Let America Be America Again
Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poesy and writes extensively on the subject area. His poems are published online and in print.
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes And A Summary of "Let America Be America Again"
"Permit America Be America Again" focuses on the idea of the American dream and how, for many, attaining freedom, equality, and happiness, which the dream encapsulates, is nearly on impossible.
The speaker in the poem outlines the reasons why this ideal America has gone, or never was, just could still be.
For the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the reality of day to day beingness makes the dream a cruel illusion. The verse form explores the darker areas of life, the history of exploitation for example, and outlines the unique struggles of the poor who brand up America, both black and white.
Whilst pessimistic and hard hitting, the verse form does have an optimistic ending and lights the manner frontwards with hope.
Langston Hughes was going through a difficult period in his life when he wrote this poem. He knew he wanted to earn a living through writing, only couldn't sustain his efforts, despite poetry book publication, most notably The Weary Blues.
It was on a railroad train journey through Depression-struck America in 1935 that inspired him to pen this classic plea for a resurgence of the true American spirit.
Publication followed in the Esquire mag and Hughes went on to get a noted if controversial figure in the world of black literature, following his before work in the so-called Harlem Renaissance, an upbeat blackness artistic movement peaking in the 1920s.
"Let America Be America Over 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.
Allow America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Allow it be the dream information technology used to be.
Permit it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a habitation where he himself is gratis.
Whorl to Proceed
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(America never was America to me.)
Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That whatever man be crushed by ane in a higher place.
(Information technology never was America to me.)
O, permit my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is existent, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(In that location'south never been equality for me,
Nor liberty in this "homeland of the gratuitous.")
Say, who are yous that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro begetting slavery's scars.
I am the red homo driven from the country,
I am the immigrant clutching the promise I seek—
And finding but the same old stupid program
Of dog swallow dog, of mighty trounce the weak.
I am the young human being, full of forcefulness and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gilded! Of grab the means of satisfying need!
Of piece of work the men! Of accept the pay!
Of owning everything for one's ain 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 even so today—O, Pioneers!
I am the homo who never got alee,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
However I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, then true,
That fifty-fifty still its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the human who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'one thousand the one who left night Republic of ireland'due south shore,
And Poland'south apparently, and England'due south grassy lea,
And torn from Blackness Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The gratuitous?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when nosotros strike?
The millions who have cypher for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's most dead today.
O, permit America be America again—
The land that never has been however—
And yet must be—the land where every human is free.
The land that's mine—the poor human being's, Indian'southward, Negro's,
ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose manus at the foundry, whose plough in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, telephone call me any ugly name you lot choose—
The steel of liberty does non stain.
From those who alive like leeches on the people'southward lives,
We must accept dorsum our land again,
America!
O, aye, I say it apparently,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
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 countless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
Line-By-Line Analysis of "Let America Be America Again"
This whole verse form is a crying out, a passionate plea for America to re-establish the Dream. It is a kind of personal hymn, a lyrical speech, to freedom and equality. To enable that plea to be heard and felt, the speaker has to have the reader through some dark times, through history, to explicate merely why that Dream needs to live once again.
Lines 1 - iv
Alternate rhyme, repetition and ingemination are all at play in this the showtime stanza, almost a song lyric. It's a direct phone call for the onetime America to be brought back to life once again, to exist revived.
Note the mention of the pioneer, those first seekers of freedom who with tremendous will and effort established themselves a home, against all the odds.
Line 5
Almost as an bated, but highly pregnant, the single line in parentheses reveals that, for the speaker, America as an platonic but hasn't happened. For him, this romantic notion of the American Dream never has been. Why is that?
Lines 6 - ix
The second lyrical quatrain, with like rhyme pattern, places stronger accent on the dream, the original vision people had for the United states of america, one of love and equality. At that place would exist no feudal system in identify, no dictatorships - everyone would exist equal.
Note the contrast of the language used here. There is the dream and love of those who would be equal, against those who would connive, scheme and crush.
Line 10
Another line in parentheses, as if the speaker is quietly reasserting his inner voice - 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 11 - xiv
The third quatrain, with alternate rhyme for familiarity, highlights the outer ideals - the dressing upwardly of Liberty merely for testify, which is phoney patriotism. The capital Fifty reinforces the idea that this could be the Statue of Liberty, the famous icon, based on a goddess, who holds the Declaration of Independence in one paw and the torch in the other. Broken chains lie at her feet.
The plea continues, to make the dream possible, to brand information technology manifest in opportunity and equality, for all. The suggestion that equality could be in the air people breathe, ways that equality should be a natural given, part of the fabric that keeps us all alive, sharing the common air.
Lines 15 - 16
The rhyming couplet in parentheses once over again repeats that, for the speaker personally, equality has been out of achieve, perhaps just has never existed. Aforementioned goes for freedom. (Homeland of the gratuitous - could be based on the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics 'land of the free.')
Further Analysis
Lines 17 - 18
In italics for special reasons, these lines, 2 questions, correspond a turning point in the poem; they are a dissimilar aspect of the speaker's identity. These 2 questions look back, questioning the speaker's negativity (in parentheses) and besides look frontwards.
The metaphor of the veil has biblical connections (in Corinthians) alluding to a concealment of reality, of not beingness able to come across the truth.
Lines 19 - 24
The first of the sextets, vi lines which limited yet another attribute of the speaker, who now speaks as and for, one of the oppressed, in the first person, I am. All the same, this voice likewise expresses the collective, articulating a mass sentiment.
And annotation that all types of person are included: white, blackness, native American, the immigrant. All are subject field to the brutal contest and the hierarchical systems imposed upon them.
Lines 25 - 30
The 2d sextet focuses on the beau, any swain no matter, caught 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 commercialism encourages simply selfishness at any expense.
Lines 31 - 38
Again, use of the repeated phrase I am brings abode the bulletin loud and articulate in this octet: the system is cruellest to those who are poorest. From the farmer to the servant, from the state to the fine houses of the wealthy, for many the Dream means only hunger and poverty.
Workers go de-humanized, become mere numbers and are treated as if they are commodities or money.
Lines 39 - 50
The longest stanza in the poem, 12 lines, concentrates on the history of those immigrants who dreamt of central freedoms in the outset identify. This is the roughshod irony. Those fleeing poverty, state of war and oppression; those forced to leave their native lands, had this dream inside, a dream of being truly free in a new land.
They travelled to America in the hope of realizing this dream. People from Old Europe, many from Africa, all set out for a new life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Thomas Jefferson).
More Line Past Line Analysis
Line 51
A unmarried line, another strong question. The previous twelve lines (the previous 50 lines) all led to this acute point. A simple yet searching ask.
Lines 52 - 61
The next 10 lines explore this notion of the free. Only the speaker seems perplexed - where did this crazy question originate? Information technology's as if the speaker doesn't know himself any longer, or the reasons why the question of the costless should arise. Just exactly who are the complimentary?
At that place are millions with little or naught. When labor is withdrawn and legitimate protest arranged, the government counteract with the bullet. Protestation songs and banners and hope count for little - 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 middle, this time more personal - ME - yet taking in many unlike types of people.
In these ix lines the reader truly gets to know the speaker's intention and demand. Freedom for all. It's near a call to rise up and take back what belongs to the many and not the few.
Lines 71 - 75
No affair the corruption, the pursuit of liberty is pure and potent. Those who have exploited the poor and sucked out their lifeblood (note the simile - like leeches) need to start thinking again virtually ownership and rights to property.
Lines 76 - 79
A short quatrain, a kind of summing up of the speaker's whole accept on the American Dream. A direct annunciation - the Dream will manifest at some time. It has to.
Lines fourscore - 86
The final septet concludes that, out of the erstwhile rotten, criminal system, the people volition renew and refresh and rebuild something wholesome and sustainable. At that place remains promise that the cherished ideal - America - can be fabricated good again.
Literary Devices in Permit America Be America Again
Let America Be America Once more is an 86 line poem split into 17 stanzas, iii of which are unmarried lines, two of which are couplets. In addition, there are four quatrains, two sextets, 1 octet, a twelve liner, 10 liner, nine liner, quintet, and a vii liner.
The layout is quite unusual. On the folio the poem looks more like an extended vocal lyric, with quatrains followed past single lines and very short lines turning up in mid-stanza.
Allow's take a closer await at the literary devices:
Rhyme Scheme
Rhymes tend to bring familiarity and help reinforce meaning. In poetry, there are unproblematic rhyme schemes and there are challenging ones. In this poem the rhyming pattern starts in a conventional manner just gradually becomes more complex.
For case, take a look at the commencement vi stanzas:
- abab - (b) - cdcd - (b) - bebe - (bb)
This is relatively piece of cake 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/free/me/free.
The full cease rhymes leave the reader in no doubt about one of the main themes of this verse form - liberty and me. A strong pairing ensures a memorable bail.
So, the first 16 lines are straightforward enough. Subsequently this the rhyme scheme gradually loses its regular pattern and becomes stretched.
- However further down the line so to speak, in that location are yet loose echoes of the familiar alternating pattern established at the beginning of the poem.
Each of the larger stanzas contains some form of total rhyme, or full and slant rhyme:
soil/all with machine/mean and become/gratuitous with lea/costless.
Slant rhyme tends to challenge the reader because it is most to total rhyme but isn't total rhyme to the ear, as in soil/all. It means things aren't clicking in full, they're a little bit out of harmony.
As the poem progresses, rhyme becomes more intermittent and tends to condense in certain stanzas, equally in stanza 13, pay/today and stanza fourteen, pain/pelting/again. The poet's aim with such concentrated rhyme is to make the words stick in the reader'due south 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 event to chanting, reinforcing significant and giving the experience of power and aggregating of free energy.
From the first stanza - Permit America/Allow it exist/Permit it exist - to the concluding - The land, the plants, the mines, the rivers - there are repeats. Some critics have likened them to song lyrics, others to parts of a political speech, where ideas and images are built up over again and once more.
Alliteration
There are numerous examples of alliterative lines - when words with leading consonants are shut together - which bring texture and involvement to lines and a claiming to the reader.
In the first 4 stanzas:
pioneer on the plain/dwelling where he himself/dream the dreamers dreamed/state be a land where Liberty/slavery's scars.
Enjambment
Enjambment, when a line continues without punctuation on into the adjacent, keeping the flow of sense, occurs in several stanzas. Look out for the 'open' cease lines which encourage the reader to not suspension just go on straight into the next line.
For example:
Let it be the pioneer on the manifestly
Seeking a home where he himself is freeast.
and again:
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
Metaphor
Tangled in that countless aboriginal chain
of profit, ability, gain, of catch the land!
Personification
That even even so its mighty daring sing
in every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
Sources
www.poets.org
Norton Anthology,Norton, 2005
https://uwc.utexas.edu
100 Essential Modern Poems, Ivan Dee, Joseph Parisi, 2005
© 2017 Andrew Spacey
loughlinmosee1948.blogspot.com
Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Let-America-Be-America-Again-by-Langston-Hughes