Critical Comment on Langston Hughes’ Poems
The poems, ‘Dinner Guest: Me’, ‘Black Panther’, ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’ and ‘The Weary
Blues’ are written by African-American poet Langston Hughes. Through this paper I shall
critically comment on various aspects of the poems such as the rhyme scheme, tone, structure
and themes.
Although ‘Dinner Guest: Me’ and ‘Black Panther’ have no specific structure, ‘The Negro Speaks
of Rivers’ and ‘The Weary Blues’ have structures that enhance the themes of the poems. ‘The
Negro Speaks of Rivers’ contains a combination of lengthy and short lines which appear to
imitate the meanders of rivers, whereas ‘The Weary Blues’ has a structure similar to that of the
‘Blues’ genre of music.
None of the aforementioned poems appear to have any particular rhyme scheme, although
Langston Hughes has made use of a few internal and external rhymes in ‘Black Panther’
(die-cry, disguise-lies) and some external rhyme in ‘The Weary Blues’. Thus it can be suggested
that Langston Hughes often makes use of free verse in his poems.
The language used in the poems ‘Dinner Guest: Me’, ‘Black Panther’ and ‘The Negro Speaks of
Rivers’ is fairly similar to regular American English as opposed to the heavy influence of
African-American English used in the poem ‘The Weary Blues’. Langston Hughes may have
written the poem thus in order to bring out the intensity and the reality of most
African-Americans during and post the Harlem Renaissance.
Langston Hughes has made use of various figures of speech such as imagery and antithesis and
linguistic features such as repetition to enhance the content of his poems. In ‘Dinner Guest : Me’,
the poet has made use of elements such as lobster, damask table, wine and fraises du bois to
show the extravagant setting of the dinner. This presents the vast contrast between the lifestyle
and ways of the host and his guest, the speaker of the poem. The first stanza of the poem ‘The
Weary Blues’ deals mainly with the description of the pianist and his piano. The speaker of the
poem seems to be observing the pianist from a distance. While describing the scene, the poet has
made use of antithesis to show the stark contrast between the pianist and his piano by using
words such as ‘ebony hands’ and ‘ivory keys’. He also uses transferred epithet to state the
poverty of the pianist by writing, ‘He made that poor piano moan with melody.’ In the poem
‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, the use of repetition as a linguistic feature shows the deliberate
emphasis on the fact that the speaker has ‘known rivers’.
Langston Hughes has covered various topics in the said poems, although all of them have to do
with the African-Americans and their lives in America. ‘Dinner Guest: Me’ deals with the
superficiality of the white Americans towards the issues faced by the African-Americans. The
poem conveys a tone of mockery. ‘Black Panther’ talks mainly about the vicious cycle of
revenge and how it affected the African-Americans. ‘The Negro Spaks of Rivers’ was written by
the poet to portray the rich cultural heritage of African-Americans through their relationship with
rivers. The poem has a deep sense of ethnic pride. ‘The Weary Blues’ expresses the harsh and
sorrowful lives of African-Americans. It shows how they used music to purgate their sadness and
how it helped them to cope up with their lives.
It can be noticed that although Langston Hughes’ poems focus mainly on the lives of
African-Americans, he is very versatile when it comes to the themes, tones and structures that
feature in his poems.