint established at the beginning of the poem.

Each of the larger stanzas contains some form of full rhyme, or total and slant rhyme:

soil/all with automobile/mean and go/free with lea/free.

Slant rhyme tends to claiming the reader considering information technology is near to full rhyme but isn't total rhyme to the ear, as in soil/all. It means things aren't clicking in total, they're a little chip out of harmony.

As the verse form progresses, rhyme becomes more intermittent and tends to condense in certain stanzas, equally in stanza 13, pay/today and stanza 14, pain/rain/again. The poet's aim with such concentrated rhyme is to make the words stick in the reader's mind and memory.

Literary Device (2)

Anaphora

Repetition plays an important office in this verse form and occurs throughout. When words and phrases are repeated this has a similar effect to chanting, reinforcing meaning and giving the feel of power and accumulation of energy.

From the offset stanza - Let America/Let information technology be/Allow it exist - to the terminal - The land, the plants, the mines, the rivers - there are repeats. Some critics take likened them to song lyrics, others to parts of a political voice communication, where ideas and images are congenital up again and over again.

Alliteration

There are numerous examples of alliterative lines - when words with leading consonants are shut together - which bring texture and interest to lines and a challenge to the reader.

In the first four stanzas:

pioneer on the apparently/home where he himself/dream the dreamers dreamed/country be a country where Freedom/slavery's scars.

Enjambment

Enjambment, when a line continues without punctuation on into the side by side, keeping the menses of sense, occurs in several stanzas. Await out for the 'open' stop lines which encourage the reader to not pause only continue directly into the next line.

For instance:

Let information technology be the pioneer on the plainly

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

and once more:

Nosotros, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

Metaphor

Tangled in that endless ancient chain

of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Personification

That fifty-fifty however its mighty daring sing

in every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

Sources

world wide web.poets.org

Norton Album,Norton, 2005

https://uwc.utexas.edu

100 Essential Mod Poems, Ivan Dee, Joseph Parisi, 2005

© 2017 Andrew Spacey

barkerputed1944.blogspot.com

Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Let-America-Be-America-Again-by-Langston-Hughes

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