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I feel bad for Polonius’s family in this act.  Polonius himself was tossed carelessly into a ditch and covered with dirt, until Hamlet disclosed the whereabouts of his body which was then thrown into a makeshift grave with no funeral.  Ophelia has gone insane with grief until she finally drowns because of her own craziness, and Laertes is out with a vengence to get revenge for his family.  The cause of all this family grief is Hamlet, who is shipped off to England.  Speaking of Hamlet, the death of him is being plotted behind his back, (not that Hamlet values his life all too highly anyways).  Shakespeare seems to incorperate murder as if it was not such the dark deed as it is.  It would usually be seemingly unthinkable to find two men plotting the death of their stepson and former good friend.  It seems as if either everyone is going crazy or humane punishment rather than death are simply not the norm.  All the main characters lives seem to be intertwining and falling apart at the same time.  The father of Hamlet’s lover was killed by Hamlet himself; which drove his lover to be driven crazy to her death; her brother along with Hamlets stepfather (the murderer of his father) is planning his death.  Shakespeare sure likes to make his audience think.  

Act III shows characters begin to break down and crumble under the series of events.  Hamlet has suffered greatly throughout the play.  He has undergone his fathers death, only to be followed with a lack of grieving from his fellow friends and family as well as the marriage of his mother and uncle.  The sighting of his father’s ghost forced him to act as if he was going mad, and the betrayal of almost all surrounding people in his life has almost made it seem as if he really is going mad.  His character begins to crumble as Hamlet really has no one to turn to and tell the truth with.  His mother betrayed him when she married Claudius; Claudius betrayed him when he killed his father; Polonius betrayed him when he forbade him to see Ophelia; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betrayed him when they agreed to spy on him; and Ophelia betrayed him when she tricked him when Claudius and Polonius were eavesdropping on their conversation.  Hamlet feels completely alone because of the fact that he has to pretend that he is crazy, in a way it makes the audience feel as if Hamlet really is going crazy.  Besides the fact that Hamlet is feeling betrayed in this act, Ophelia feels alone and betrayed as well. She is under complete and utter power by her father, who takes control of her life.  Besides the fact that he earlier forbade Ophelia and Hamlet to be together, he now forces her to riddle Hamlet into saying something that her meddling father as well as Claudius could hear.  She continues this streak of betrayal when Hamlet denies that he ever loved her.  He says she was mislead and mistaken and that he had convinced himself that he loved her, when really it was all false.  Manipulation and betrayal seem to be a recurring theme in the play and ultimately plays out when Hamlet strikes the hardest and kills Polonius- the betrayal he showed towards Hamlet finally resulted with his death.  

Throughout Act II Shakespeare incorporates love into the way people act.  He continuously ties love with weird actions, or unintelligent actions.  The Act starts with scene one in which Polonius telling Reynaldo to spy on Laertes and find out what he is doing in Paris.  This is because of the love Polonius has for his son.  He wants to make sure that Laertes is making smart choices and not ruining his reputation.  Next we see love tied into actions as Ophelia rushes to her father out of breath and flustered.  She explained to Polonius how Hamlet had acted so strange, and looked terrible: “As if he had been loossed out of hell”.  Polonius replies by saying, “Mad for thy love?”  The very first reason that they could think of for his odd actions was his love for Ophelia.  All throughout Act II, Hamlets crazed actions are linked by others to his love for Ophelia.  They cannot think of another reason that Hamlet would be going mad.  Because of this madness, his mother’s love for Hamlet brings out another action of spying and acting.  Gertrude asks Hamlets friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to try to get to the bottom of Hamlets mysterious actions and try to make him act normally again.  With love as a recurring theme, Shakespeare also utilizes lying or acting within the actions of love.  All three of the previous examples involve lying.  Reynaldo has to lie to pretend that he knows Laertes so he can find out more in depth his intentions in Paris; but this again is coming from the love of his father.  Hamlet is simply acting mad, when the audience knows that his crazy actions were all part of his plan with the ghost; this is coming from the love Hamlet has for his father and helping him.  Also, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were told to act as if nothing was wrong, and simply try to get Hamlet to act happy and normal once again; which was coming from the love of Gertrude to her son.  Each major action from these people derive from love, which is proven by Shakespeare that love can make people do crazy things.  

The first act of Hamlet is equipped with suspense, drama, and conflict, just as one would expect in a Shakespearean work.  The actions and events lead the reader to question and wonder with excellent use of cliff-hangers and foreshadowing.  The play begins with the sighting of a Ghost by Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo.  This Ghost looks eerily similar to the King of Denmark who’s death had occurred no more than two months earlier.  In Shakespeare’s works, the sighting of a ghost means one of many things, however, everyone seems to think that this sighting is a bad omen for the country of Denmark.  This is where Shakespeare uses suspense, for the three men cannot make the ghost talk and he eventually leaves.  Act 1 scene 2 portrays the wedding scene of Claudius, the new king of Denmark and Hamlet’s uncle, and Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother.  Immedietly we see animosity from Hamlet towards Claudius as he says “A Little more than kin and less than kind.”  This leads to questions: why do these men dislike eachother? Why is Hamlet unhappy for his mother’s wedding?  With Hamlet’s talk with Gertrude we discover that Hamlet is deeply grieving the loss of his father, and wishes to leave back to Wittenburg.  It is later when Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo explain to Hamlet the sighting of his father’s ghost which intrigues him.  Hamlet procedes to attempt to meet the ghost at midnight that night.  When Hamlet greets him, the ghost confides in Hamlet how he died and reveals that he was in fact poisoned by his brother Claudius rather than bitten by a snake.  This naturally infuriates Hamlet and the ghost tells him he must take revenge on Claudius.  The Act ends with Hamlet forcing the three other men to swear never to tell a soul what they have seen with the ghost.  This play is extremely intriguing and leaves me with many questions and a lot of suspense.  I am very curious to know what happens in the future acts.  I think that Hamlet is going to be a hero in the play and that Claudius is going to seek havoc upon him and take advantage at the throne of Denmark.  I am excited to see the outcome of the play.  

I am thoroughly glad that we did this blogging project rather than write a research paper on the topic of poetry.  The idea of blogging about our poet is much less daunting than the previous research paper that we wrote in the fall.  I found it much easier to manage my time and much easier to motivate myself to do the work, rather than procrastinating and writing the whole paper only shortly before it’s due (which would likely have been the case with the paper).  Throughout this project I actually learned a great deal about Langston Hughes and his poetry.  I came to enjoy reading his poems; my favorites being Hold Fast to Dreams and Mother to Son.  I found it interesting that his influences came from music and African American struggles and life in Harlem.  It makes his poems much more real and relatable.  The only weakness I felt with this project was putting posts in the blogosphere.  I found it exceptionally hard to find other bloggers who talked about the same subject as me; it probably would have been easier to keep it within the english classes.  Overall, I think this project was a brilliant idea and 100 times better than writing a research paper.  

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Hold fast to love,

For when love leaves

Life is just lonliness on a dark winters eve

Hold fast to love 

For when love flies

Life is simply a reason to cry

This poem is based of of Langston Hughes’s poem Hold Fast to Dreams.  The theme in his poem is consequences of giving up on dreams hopes and goals; and the theme in my poem is the consequences of giving up on love.  Langston Hughes’s poetry often includes morals or themes that people can look up to and try to utilize in their own lives.  The rhyme scheme and rhythm are the same in my poem as they are in Langston’s and the simple one stanza poem embodies Langston’s as well.  

“I have been asked to take as the subject of my remarks the title of a very significant poem, “We, Too, Sing America,” written by the distinguished poet and author, Langston Hughes.”" stated by Duke Ellington.

Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes met early on in 1936 and became friends.  They planned to collaborate on a musical together (which eventually never materialized), they also wrote together, as Ellington wrote music for one of Langston Hughes’s texts, and Hughes helped Ellington write lyrics.  The connection between the two was captivating, as both of these artists expressed the life of black Americans in the Harlem Renassaince and used jazz, black dialect, and their culture as inspiration and influence on their works.  In fact, in a speech Duke Ellington gave on the Lincoln Day Services for a church in Los Angeles, he utilized the poem as stated above, I, Too, Sing America as the basis of his speech.  He analyzed the poem during his speech:

“In the poem, Mr. Hughes argues the case for democratic recognition of the Negro on the basis of the Negro’s contribution to America, a contribution of labor, valor, and culture.”

He goes on to expand contributions that blacks had made to America, and their acheivements, while continuing to base his entire speech around Hughes’s poem.  

In many of Duke Ellington’s songs, he embodies the black American lifestyle and their dialect similar to Langston Hughes’s poetry.  He represents Hughes by working with him to write his songs and quoting his poems, as seen in the beginning of this post.  

 In contrast, Langston Hughes weaves jazz and blues sounds into his poems.  His poem The Weary Blues simply embodies the Harlem Jazz Age into a Poem.  The following excerpt of this poem utilizes the sounds and rhythms of Duke Ellington’s jazz songs to create a story.  

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan–
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

The rhythm of the poem creates a sway or swing which exemplifies the life and style of a harlem night life. This had a such a lasting effect on the Duke, that he performed it alongside Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.  The imagery in this poem leads to an illusion of the night life in Harlem and the dialect provides deep insight to the life of an African American jazz artist.  

Tucker, Mark, and Duke Ellington. The Duke Ellington Reader. New York City: Oxford University Press US, 1993. 35-38. Oxford University. 29 Mar. 2009 <http://books.google.com/books?id=j7HLNsjGRKcC&printsec=copyright&dq=duke+ellington+and+langston+hughes>.

Mrs. Hazel, the blog that I wish to respond to requires an extensive login.  Here is the website to the blog by Jennine Hunter  http://jean9fhunter.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/democracy-by-langston-hughes/ and my response:

I very much agree with you that Langston Hughes and Paul Dunbar provide thought-provoking and powerful poetry during the Harlem Renaissance.  They both feel that democracy is an important issue to write about.  In Langston Hughes’s poem Democracy he acts once again as an average black American person.  He explains the importance of democracy and freedom for everyone, and presents the issue of life as a black American.  It is also true as you pointed out that Paul Dunbar’s poem We Wear the Mask also touches on the subject of being black and being American.  But reflects loving your country in such a way that one would die for their country.  These poems are in fact extremely powerful towards the Harlem Renaissance time period and the work of these poets continue to provide insight to their reader’s today.  

Langston Hughes,being a poet during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920′s, primarily reflected the African American struggles, way of life and passions in his poetry.  He wrote with an inclination towards democracy and America.  He is known for his portrayals of life of blacks in America and their endearment towards music, language and culture in the Harlem Renaissance.  His contributions to American poetry could possibly tie back to Walt Whitman and his love for American poetry as well.  Walt Whitman had his sights on creating a distinct American style of poetry, as he felt the country was lacking in that area.  Whitman stated in Democratic Vistas, ”America has yet morally and artistically originated nothing.   She seems singularly unaware that the models of persons, books, manners, etc., appropriate for former conditions and for European lands, are but exiles and exotics here…”  He wished to create a new form of American poetry exemplifying the average americans in their natural habitats.  He claimed, “I will…go with drivers and boatmen and men that catch fish or work in fields.  I know they are sublime.”  As he went about creating this so-called American poetry, his ideas filtered into Langston Hughes, and inspired him to do the same.  Langston began to write of the black American life in his poetry.  In the following excerpt of Hughes’s poem Let America Be America Again, he writes about the American dream and the lifestyle of black American’s in the south.  

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

Here, Langston adds his own touch of African American struggle to Whitman’s style of American identity.  He describes a life of a slave in different aspects of American life such as “farmer, bondsman to the soil”, or, “People, humble, hungry, mean”.  He also describes how this man came to the country of America to create a homeland, illustrating his importance of America and democracy.  The imagery of average American life is definitely a link, if not a direct response to Whitman’s poem I Hear America Singing.  The following poem is Whitman’s version of the American life; potentially the influence of the previous Langston Hughes poem: 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand

     singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or

     at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of

     the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,

     robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Here Whitman also beatifies the American life by suggesting that the songs America sings are the many different people and the task each endures on a daily basis.  He finds extreme beauty and pride in boatmen, carpenters, shoemakers, and wood-cutters.  He expresses his affection for this by fixating on specific American common folk, the same way Langston Hughes does in Let America be America again.  

Another poet who had an influence on Hughes was Paul Dunbar.  This African American poet wrote about black American life as well, and also adapted the dialect of the African Americans.  In Dunbar’s poem When ‘Dey Listed Colored Soldiers, depicts the hardships of one African American family and utilizes the black American dialect at the time period well.  

Oh, I hugged him, an’ I kissed him, an’ I baiged him not to go;
But he tol’ me dat his conscience, hit was callin’ to him so,
An’ he could n’t baih to lingah w’en he had a chanst to fight
For de freedom dey had gin him an’ de glory of de right.
So he kissed me, an’ he lef’ me, w’en I’d p’omised to be true;
An’ dey put a knapsack on him, an’ a coat all colo’ed blue.
So I gin him pap’s ol’ Bible f’om de bottom of de draw’, –
W’en dey ‘listed colo’ed sojers an’ my ‘Lias went to wah.

This poem delves into the life of an African American women who’s husband is going to war.  Dunbar captures her emotion and fear by seizing her language and her voice, a technique that Hughe’s adopts in some of his poems as well.  His poem, Po’ Boy’s Blues, as follows, provides insight into a poor black boy struggles with life by usage of his dialect and voice:

When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
Since I come up North de
Whole damn world’s turned cold.

I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong.
Yes, I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong,
But this world is weary
An’ de road is hard an’ long.

I fell in love with
A gal I thought was kind.
Fell in love with
A gal I thought was kind.
She made me lose ma money
An’ almost lose ma mind.

Weary, weary,
Weary early in de morn.
Weary, weary,
Early, early in de morn.
I’s so weary
I wish I’d never been born. 

Paul Dunbar could easily have been the influence on Hughes’s black dialect poems, as both these poets connect with their audience by using the voice of the struggling African American to better link to the character’s life and hardships.  

Gayl Jones is the auther of the book Liberating Voices which studies the linguistic styles of African American poets such as Hughes and Dunbar.  ”One way that early poets first attempted to break away from the restrictive conventions of literary dialect and extend the territory of language and character was to look to the language, forms, and subjects of the folk creators” (Jones 22).  Gayl Jones finds connections between Hughes’s and Dunbar’s dialect and their African American background.  ”…(Dunbars) linguistic forms for narrative, description, and analysis of that character continued to enable character portraits” (Jones 18).  ”Hughes also demonstrates, that the poets turned to oral tradition for the “whole form” of the work long before the fiction writer, who continued (except for the slave narrative impulse) to “frame” their fictions.  But for the poets the entire poem was often “oral in its sequence”‘(Jones 25).  By stating the previous, Jones is suggesting that the language of their poetry is typically influenced by oral stories, thus creating the seemingly real connections to the speaker.  

Jones, Gayl. Liberating Voices. Boston: Harvard University, 1991. 18-25. Harvard University Press. 28 Mar. 2009 <http://books.google.com/books?id=Urh-G2QURoQC&printsec=copyright&dq=paul+dunbar,+langston+hughes>.

Wagner, Jean , and Kenneth Douglas. Black Poets of the United States. University of Illinois Press, 1973. University of Illinois Press. 28 Mar. 2009 <http://books.google.com/books?id=QGq0aNUC_mAC&printsec=copyright&dq=paul+dunbar,+langston+hughes#PPR4,M1>.

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it, 

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor–

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So, boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now–

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.  

My Analysis

This poem is spoken by a woman who has had a hard life and has been through a lot.  She is explaining her life to her son, a young child and gives him advice to never give up, which is the main theme.  Never giving up seems to be a recurring theme in Langston’s poetry as he stresses hard life and pressing on when times get tough.  The mother explains that her life hasn’t been easy and compares it to the opposite of a crystal staircase.  She explains that her pain is like that of the tacks poking out of the splintered wood of the stairs; unexpected and sharp.  The boards that are torn up represent the things that were taken away from her in her life, and the places with no carpet is the lonleliness and emptiness.  However, she explains how she pushes through her life, by reaching landings which symbolize stability and strength, and turning corners which are new opportunities created by not giving up.  She continues to stay strong even when she doesn’t know what is coming next in her life.  She closes the poem with the advice to her son that life isn’t going to be easy but he needs to keep going and keep climbing the staircase just like she did. 

Scholarly Perspective

Aidan Wesely, a critic, analyzed the poem Mother to son where he explores the meaning and the context of Hughes in his poem.  He expresses that the poem is a monolague being said by the mother to the son.  He believes that the son has asked the mother a question about her life, thus the means of the poem.  She proceeds to recount for her son the difficulties of her own life, telling him “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” yet suggesting to him that those difficulties are, if not ultimately surmountable, at least worth struggling against:” (Wesely).  The difficulties of the mother draws in the reader, who is concerned for her yet proud that she as accomplished all that she had.  Aidan Wesely compares this poem to another Hughes poem called The Negro Mother.  Langston Hughes voices African American struggle and growth in a good amount of his poetry.  ”we can see the speaker of “Mother to Son” as representing a kind of collective voice, the voice of the generations of African-Americans whose troubled history–from the slave-ships, to the plantations, to Reconstruction, to the Great Migration to the urban North–”ain’t been no crystal stair.”‘(Wesely).  He seems to think that Hughes grasped his inspiration from many different sources, including the Bible.  He references a Bible story, Jacob’s Ladder, where there is a staircase between Heaven and earth.  I would agree with Aidan’s analysis of the poem as well as of Langston in general; Weseley offers a different approach to reading Langston Hughes’s poetry and analyzing it.  

Aidan Wasely

“An Overview of Mother to Son”

Poetry for Students, Gale, 1998

Literature Resource Center

http://ftp.ccccd.edu/mtolleson/2328online/2328noteshughes.htm