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The Negro Speaks of Rivers Summary
The poet begins by saying that he has known rivers and equates his own soul to the deep and ancient rivers of the world, including the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Mississippi Rivers.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers Analysis
This poem, published in 1921, is among Hughes' earlier poems. This poem falls into that category of poems in Hughes' oeuvre that has to do directly with race, and aims to meet a kind of spiritual-poetic need of the black community. With gravity and grace, this poem describes the dignity of the poet's—and by extension every black person's—soul. The poem is simple in form but there are several complexities at work in its simplicity.
First of all, notice that, after the title, the poem nowhere contains the word Negro. Hughes prefers to speak...
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This section contains 604 words (approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page) |
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