AS A YOUNG man, Langston Hughes (1902–1967) stated a mission for his generation of black writers: “to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame.” He wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” his first published poem, shortly after graduating from high school in 1920, and a few years later he became a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes gained prominence for writing poetry inspired by blues and jazz music; his first collection was called The Weary Blues (1926). Prolific as a poet, he also wrote plays, short stories, novels, newspaper sketches, essays, and two autobiographies. How much do you know about the “poet laureate of Harlem”? Take this quick quiz and see.
1. With which fellow Harlem Renaissance author did Hughes cowrite the play Mule Bone?
2. Which character, originally from Hughes’s newspaper columns, sits on a barstool in Harlem delivering social commentary?
3. In a description of himself written for a biographical dictionary, which three poets did Hughes call his “chief influences”?
4. From what language did Hughes translate other poets’ work into English?
5. What European city did Hughes visit in 1933 in order to film a movie about African American life in the United States?
ANSWERS
1. Zora Neale Hurston. Hughes and Hurston cowrote Mule Bone in 1930, but because of a falling out, it was not produced until after both their deaths.
2. James B. Semple, or “Simple.”
3. Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman.
4. Spanish. Some of the poets he translated are Gabriela Mistral, Ni-colás Guillén, and Federico García Lorca.
5. Moscow. The film was never made, perhaps on account of its farfetched plot: black steelworkers in Alabama are rescued from their plight by a team of white union members and Red Army soldiers.