Langston Hughes: The Way from Protest to Spirituality

For African American poet Langston Hughes, who is best known as a poet of Harlem Renaissance, Nadir is something which he grew and lived with. Therefore, protest, expressed in his poems, is sharp and merciless. Hughes campaigns against unjust laws and regulations, unfair racial attitudes, and hypocrisy of clergymen, often affiliating himself with socialist ideology. However, African American tradition influences him so much that, alongside, he remains faithful to the belief (religious consciousness) of his ancestors. If in his "spiritual" poems Hughes lamentably and rhetorically questions God about the ill fate of his colored brethren, and in "protest" poets he directly campaigns against injustice, in the blues he appeals to God for help. Through the blues he manages to convert the hope for transcendent bliss in the hereafter into the spiritual consolation today, however remote and illusive the hopes for better life today may be. The information in the work can be used by a student as well as a general reader interested in multidisciplinary aspects of African American culture.