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Harlem

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Harlem

The poem was written by Langston Hughes in 1950, it derived its title from a neighborhood in New York that became a center of the Harlem Renaissance that the writer was part of in the 1920s. The writer sums up the white oppression of blacks in America by questioning and explaining what could happen if dreams and hope do not come to fruition. He uses literary devices to express his ideas. The analysis of some of the literary devices is given below.

Literary devices in the poem

The writer uses simple and poetic words for example everyday commodities known to man are used such as sun,  raising, and meat. He uses abstract diction to show feeling for example rotten stinky meat shows mental disturbance of the oppressed fellows. There is the use of syntax to put more emphasis, in stanza one word such as sweetest and succeed, nectar and need are used. As regards stanza its one comprising of 11 lines and no break.

The end rhyme is melodious “meat/sweet”, “sun/run” but for the first four lines which create an ABCB rhyme scheme the rest is not particular. There is the use of simile for example “like rotten meat” and metaphors for instance “or does it explode” comparing dream to a bomb. The form is unusual, the first stanza is a quatrain followed by tercet and then a couplet more still the poem starts and ends with a question suggesting that there is no definite answer to the original question. The writer uses anaphora to strengthen the for such words include “does it dry up” “does it stink”.

Notably from the poem is that the writer uses 5 elements that help to give the poem shape and brings strong imagery to the reader words like raising sun, sore, rotten meat, heavy load, the use of food signifies a need for survival. The devices above bring out poem themes such as goal, inspiration, dreams, and African American struggles and issues.

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