摘 要

兰斯顿休斯是个美国诗人，自传作家，小说家，戏剧作家，散文家，民俗家，翻译家，儿童书作家以及歌词写手。他是爵士诗歌最早的创始人，被认为是哈莱姆文艺复兴在纽约城的领导人。兰斯顿休斯一生出版过十六本诗歌集，赢得了“哈莱姆的莎士比亚”，和“黑人的桂冠诗人”。受爵士乐的深刻影响，休斯在他诗歌中嵌入了很多爵士元素，主要有即兴创作，布鲁斯诗节，灵活的节奏，切分音，爵士相关的表达，holler，重复与变奏。这篇论文主要分析爵士乐的节奏技巧在休斯诗歌中的应用，以及总结这些技巧对诗歌的影响。总的来说，这些技巧的使用使休斯的诗歌变得更有生气，更令人印象深刻，以及更具有爵士风。

关键词：兰斯顿休斯；爵士乐；节奏

Abstract

Langston Hughes was an American poet, autobiographer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, folklorist, translator, writer of children’s books and lyric writer in a sense. As one of the earliest innovator of a new literary art called Jazz Poetry that time, he was considered as the leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance in New Year City. Langston Hughes had published sixteen books of poetry during his literary career, winning him the titles of “Shakespeare in Harlem”,and“the Poet laureate of the Negro”. Being heavily influenced by jazz music, Hughes embedded many jazz elements mainly including improvisation, blues stanzas, flexible rhythm, syncopation, jazz related expression and holler, repetition and variation, into his poetry. This paper mainly analyzes the rhythmic techniques of jazz being used in Hughes’ poetry and tries to conclude the effects of them. By using these techniques, Hughes made his poems more dynamic, impressive and the most important, more jazz-liked.

Key Words: Langston Hughes; Jazz music; rhythm

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 1

2.1 Previous studies on Langston Hughes and His Poems 1

2.2 Description of Rhythm and Jazz's Defining Features 1

2.2.1 Rhythm in Poetry and music 1

2.2.2 Defining features of Jazz 1

3 Jazz Structures and Rhythmic Techniques in Langston Hughes' Poetry 1

3.1 Jazz Structures 1

3.2 Rhythmic Techniques of Jazz 1

3.3.1 Improvisation 1

3.3.2 Repetition and Variation 1

3.3.3 Jazz-related Expression 1

3.3.4 Syncopation 1

4 Effects of Jazz Music to Langston Hughes' Poems 1

4.1 Enhancement to Poetic Rhythm and Musical Aesthestics 1

4.2 Promotion to Black Racial Pride 1

5 Conclusions 1

References 1

Rhythmic Analysis of Langston Hughes’ Poems under the Perspective of Jazz

1 Introduction

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, autobiographer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, folklorist, translator, writer of children’s books and lyric writer in a sense. As one of the earliest innovator of a new literary art called Jazz Poetry that time, he was considered as the leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance in New Year City. From The Weary Blues(1926), his first book of Poetry, to The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967), his final volume of verse which was published posthumously, Langston Hughes had published sixteen books of poetry during his literary career, winning him the titles of “Shakespeare in Harlem”,and“the Poet laureate of the Negro”.^[1]

The Jazz poetry of Langston Hughes had been noticed by many scholars who had produced a great amounts of research results. But rarely did the researchers tend to study Langston Hughes’ poetry over its poetic musicality such as rhythm. Although some scholars have rightly focused their attention on the role music plays in Langston Hughes’ poems, most of the researchers were inclined to explore the incentive of Langston Hughes’ creating so many Jazz poems or the meaning of Hughes’ Jazz poetry to the arising of Negro’s national awareness, rather than taking the concept of Jazz poetry as the point of studying.

Originated in African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jazz is a music genre developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime and had derived many forms of Jazz music as Jazz spread around the world, such as bebop, chamber jazz, cool jazz, ECM jazz free jazz, gypsy jazz, hard bop, Latin jazz, mainstream jazz, modal jazz, rhythm and blues(Ramp;B), progressive jazz, soul jazz, swing, etc.^[2] Although some theorists categorize Blues as a different music genre from Jazz, this paper regards Blues as a kind of Jazz and will analyze the poems written with Blues skill by Langston Hughes.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Previous studies on Langston Hughes and His Poems

Academic studies on the influence of Negro music, mostly the blues music, to Langston Hughes’ poetry are quiet abundant by now for Hughes important role playing in the Harlem Renaissance and his unprecedented artistic and intellectual achievement among black Americans during 1920s. According to Randy Weston, one of the Jazz artists most engaged with Africa, “Langston Hughes was the only one of our writers who wrote about the music.” A lots of critics had discussed how Langston Hughes utilized the Jazz musical form, rhythm, some characteristic expressions of Jazz music and the sprite of blues into his poetry, and how these techniques enhance the musical aesthetic, rhythmical, and especially the sociopolitical effects of his poems. During recent decade, more detailed and extensive analyzation between Langston Hughes’ poetry and Jazz music had been supplemented by scholars from the world, such as: “Bitter Jazz in Langston Hughes’ DREAM BOOGIE” (2012) written by Rick Brown and “The Riffs, Runs, Breaks, and Distortions of the Music of a Community in Transition: Redefining African American Modernism and the Jazz Aesthetic in Langston Hughes' Montage of a Dream Deferred and Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz” (2003) written by Gü; nter H. Lenz.

While most of the critics appreciate the utilization of Jazz or the blues music in Langston Hughes’ poetry, there are still some critics refused to give applause to Hughes’ using of Jazz music. For instance, New York Times Book Review contributor Babette Deutsch, regards Hughes’ 1951 Poetry book Montage Of a Dream Deferred an unfortunate work that “as a Whole leaves one less responsive to The poet, achievement than conscious of the limitations of folk art.”^[3] And another critic called Dudley Fitts hold the opinion that much of the content of Hughes’ long jazz Poem Ask Your Mother (1961) “lost in ambiguity” and “less Poetry than a vehicle for the Jazz framework”. But most of the scholars like Cary D.wintz (1975) and Onwuchekwa Jemie (1976) believe that the use of Jazz or blues music, such as its rhythms and models, had helped to capture the full essence of Harlem life. Others tried to discover what specific schools of literary finally lead to Hughes’ utilization of Jazz music in his poetry. Robert O’Brien Hokanson (1998) had analyzed how Modernism influenced the poet, Hughes, and Anita Patterson (2000) pointed out that Hughes’ verse had accepted the influence of Realism. No matter what kind of researches and what Hughes thought about his poetry, it is clear that most contemporary scholars and critics had acknowledged the employment of Jazz music in Langston Hughes’ poems.

As to China, due to the prosperity of economy and the cultural communication, as well as the development of higher education, more and more scholars and critics have paid their interest in Africa-American literary and culture during the recent decade so the studies on Langston Hughes’ poetry are on a increasing trend in spite of many difficulties. As we all know, the translation of poetry have been being the greatest challenge in the translation field throughout history, because the beauty of poetry are deeply relied on the language by which the poem are written and recited. Different from other literary form, Poetry has its rhythmic pattern generated by syllables, meter and rhyme, building a bridge for poetry to the beauty of music. Due to the phonic disparity between Chinese and English and Hughes’ various line-writing skill, most importantly, the musical elements blended into his poems, it would be nearly impossible to translate Hughes’ poems into Chinese and keep its lexical meaning and phonic beauty completely. Up to now (2017), there is still no available Chinese version of Hughes’ poem collections. Only few of his well-known poems had been translated such as “Dream Deferred被延迟到梦”, “The Weary Blues萎靡的布鲁斯”, “Mother to Son母亲对儿子说”, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers黑人谈及河流”, and so on. The translations of Langston Hughes’ poems are far less than sufficient. As the result, most of the domestic scholars and critics were inclined to explore the incentive of Langston Hughes creating so many Jazz poems or the meaning of Hughes’ Jazz poetry to the arising of Negro’s national awareness, rather than taking the concept of Jazz poetry as the point of studying. It could say that the study of Langston Hughes is still at a starting point. The most frequently analyzed poems include“The Negro Speaks of Rivers黑人谈及河流”, “The Weary Blues萎靡的布鲁斯” and “Dream Deferred被延迟到梦”. Among the scholars who studying on Langston Hughes, Luo Lianggong, a professor of Central China Normal University in Wuhan, is most productive and contributed. He has written substantially about Langston Hughes’ utilization of black musical forms in many of his essays including “Cultural Identity in Langston Hughes’ Poetry” (2003), “American Black Music and Langston Hughes’ Innovations in Poetry” (2002), and “Interpretation of Langston Hughes’ poetry from a Social Semiotic Approach” (1999). Luo Lianggong considers that Langston Hughes’ employment of Jazz music and other black musical form is creative and successful in helping black people regain their national pride and deserved social status. There are also some students and scholars try to analyze Langston Hughes’ Jazz Poetry, but tend to approach to the similar conclusions to professor Luo Lianggong. Also, the lack of sufficient researches on Jazz poetry and the appreciation of Jazz music are apparent. In general, domestic study on Langston Hughes’ poetry is still at a starting stage. Hughes was a poet wrote in music. It is deserved to analyze his poem under the perspective of Jazz music.

As to the poet, James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 - May 22, 1967) , he was a versatile. His occupation had covered poet, autobiographer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, folklorist, translator, writer of children’s books and lyric writer in a sense. As one of the earliest innovator of a new literary art called Jazz Poetry that time, he was considered as the leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance in New Year City. From The Weary Blues(1926), his first book of Poetry, to The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967), his final volume of verse which was published posthumously, Langston Hughes had published sixteen books of poetry during his literary career, winning him the titles of “Shakespeare in Harlem”,and“the Poet laureate of the Negro”.

Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico. He had worked at various jobs, including that of a seaman, traveling to Africa and Europe.

By the time Hughes enrolled at Columbia University in New York, he had already launched his literary career with his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in the Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). From then on, Hughes committed himself both to writing and to writing mainly about African Americans. That is one of the reason why most of his poems are telling of the joys and miseries of the ordinary black man in America. The most important influence Hughes had accepted to form his poetry style and theme was from his maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, whose first husband had died before Hughes’ birth, and whose second husband (Hughes' grandfather) had also been a militant abolitionist. Another important family figure who had influenced Hughes’ belief and writing principle was John Mercer Langston, a brother of Hughes's grandfather who was one of the best-known black Americans in nineteenth century.^[4]