Which Groups Are Represented in the Poem Let America Be America Again.

Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject. His poems are published online and in print.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes And A Summary of "Let America Exist America Over again"

"Allow America Be America Again" focuses on the thought of the American dream and how, for many, attaining freedom, equality, and happiness, which the dream encapsulates, is nearly on incommunicable.

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

For the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the reality of twenty-four hour period to day existence makes the dream a cruel illusion. The poem explores the darker areas of life, the history of exploitation for instance, and outlines the unique struggles of the poor who brand up America, both black and white.

Whilst pessimistic and hard hitting, the poem does accept an optimistic ending and lights the way frontward 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, but couldn't sustain his efforts, despite poetry book publication, about notably The Weary Dejection.

It was on a train journey through Depression-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 magazine and Hughes went on to become a noted if controversial figure in the world of black literature, following his earlier work in the and so-called Harlem Renaissance, an upbeat black artistic motion peaking in the 1920s.

"Let America Be America Again" reflects the many influences in Hughes's poetry - from the expansive work of Whitman to street language, from jazz rhythm to the steady iambic lines of earlier blackness poets such every bit Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Let America Exist America Again

Let America be America again.

Permit it exist the dream information technology used to be.

Allow it exist the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is gratuitous.

Scroll to Go on

Read More From Owlcation

(America never was America to me.)

Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of dear

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any human exist crushed by i above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a country where Freedom

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

Just opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we exhale.

(There'southward never been equality for me,

Nor liberty in this "homeland of the gratis.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

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

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same sometime stupid program

Of domestic dog eat dog, of mighty trounce the weak.

I am the young human, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of turn a profit, power, proceeds, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for i's ain greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the automobile.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, apprehensive, hungry, mean—

Hungry even so today despite the dream.

Browbeaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got alee,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'chiliad the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream and then strong, so dauntless, and so truthful,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That'southward fabricated America the land information technology has become.

O, I'yard the human who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to exist my home—

For I'yard the one who left nighttime Ireland'southward shore,

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

And torn from Black Africa'south strand I came

To build a "homeland of the costless."

The gratis?

Who said the free? Non me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot downwards when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams nosotros'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 nada for our pay—

Except the dream that'southward nearly dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must exist—the state where every man is free.

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

ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose religion and pain,

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

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Certain, phone call me any ugly name you lot cull—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

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

We must have dorsum our land again,

America!

O, yes, I say it obviously,

America never was America to me,

And notwithstanding I swear this oath—

America will exist!

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 endless apparently—

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-found the Dream. It is a kind of personal hymn, a lyrical speech, to liberty and equality. To enable that plea to be heard and felt, the speaker has to accept the reader through some nighttime times, through history, to explain just why that Dream needs to alive again.

Lines 1 - 4

Alternate rhyme, repetition and alliteration are all at play in this the first stanza, near a song lyric. It'south a direct call for the former America to exist brought dorsum to life again, to be revived.

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

Line 5

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

Lines half dozen - nine

The 2d lyrical quatrain, with similar rhyme blueprint, places stronger emphasis on the dream, the original vision people had for the United states of america, 1 of love and equality. There would be no feudal system in place, no dictatorships - anybody would be equal.

Note the contrast of the language used hither. In that location is the dream and love of those who would be equal, against those who would connive, scheme and trounce.

Line x

Another line in parentheses, every bit if the speaker is quietly reasserting his inner vocalization - once again making the signal that this America hasn't existed for him, implying that he is far from the Dream. He is dubious to say the to the lowest degree.

Lines 11 - 14

The tertiary quatrain, with alternating rhyme for familiarity, highlights the outer ideals - the dressing up of Liberty simply for show, which is phoney patriotism. The capital 50 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 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 proffer that equality could exist in the air people breathe, means that equality should be a natural given, function of the fabric that keeps united states all alive, sharing the common air.

Lines 15 - 16

The rhyming couplet in parentheses in one case again repeats that, for the speaker personally, equality has been out of reach, perhaps but has never existed. Same goes for liberty. (Homeland of the free - could be based on the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics 'land of the free.')

Farther Analysis

Lines 17 - eighteen

In italics for special reasons, these lines, ii questions, represent a turning point in the poem; they are a dissimilar attribute of the speaker'south identity. These two questions look back, questioning the speaker's negativity (in parentheses) and also look frontwards.

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

Lines 19 - 24

The first of the sextets, half dozen lines which limited yet some other aspect of the speaker, who now speaks as and for, one of the oppressed, in the kickoff person, I am. All the same, this voice besides expresses the collective, articulating a mass sentiment.

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

Lines 25 - 30

The 2d sextet focuses on the fellow, whatever beau no matter, caught up in the industrial anarchy of profit for profit's sake, where greed is expert and ability is the ultimate goal. The ugly, unacceptable face of capitalism encourages just selfishness at whatsoever expense.

Lines 31 - 38

Again, use of the repeated phrase I am brings abode the message loud and clear in this octet: the organisation 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 simply hunger and poverty.

Workers become 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 fundamental freedoms in the outset place. This is the brutal irony. Those fleeing poverty, war and oppression; those forced to go out their native lands, had this dream within, a dream of beingness truly gratis in a new land.

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

More than Line By Line Analysis

Line 51

A unmarried line, some other strong question. The previous twelve lines (the previous fifty lines) all led to this acute point. A simple yet searching enquire.

Lines 52 - 61

The next x lines explore this notion of the free. But 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 gratuitous should ascend. Just exactly who are the free?

There are millions with little or zip. When labor is withdrawn and legitimate protest arranged, the authorities counteract with the bullet. Protest songs and banners and hope count for little - all that's left is a barely animate dream.

Lines 62 - 70

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

In these nine lines the reader truly gets to know the speaker'due south intention and demand. Liberty for all. It's almost a call to ascension up and take 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 (annotation the simile - like leeches) need to start thinking over again about ownership and rights to property.

Lines 76 - 79

A short quatrain, a kind of summing upwardly of the speaker's whole take on the American Dream. A direct declaration - the Dream volition manifest at some time. Information technology has to.

Lines fourscore - 86

The final septet concludes that, out of the old rotten, criminal organization, the people will renew and refresh and rebuild something wholesome and sustainable. There remains promise that the cherished platonic - America - tin be made skillful again.

Literary Devices in Let America Be America Over again

Let America Be America Again is an 86 line poem split into 17 stanzas, three of which are unmarried lines, 2 of which are couplets. In addition, there are 4 quatrains, 2 sextets, 1 octet, a twelve liner, ten liner, nine liner, quintet, and a vii liner.

The layout is quite unusual. On the page the poem looks more similar an extended song lyric, with quatrains followed past single lines and very curt lines turning up in mid-stanza.

Permit'south take a closer await at the literary devices:

Rhyme Scheme

Rhymes tend to bring familiarity and help reinforce meaning. In poetry, there are elementary rhyme schemes and there are challenging ones. In this poem the rhyming pattern starts in a conventional manner but gradually becomes more complex.

For case, have a expect at the get-go six stanzas:

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

This is relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to follow. There is an alternating pattern in the commencement iii quatrains, with the strong total vowel rhyme eastward ascendant:

exist/free/me/me/Liberty/complimentary/me/free.

The full end rhymes leave the reader in no doubt nigh one of the chief themes of this poem - freedom and me. A strong pairing ensures a memorable bond.

And then, the first 16 lines are straightforward plenty. After this the rhyme scheme gradually loses its regular pattern and becomes stretched.

• However further down the line so to speak, there are still loose echoes of the familiar alternating pattern established at the starting time of the verse form.

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

soil/all with car/mean and get/free with lea/gratis.

Slant rhyme tends to challenge the reader because it is near to total rhyme merely isn't full rhyme to the ear, as in soil/all. It means things aren't clicking in full, they're a piddling bit out of harmony.

As the poem progresses, rhyme becomes more intermittent and tends to condense in sure stanzas, as in stanza 13, pay/today and stanza xiv, pain/rain/again. The poet'due south aim with such concentrated rhyme is to make the words stick in the reader's mind and retention.

Literary Device (2)

Anaphora

Repetition plays an important part 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 experience of ability and aggregating of energy.

From the first stanza - Let America/Permit it be/Let it be - to the last - The land, the plants, the mines, the rivers - at that place are repeats. Some critics have likened them to song lyrics, others to parts of a political speech, where ideas and images are congenital up again and over again.

Ingemination

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 plain/home where he himself/dream the dreamers dreamed/land be a land where Liberty/slavery'due south scars.

Enjambment

Enjambment, when a line continues without punctuation on into the next, keeping the catamenia of sense, occurs in several stanzas. Wait out for the 'open' end lines which encourage the reader to not suspension but go on straight into the side by side line.

For case:

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a habitation where he himself is free.

and over again:

Nosotros, the people, must redeem

The country, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

Metaphor

Tangled in that endless ancient chain

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

Personification

That even notwithstanding its mighty daring sing

in every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

Sources

www.poets.org

Norton Album,Norton, 2005

https://uwc.utexas.edu

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

© 2017 Andrew Spacey

cowlinggireal.blogspot.com

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

Share this post