The Interplay Between Art And Politics: A Study Of Langston Hughes's Poetry

This dissertation explores the interplay of politics and artistry embodied in the poetry of Langston Hughes, the great African American poet in the 20^th century. In his over-40-year literary career, Hughes carries a strong and lasting political consciousness, the core value of which consists of two aspects, the democratic ideal of racial freedom and equality, and the moral ideal of harmony and friendliness among all human beings. In his pursuit of this ideals, Hughes employs various viewpoints from the racial ethical to the class, the cultural, the gender/racial, and to the moral. These viewpoints help enrich the content of his ideals, with emphasis sometimes on the loftiness of the ideas and sometimes on the practical aspects. All this is reflected in Hughes's poetry from the theme to the subject matters and the artistic points of view. Also the artistic form of Hughes's poetry is influenced deeply. Furthermore, in case Hughes is exposed to political threats out of the social reality, the artistic form serves as a second voice of his political ideas. Thus this dissertation will focus on the relationships between Hughes's political consciousness and the theme, the subject matters, the artistic point of view, and the artistic form to explore the interplay between politics and art.Considering the obvious difference in Hughes's poetry in different periods and considering the different modes of the relationship between politics and art in different decades, this dissertation will make exploration by dividing Hughes's literary career into four periods: Harlem Renaissance period, the radical 1930s, the 1940s form the WWII to the first years of the Cold War, and the 1950s-1960s after McCarthyism. This dissertation is composed of 6 parts:The Introduction part gives a brief introduction to the literary role of Langston Hughes in African American Literature and American Literature. A short biography is also offered to Hughes to show how his political consciousness was formed and developed. A literature review is made to show the historical development and the status quo of Langston Hughes study in both abroad and in China, based on which the major task, plan, methods and significance of this dissertation are presented.Chapter I makes a n exploration to the relationship between politics and art embodied in Hughes's poetry of Harlem Renaissance period. Hughes demonstrates a heroic style racial consciousness—shameless reaffirmation of the racial identity, fearless pursuit of the national identity of the USA, and tolerant and optimistic ideal of racial freedom and equality. This heroic consciousness helps shape the bohemian aesthetic view of Hughes in this period. According it, Hughes believes a negro artist should be brave enough to discover and express the beauty of American black people in order to show rebellion against racialism which has been twisting and dwarfing the image of the black people. His artistic points of view show a change in this period from the outside to the inside, from the subjective to the subjective/objective, and from historical imagination to his concern with reality. This change shows that Hughes is turning to an objective point of view in view of catching the objective and real beauty of the race and the status quo. Hughes's social consciousness also determines the basic artistic features of his poetry, which serve as the efficient vehicle of his political consciousness. By assimilating Whitmanese tradition and cultural elements of African American people, Hughes develops a bohemian writing feature in his poetry.Chapter II places its emphasis on the relationship between politics and art in the 1930s poetry of Hughes. In this period, Hughes makes a sharp turn to the leftism and radical socialism, which allows him to understand the social reality from the standing point of the class and the world. These radical points of view are reflected in Hughes's social ideas and racial consciousness, and thus penetrate in the spirit and the artistic form of his poetry, which helps make his artistic viewpoints and themes of poetry awry from those of 1920s. Political propaganda becomes the overwhelming task of his poetry which costs the artistry to a great extent. But by the influence of the Popular Front aesthetics, Hughes readjusts the relationship between politics and art. His Popular Front poetry has a far-reaching influence upon his poetic art and political expression in the following decades.Chapter III makes an exploration to the interaction between art and politics in Hughes's poetry created from late 1930s to early 1950s. This period, witnessing the end of the WWII and the first years of the Cold War, sees Hughes still grasping his serious concern on his race, except that his voice becomes sly and gentle instead of radical as in 1930s, which shows Hughes in a great confusion and contradiction politically. In this period, Hughes returns to the realistic standing point by employing everyday life as the vehicle of his political consciousness with emphasis on the illustration of the real life. This reflects his repudiation of his radical 1930s and also a result of the more and more tense atmosphere of American politics. Hughes conveys his political ideas in a more implicit way with the formerly explicit political discourse becoming muted while the artistic discourse getting from weak to strong. This helps Hughes avoid the strict political scrutiny while enhancing the craftsmanship of his poetry. Black vernacular, folk culture and popular culture again come up to the surface of his artistic structure. With the continuing influence of the Popular Front aesthetics, Hughes gradually develops his popularist modernist artistic feature.Chapter IV focuses on the analysis of the interplay between politics and art in Hughes's 1950s-1960s poetry. In this period, Hughes comes to understand, after the suppression of McCarthyism and slight progress in African American people's freedom cause, that America is defected but is redeemable. This makes him optimistic about the future of America and its democratic dream. Hughes shows a greater emphasis on racial harmony. He believes that all means to be taken to realize democracy should be in compliance with the goal of harmony. And he strongly believes that humor and practical work of the black people will help themselves to be accepted. Thus he devotes himself to the depiction of the positive image of the black people based on the art-for-recording poetics. The altering of acceptable artistic form and radical poetic form, as shown in Ask Your Mama, demonstrates Hughes's philosophy for struggle for democracy in this period. The focus of his poetry is on recording instead of propaganda. In terms of poetic art, he makes innovations by following the cultural traits of his times. By combining Whitmanian popularist modernism with popular culture and folk culture, he created a genre of popularist avant-garde poetry. This genre helps to express his mild and pragmatic political ideals, and at the same time contributes to a compensation for his political consciousness oppressed by the Cold War era American political culture, which forms an interactive and mutually compensatory relationship between art and politics.The Conclusion part makes a summary of the ideas discussed in the previous parts, and believes that Hughes, by his life-time experiments, draws a art-first political poetics. This part also makes a brief analysis of the aesthetic features—popularist avant-garde poetry, expressive modes of African American culture, and truism—as the result of Hughes experiments and exploration in the interplay between art and politics.