The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

First published: 1926

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes’s first published volume of poetry, is grounded in a blues aesthetic. Hughes, one of the younger writers of the Harlem Renaissance, had begun publishing his verse in such journals as TheCrisis, Opportunity, and Survey Graphic, and his landmark poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” appeared in The Crisis in 1921. His work, as well as that of fellow Harlem Renaissance poets such as Countée Cullen, Claude McKay, and Gwendolyn Bennett, was also published in the short-lived journal Fire!! (1926), edited by Wallace Thurman. The Weary Blues, which contains an introduction by the respected writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten, was published during the height of the Jazz Age, when the blues recordings of Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith were in vogue.

Jazz and blues themes underlie Hughes’s presentation of Harlem nightlife. Jazz, which provided a stimulus for poets such as Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay, was more than an incidental subject for Hughes. Although the aab rhyme pattern of traditional blues songs is not pronounced in The Weary Blues, Hughes structured a number of his poems on blueslike formats, and he used vernacular to replicate the vocal patterns of black speech.

The collection of poems treats a primary blues theme, that of the problems encountered in personal relationships. At the time the work first appeared, many critics did not appreciate the blues elements that Hughes explored because they thought these elements represented an area of African American life that was not socially uplifting. The Weary Blues shows Hughes’s determination to present the many sides of African American life. The poems address romantic love, African heritage, and the social aspects of race and color. In doing so, they raise the experiences of the common people to the level of art. The poems distill Hughes’s own experiences in locations as varied as Mexico, West Africa, and Harlem.

The collection contains seven sections: “The Weary Blues,” “Dream Variations,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Black Pierrot,” “Water-Front Streets,” “Shadows in the Sun,” and “Our Land.” Each section is named for the first poem of the group. The book opens with “Proem,” in which Hughes defines “Negro” with references to African heritage, slavery, musical contributions, and oppression.

The “Weary Blues” section consists of fifteen poems that depict Harlem nightlife through images of cabarets, performing artists, and personal relationships. Structured in free-verse form, the single poem “The Weary Blues” contains a blues lyric from an actual blues composition. The poem depicts the jazz life through the observations of a persona sensitive to the conditions of performance, who comments:

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,   I heard a Negro play.Down on Lenox Avenue the other nightBy the pale dull pallor of an old gas light.

In these lines, syncopation, the defining rhythmic quality of jazz, is characterized by the word “rocking.” The nightclub is the setting in which musicians labor to the point of weariness, and the act of performance is equated with race in the image of “ebony hands.” The observer also notes “the sad raggy tune,” a reference to ragtime and to the sadness and despair implicit in the blues performance.

“Jazzonia,” the second poem in this section, describes an uptown nightclub where jazz artists are accompanied by a sensuous dancer whose movements imply seduction, which is signified by “Eve” or “Cleopatra.” Another poem depicting dance, “Negro Dancers,” contains black vernacular and representations of jazz rhythms in syllables that suggest future motifs of bebop. The closing line of the poem, “Two mo’ ways to do de Charleston!,” refers to the highly popular dance style associated with James P. Johnson.

In “The Cat and the Saxophone (2 a.m.),” the lyrics to a popular song—“Everybody loves my baby but my baby don’t love nobody but me”—are used to form a call-and-response pattern that parallels the conversation in a cabaret. “Young Singer” and “Cabaret” are other poems depicting jazz venues. In “Cabaret,” the persona asks, “Does a jazz-band ever sob?”—a question that implies that the observer is somewhat distanced from the blues experience. In “To Midnight Nan at Leroy’s,” the persona speaks in syncopated black vernacular. The poem portrays African American women and the problematic love relationships often depicted in blues songs.

Using jazz performance as a backdrop, “Harlem Night Club” explores interracial socializing. The poem suggests that nightlife integration does not signify social equality. African American women performers are the subject of “Nude Young Dancer,” and in “Young Prostitute” sexual exploitation is suggested in the line “like a withered flower.” The withering of the prostitute contrasts with the exotic sensuousness of the dancer in “To a Black Dancer in ’The Little Savoy.’”

The black woman dancer is also portrayed in “Song for a Banjo Dance,” which is set in a rural folk context, whereas the ability of the blues to provide a transcendent experience is exemplified in “Blues Fantasy.” The closing poem of the section, “Lenox Avenue: Midnight,” restates nightlife themes and evokes the cabaret atmosphere.

“Dream Variations,” the second section of The Weary Blues, presents nature and romantic themes. Though these lyric poems focus primarily on such images of nature as the moon and autumn, they include references to racial themes as well. The dream metaphor, central to Hughes’s poetic concept, is evident in the title poem, in which black liberation is equated to the end of “the white day.” In “Winter Moon,” the moon is described as “thin and sharp and ghostly white.” “Fantasy in Purple” contrasts musical images of African American culture with those of European culture. The drum signifies African American culture and announces tragic social circumstances. The “white violins” are contrasted with the “blaring trumpet” and “darkness.” “March Moon” is an ironic lyric poem that personifies the moon as a naked woman “undressed” by the wind. The closing poem, “Joy,” uses personification to locate joy in an urban situation.

The third section, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” contains one of Hughes’s best-known poems. Dedicated to W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” traces African heritage from the perspective of a universal black persona who compares the black legacy with certain major rivers of the world. These rivers, which form the structure of the poem, represent locations where people of African descent have lived: “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the/ flow of human blood in human veins.” The Euphrates, the Congo, and the Nile represent ancient heritage; slavery in the Americas is symbolized by the Mississippi. The poem also uses “soul” to identify sources of being and spirituality.

“Cross,” the second poem in this section, deals with race mixture and the uncertain identity of the mulatto, who is “neither white nor black.” “The Jester” questions the dual mask of comedy and tragedy. In “The South,” the speaker, angry and embittered by racial persecution, describes the South as “Beast-strong” and “Idiot-brained.” Personified as a woman, the South rejects the love of black people. By contrast, the North, although cold, is a “kinder mistress.” In “Aunt Sue’s Stories,” Hughes examines oppression in the South and the legacy of slavery through the oral tradition, and he praises blackness in “Poem,” which counters the negative stereotypes of darkness: “The night is beautiful/ So the faces of my people.”

In the fourth section, “Black Pierrot,” Hughes addresses romantic love and images of black women. In the signature poem, the speaker is troubled by unrequited love. “Color” is used to identify the night, the soul, and hope in “a new brown love.” In “Harlem Night Song,” cabaret and jazz are the backdrop for a declaration of love. In “Poem,” a lyrical praise to black beauty, the black woman becomes a symbolic figure of adoration and “black” is a positive: “My black one,/ Thou art not beautiful/ Yet thou hast/ A loveliness/ Surpassing beauty.” Using biblical pronouns, the persona redefines beauty through the negative stereotype of darkness. “Songs to the Dark Virgin” and “When Sue Wears Red” elevate black women as timeless representatives of ancestral queenliness. Susanna Jones appears like “an ancient cameo/ turned brown by the ages.”

“Water-Front Streets,” the fifth section, draws on Hughes’s experience as a seaman. The title poem uses the dream motif and traditional British poetic language to suggest the romantic hopes of a sailor destined for places “where the spring is wondrous rare.” Other poems in this section, such as “A Farewell” and “Long Trip,” use water imagery and the journey motif to portray separation and isolation. “Caribbean Sunset,” a four-line poem, describes the sun in startling images of blood. “Natcha” addresses the theme of love for sale, and “Death of an Old Seaman” considers the seaman’s soul and afterlife.

In the sixth section, “Shadows in the Sun,” Hughes focuses primarily on women. Isolation, suicide, illness, labor, and alienation are among the themes he covers. “Beggar Boy” describes a lad whose flute song contrasts with his bare existence. “Troubled Woman” presents an image of despair and fatigue by portraying a woman who is “Like a/ Wind-blown autumn flower.” “Suicide’s Note,” a three-line piece, implies death by drowning. “To the Dark Mercedes of ’El Palacio De Amor’” and “Mexican Market Woman” depict, respectively, the young beautiful prostitute and the aged vendor whose labor is timeless. These poems, along with “Soledad: A Cuban Portrait,” reflect the poet’s treatment of women in the Spanish-speaking world of the Americas. “Young Bride” also deals with a woman’s tragic circumstances. The dream motif is developed in “The Dream Keeper,” in which the poet sees the escape of dreaming as an alternative to life’s realities: “Bring me all your dreams,/ You dreamers.”

In “Our Land,” the final section, the title poem calls for a natural world of “gorgeous sun” and “tall thick trees” as opposed to a “land where life is cold.” Other poems return to political and race-conscious themes. “Lament for Dark Peoples” describes the disruption of Native American and African cultures by European “civilization.” The “red” and “black” people are “caged” in “the circus of civilization.” “Poem” treats the clash of African and Western civilizations, and “Danse Africaine” shows the connection between African dance and a heritage of rhythm. “Summer Night” considers jazz images and musical life. In “The White Ones,” the poet uses whiteness to address ambivalent feelings and relative beauty: “I do not hate you,/ For your faces are beautiful, too.” Two of Hughes’s best-known poems close the collection: “Mother to Son,” which develops the metaphor of life as “no crystal stair,” and “Epilogue,” also known as “I, Too,” which describes the “darker brother” and his resolve to declare his beauty and his rightful place at the “table” of equality.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold, ed. Langston Hughes. New ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2008. Collection of critical essays examines Hughes’s life and work. Includes a discussion of Hughes, primitivism, and jazz.

Cullen, Countée. Review of The Weary Blues, by Langston Hughes. In Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad, 1993. A fellow Harlem Renaissance poet questions the merit of Hughes’s jazz and blues poems but praises his more traditional lyrical verse.

Feinstein, Sasha. “Weary Blues, Harlem Galleries, and Southern Roads.” In Jazz Poetry: From the 1920’s to the Present. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Examination of the history of jazz poetry cites the publication of Hughes’s The Weary Blues as the first time the genre became “fully embraced.” Includes discussion of this collection.

Jemie, Onwuchekwa. Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. One of the first full-length treatments of Hughes’s poetry remains useful for students. Discusses both jazz and blues themes and treats The Weary Blues in chapter 2, “Shadow of the Blues.”

Miller, R. Baxter. The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes. 1989. Reprint. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. Examines Hughes’s poetry by focusing on the imaginative process. The Weary Blues is interpreted in chapter 3, “’Deep like the Rivers’: The Lyrical Imagination,” as a work that reveals a diversity of techniques.

Nardi, Steven A. “’By the Pale Dull Pallor of an Old Gas Light’: Technology and Vision in Langston Hughes’s The Weary Blues.” In New Voices on the Harlem Renaissance: Essays on Race, Gender, and Literary Discourse, edited by Australia Tarver and Paula C. Barnes. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006. Presents an analysis of the collection, which is described as a “central text” in the development of Hughes’s poetics, as in this work Hughes moved beyond his earlier Carl Sandburg-influenced verse to create poetry drawing on African American folk culture and music.

Rampersad, Arnold. 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America. Vol. 1 in The Life of Langston Hughes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. First volume in a definitive biography of Hughes addresses the literary history of The Weary Blues in the context of Hughes’s relationship to other literary figures of the 1920’s.

Tracy, Steven C. Langston Hughes and the Blues. 1988. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Provides a comprehensive treatment of the blues influences in Hughes’s poetry. Includes a substantial definition of the structures of blues songs and corresponding patterns in Hughes’s poetry. Examines The Weary Blues in chapter 3, “Creating the Blues.”