What Is the Subject of Let America Be America Again

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

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes And A Summary of "Let America Be America Once more"

"Let 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 nigh on incommunicable.

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

For the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the reality of solar day to day existence makes the dream a cruel illusion. The poem explores the darker areas of life, the history of exploitation for example, and outlines the unique struggles of the poor who make upward America, both black and white.

Whilst pessimistic and difficult hitting, the verse form does accept an optimistic ending and lights the way forward with hope.

Langston Hughes was going through a difficult period in his life when he wrote this verse form. He knew he wanted to earn a living through writing, simply couldn't sustain his efforts, despite poetry book publication, most notably The Weary Blues.

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 true American spirit.

Publication followed in the Esquire magazine and Hughes went on to become a noted if controversial effigy in the world of black literature, following his before work in the and so-called Harlem Renaissance, an upbeat black artistic move peaking in the 1920s.

"Let America Exist America Again" reflects the many influences in Hughes'due south verse - from the expansive work of Whitman to street language, from jazz rhythm to the steady iambic lines of earlier blackness poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Let America Be America Over again

Permit America exist America once again.

Let it be the dream information technology used to be.

Allow it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

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(America never was America to me.)

Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of dearest

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That whatsoever man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a country where Liberty

Is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath,

Just opportunity is real, and life is complimentary,

Equality is in the air nosotros exhale.

(At that place's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are y'all that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed autonomously,

I am the Negro begetting slavery's scars.

I am the crimson man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding simply the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty beat the weak.

I am the young man, full of forcefulness and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gilded! Of grab the means of satisfying demand!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got alee,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

However I'grand the one who dreamt our bones dream

In the Old World while withal a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream and then stiff, so brave, then true,

That even nonetheless its mighty daring sings

In every brick and rock, in every furrow turned

That's fabricated America the country information technology has get.

O, I'k the man who sailed those early on seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'm the 1 who left dark Ireland's shore,

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

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the complimentary."

The free?

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 zip for our pay?

For all the dreams we'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 cypher for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost expressionless today.

O, allow America be America once more—

The state that never has been yet—

And yet must exist—the country where every human is free.

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

ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose mitt at the foundry, whose turn in the pelting,

Must bring dorsum our mighty dream once more.

Sure, call me whatever ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

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

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes, I say it evidently,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

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 country, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these slap-up light-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-constitute the Dream. It is a kind of personal hymn, a lyrical spoken language, to freedom and equality. To enable that plea to be heard and felt, the speaker has to take the reader through some night times, through history, to explicate simply why that Dream needs to live again.

Lines 1 - iv

Alternating rhyme, repetition and alliteration are all at play in this the outset stanza, almost a song lyric. It's a direct call for the former America to be brought back to life again, to exist revived.

Note the mention of the pioneer, those get-go seekers of liberty who with tremendous volition and effort established themselves a dwelling, against all the odds.

Line five

Most as an aside, but highly pregnant, 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 6 - 9

The second lyrical quatrain, with similar rhyme blueprint, places stronger accent on the dream, the original vision people had for the USA, ane of love and equality. There would be no feudal arrangement in place, no dictatorships - everyone would be equal.

Notation the contrast of the linguistic communication used here. There is the dream and honey of those who would exist equal, against those who would connive, scheme and vanquish.

Line x

Some other line in parentheses, as if the speaker is quietly reasserting his inner voice - 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 - fourteen

The third quatrain, with alternating rhyme for familiarity, highlights the outer ideals - the dressing up of Liberty merely for bear witness, which is phoney patriotism. The uppercase L reinforces the idea that this could be the Statue of Liberty, the famous icon, based on a goddess, who holds the Proclamation of Independence in ane hand and the torch in the other. Broken chains lie at her feet.

The plea continues, to brand the dream possible, to make it manifest in opportunity and equality, for all. The suggestion that equality could be in the air people breathe, means that equality should be a natural given, part of the textile that keeps us all alive, sharing the common air.

Lines 15 - 16

The rhyming couplet in parentheses once again repeats that, for the speaker personally, equality has been out of achieve, maybe just has never existed. Same goes for freedom. (Homeland of the complimentary - could be based on the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics 'land of the free.')

Further Analysis

Lines 17 - eighteen

In italics for special reasons, these lines, two questions, represent a turning betoken in the verse form; they are a different attribute of the speaker's identity. These 2 questions look back, questioning the speaker'southward negativity (in parentheses) and besides look forward.

The metaphor of the veil has biblical connections (in Corinthians) alluding to a darkening of reality, of non being able to come across the truth.

Lines 19 - 24

The first of the sextets, vi lines which express yet another attribute of the speaker, who now speaks every bit and for, one of the oppressed, in the first person, I am. Yet, this vox as well expresses the collective, articulating a mass sentiment.

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

Lines 25 - 30

The 2d sextet focuses on the beau, any young man no matter, caught upwardly in the industrial chaos of profit for profit's sake, where greed is proficient and power is the ultimate goal. The ugly, unacceptable face up of capitalism encourages only selfishness at any expense.

Lines 31 - 38

Again, use of the repeated phrase I am brings dwelling the message loud and clear in this octet: the system is cruellest to those who are poorest. From the farmer to the retainer, from the land to the fine houses of the wealthy, for many the Dream ways only 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 offset place. This is the vicious irony. Those fleeing poverty, war and oppression; those forced to leave their native lands, had this dream inside, a dream of existence truly free in a new land.

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

More than Line By Line Assay

Line 51

A single line, another potent question. The previous twelve lines (the previous 50 lines) all led to this acute point. A simple yet searching inquire.

Lines 52 - 61

The side by side ten lines explore this notion of the free. But the speaker seems perplexed - where did this crazy question originate? Information technology'south equally if the speaker doesn't know himself any longer, or the reasons why the question of the free should arise. Just exactly who are the free?

There are millions with little or nothing. When labor is withdrawn and legitimate protestation arranged, the authorities counteract with the bullet. Protest songs and banners and promise count for picayune - all that's left is a barely breathing dream.

Lines 62 - 70

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

In these nine lines the reader truly gets to know the speaker'southward intention and demand. Freedom for all. It'due south virtually a phone call to rise up and take back what belongs to the many and not the few.

Lines 71 - 75

No matter the abuse, the pursuit of freedom is pure and strong. Those who accept exploited the poor and sucked out their lifeblood (annotation the simile - like leeches) need to start thinking again about ownership and rights to property.

Lines 76 - 79

A short quatrain, a kind of summing upwards of the speaker's whole take on the American Dream. A straight announcement - the Dream will manifest at some time. It has to.

Lines 80 - 86

The last septet concludes that, out of the old rotten, criminal system, the people will renew and refresh and rebuild something wholesome and sustainable. At that place remains hope that the cherished ideal - America - can be made skilful again.

Literary Devices in Let America Be America Again

Allow America Exist America Again is an 86 line verse form separate into 17 stanzas, iii of which are single lines, 2 of which are couplets. In improver, there are four quatrains, ii sextets, 1 octet, a twelve liner, ten liner, nine liner, quintet, and a 7 liner.

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

Let's take a closer look at the literary devices:

Rhyme Scheme

Rhymes tend to bring familiarity and help reinforce meaning. In poetry, at that place are unproblematic 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, accept a look at the starting time 6 stanzas:

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

This is relatively easy to follow. At that place is an alternating pattern in the first 3 quatrains, with the strong full vowel rhyme e dominant:

be/free/me/me/Liberty/gratis/me/complimentary.

The full cease rhymes get out the reader in no doubt virtually 1 of the principal themes of this poem - liberty and me. A strong pairing ensures a memorable bail.

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

• However further downwards the line so to speak, in that location are still loose echoes of the familiar alternating design established at the get-go of the poem.

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

soil/all with machine/mean and become/free with lea/complimentary.

Slant rhyme tends to claiming the reader because it is virtually to total rhyme but isn't full rhyme to the ear, every bit in soil/all. It means things aren't clicking in full, they're a little scrap out of harmony.

Every bit the poem progresses, rhyme becomes more intermittent and tends to condense in certain stanzas, as in stanza thirteen, pay/today and stanza 14, hurting/pelting/again. The poet's aim with such concentrated rhyme is to brand the words stick in the reader'due south heed and memory.

Literary Device (2)

Anaphora

Repetition plays an important role in this poem and occurs throughout. When words and phrases are repeated this has a similar event to chanting, reinforcing meaning and giving the experience of power and accumulation of free energy.

From the offset stanza - Let America/Let it be/Let it be - to the terminal - The land, the plants, the mines, the rivers - there are repeats. Some critics have likened them to song lyrics, others to parts of a political speech, where ideas and images are built up once more and over again.

Ingemination

There are numerous examples of alliterative lines - when words with leading consonants are close together - which bring texture and interest to lines and a claiming to the reader.

In the outset four stanzas:

pioneer on the plain/dwelling where he himself/dream the dreamers dreamed/land be a land where Freedom/slavery's scars.

Enjambment

Enjambment, when a line continues without punctuation on into the next, keeping the menstruum of sense, occurs in several stanzas. Look out for the 'open up' end lines which encourage the reader to not pause but go on straight into the next line.

For case:

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

and once more:

We, the people, must redeem

The state, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

Metaphor

Tangled in that countless ancient concatenation

of turn a profit, ability, gain, of take hold of the country!

Personification

That even still its mighty daring sing

in every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

Sources

world wide web.poets.org

Norton Anthology,Norton, 2005

https://uwc.utexas.edu

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

© 2017 Andrew Spacey

abarcabire1995.blogspot.com

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

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