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Assignment. Answer questions for “O Me! O Life!” Class discussion “The Wound Dresser” Assignment Based on the imagery and figurative language used in the poem, write a newspaper article about the conditions of hospitals during the Civil War.
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Assignment • Answer questions for “O Me! O Life!” • Class discussion • “The Wound Dresser” Assignment • Based on the imagery and figurative language used in the poem, write a newspaper article about the conditions of hospitals during the Civil War. • Article should have at least two quotations from civilians/soldiers/doctors/nurses/etc…
Langston Hughes Voice of the Harlem Renaissance
The Early Years • Born Joplin, Missouri in 1902 • Mixed race: great grandfathers were slave owners, another relative was the first African American elected to public office • Father left, raised by grandmother while mother sought employment • Wrote about loneliness of youth due to moving • “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” first and most famous poem • Published after his high school graduation
The Harlem Renaissance • http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/harlem-renaissance/videos# • Define “The Harlem Renaissance • Who were notable people involved? • Where? When? • What was their goal?
Travels • Studied at Columbia University • Began as an engineer major • Left without graduating • Worked on a freighter and sailed to: • Africa • France: stayed to work in a jazz club • Italy: robbed • Denied reentry to US because he was black, had to wait to find passage on an all-black ship • Also traveled to Cuba, Haiti, and Soviet Union
Degrees and Jazz • Returned to college: Lincoln University in Chester County, PA • Influenced by jazz and blues clubs in NYC – energy and vitality • Supported himself through writing: editor, playwright, short story fiction • Widely published for his youth
Style of Writing • Tried to depict “low-life” (blacks in low socio-economic classes) • Lyrical, inspired by jazz music • “Unashamedly black” – goal to uplift people of his race and create a record of their resiliency, courage, and humor • “Langston set a tone, a standard of brotherhood and friendship and cooperation, for all of us to follow. You never got from him, “I am the Negro writer,’ but only, ‘I am a Negro writer.’ He never stopped thinking about the rest of us.”
Controversy • Allegations of homosexuality • Claimed to be greatly influenced by Walt Whitman • Attracted to communism as an alternative to a segregated society