M.S
Prof. Jody R. Rosen
English 2003-1248
The Weary Blues Annotation
April 24, 2012
Definition
- Raggy- A cereal grass, eleusine coracana, cultivated in the old world for its grain
- Syncopated- to place (the accents) on beats that are normally unaccented
- Melancholy- affected with, characterized by, or showing melancholy; mournful; depressed: a melancholy mood
The Weary Blues Annotation
Harlem, in its day, embodied a series of syncopated rhythms that over came and defied the dissatisfaction significance of repression. During the 1920’s African- Americans were excelling in blues, jazz, literary works and an overall sense of unity and community. The Harlem renaissance mean when the African- Americans moved to Harlem, New York because they believed that they would get a better life, jobs and school for their children.
The blues music move was well-known during the 1920’s and 30’s a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music typically told the story of someone’s distress, the key factors, and the resolution of the situation. This is in particular what Hughes poem, “The Weary Blues,” describes. Jazz tune is often linked with ion, lazy melodies and elaborate rhythmical patterns. Hughes uses the rhythmic structure of blues music and the improvisational rhythms of jazz in his original development of his poem. Throughout the poem, Hughes utilizes imagery to enhance the satisfaction gained from reading this piece.
The jazz music loved by all at that time was as fast sounding as a train likewise, the Harlem Renaissance was a fast explosion of creativity that burst out of many depressing years of segregation and unfairness for African- American. Harlem was a home for Langston Hughes, he moved there in 1921 after graduation and after spending time with his father in Mexico. Langston Hughes traveled a lot throughout his lifetime, however, he always managed to return to Harlem.
References
Feather, Leonard. “Weary Blues Langston Hughes”. Audio recordings of poems with music.
http://www.geocities.com/xxxjorgexxx/wb.htm
Hughes, Langston “Langston Hughes 1902-1967.” (with poems written by Langston Hughes). The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. (2004). 1288-1338.
National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar of Kenyon College. (1998)
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/music/harlem-page/harlem-page.htm
Nichols, K. Pittsburg State University. “Jazz age culture”. (2003).
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/jazzage3.html#harlem
PBS. “Langston Hughes: A Biography.” >http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/cora/ei_hughesbiography.html
M.S
Prof. Jody R. Rosen
English 2003-1248
The Weary Blues Explication
May 8, 2012
The Weary Blues Explication
Langston Hughes is an intriguing African-American writer who has written much poetry, one of them being “The Weary Blues.” Hughes is using intelligent words of onomatopoeia, not only do many words sounds like their meaning, but they sound akin to Jazz.
“The Weary Blues” By Langston Hughes illustrates Hughes form of writing in a jazzy beat. Hughes is known for his poems about the history of African- American life during the middle decades of the last century. Hughes poetry is typically understood and straight forward to the point. One of Hughes’s most original contributions to American literature was his creation of what maybe called the blues poem reflecting the knowledge of pain.
The blues is a type of Jazz, and Hughes uses this style in his poem. The sound qualities that make up Hughes work are complex, yet quite clear. Hughes use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in the poem and it gives a profound emotion of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to sense as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poems character.
The opening line “Droning a drowsy syncopated tune” suggest a song that has a gloomy tone and is repetitive. As I read it out loud, I hear the words “droning” “drowsy” and “tune” as chords that are held for a longer length than the rapid word “syncopated”. “I heard a negro play/down on Lenox Avenue the other night”(3-4). This line implicates that speaker went downtown which is traditionally the south. However, Lenox Avenue, which is located further uptown in Harlem.
Hughes refers to new beginnings as the jazz pianist sings, “I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’, and put ma troubles on the shelf,” again, there is a sense of optimism. In this poem the blues fuse the speaker and the performer in some way. The “droning” and “rocking” can refer either to the “I” or to the “Negro” instantly signifying that the music invites or even requires the partaking of the speaker. Further, the words imply that the speaker’s poem is a “drowsy syncopated tune” as well, connecting speaker and performer even more by having them working in the same location. “Drowsy syncopated tune”, which at once implies both rest and activity, signals the strain between the romantic image and the reality. When I read line (6&7) “He did a lazy sway, he did a lazy sway,” I can actually picture the people listening to this mellow beat and just moving from side to side in slow motion.”Ebony hands on each ivory keys” of the piano this stanza represents black and white in a way that is not racial. He even says that the piano “moans” as if the piano is in pain from the blues or from what the man is distress about.
Hughes uses the word “raggy” in line (13). “Raggy” is not an actual word, perhaps we might read it as a mixture of word raggedy meaning tattered or worn out and the word ragtime which refers to a method of jazz music. When I think of something that is raggedy, I think of rags, old clothes. In lines 33-35, the speaker states: “the singer stopped playing and went to bed/while the weary blues echoed through his head /he slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.” This passage refers to the sleeping musician as a stone or a dead man. One can see that no matter how severely he slips into a subliminal state, he is still plagued by the struggles that produce his “weary blues.”
Syncopation and creativeness are the two main aspects of jazz. I now understand why Langston Hughes insisted on combining syncopation and words of onomatopoeia and rhyme patterns of the poem, Langston produces a poem with a great deal of feeling. The vivid sound words, I can almost picture myself walking down Lenox Avenue and hearing the elderly piano man and his “weary blues.”
Work cited
Feather, Leonard. “Weary Blues Langston Hughes”. Audio recordings of poems with music.
http://www.geocities.com/xxxjorgexxx/wb.htm
Hughes, Langston “Langston Hughes 1902-1967.” (With poems written by Langston Hughes). The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. (2004). 1288-1338.
National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar of Kenyon College. (1998)
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/music/harlem-page/harlem-page.htm
Nichols, K. Pittsburg State University. “Jazz age culture”. (2003).
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/jazzage3.html#harlem
PBS. “Langston Hughes: A Biography.” >http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/cora/ei_hughesbiography.html
Hughes, Langston. “(James) Langston Hughes.” Gale Database Contemporary Authors (2003): Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
Knapp, James F. “Langston Hughes.” The Norton Anthology of Poetry. www.wwnorton.com, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
Wall, Cheryl A (14 November 2010). “A Note On ‘The Weary Blues'”. Lenox Avenue: A Journal of Interarts Inquiry 3: ii-vi.
I, Too, Sing America. Langston Hughes. 1 (1902-1941). Magill Book Reviews. 1990.
