Grantham University The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Essay 3 PARAGRAPHS PER ASSIGNMENT….MLA IN TEXT CITATION…SINGLE SPACE Begin your essay with a clear t

Grantham University The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Essay 3 PARAGRAPHS PER ASSIGNMENT….MLA IN TEXT CITATION…SINGLE SPACE Begin your essay with a clear thesis that reflects the question you select, but you may need to narrow and focus the question. Explain your thesis, the focus of your essay. Do not begin with a general statements. Define any relevant terms, and then support this focus with specific examples and quotes from the text.note: if your essays are too short or undeveloped or if they are general/ vague, they will not receive a good grade.DO NOT USE ONLINE SOURCES; IF YOU DO, YOU WILL FAIL WITH A ZERO

1. Using ONE of the Modern texts in our content unit on Modernism, such as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Mending Wall,” or “A Rose for Emily,” define and explain Modernism. Provide at least four characteristics of Modernism and explain how these characteristics are illustrated in the text you select – use these characteristics to explain the text’s meaning. Be specific.

2. Explain the traditional definition of the dramatic monologue as developed by Browning; then explain how and why Eliot’s adapts and changes this type of poem in “The Love Song.” Why does Eliot change the traditional definition for a more modern audience – what is his purpose? Be specific.

3. Using either chapter 9 of Vandover and the Brute, “The Open Boat,” OR “The Blue Hotel,” define American Naturalism as a literary movement, providing at least four characteristics. Make sure you use examples/quotes from one of these texts. You may include Norris’ definition of Naturalism.

4. In “To Build a Fire,” compare and contrast the two characters, the man and the dog. Neither one has a have proper name. Are we meant to compare the two? How does such a comparison help us understand the story as Naturalistic? For example, which one is more adapted to his environment?

5. Rivers function as symbols in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; what do they symbolize? What do they mean? Several rivers are mentioned: name them and explain how they provide clues to the poem’s meaning.

6. In “Sweat,” Sykes is associated with phallic symbols: the bullwhip and the snake. Why use these symbols to characterize him? In contrast, Delia is surrounded by gynocentric symbols (symbols that are about female creativity): laundry basket, skillet, and the house itself. Compare and contrast the use of symbols as touchstones of meaning in the story. What do these symbols reveal about each character and the story’s meaning?

7. How and why does Miss Emily try to control time and circumstance? Why does she kill Homer? Consider her background including her relationship with her father – what does he have to do with her mental state? Narrow/focus.

8. Discuss the narrator in “Mending Wall” – who is telling the story and why? What is the narrator’s tone or attitude? Compare and contrast the narrator’s point of view about the wall with his neighbor’s. What is the narrator’s attitude toward his neighbor? What does the narrator mean when he says his neighbor “walks in darkness” or compares him to a “stone-age savage”?

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YOU MUST ANSWER EACH QUESTION WITH AT LEAST 3 PARAGRAPHS Essay on “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Source: Taylor-Thompson, Betty. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Masterplots II:
Poetry. Revised Edition. (January 2002): 1-2.
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is Langston Hughes’s most anthologized poem. Hughes wrote this
brief poem in fifteen minutes in July, 1920, while crossing the Mississippi on a train ride to visit
his father in Mexico. It is one of Hughes’s earliest poems, and its subject established the
emphasis of much of his subsequent poetry. Hughes’s poems may be divided into several
categories: protest poems, social commentary, Harlem poems, folk poems, poems on African and
negritude themes, and miscellaneous poetry on various other nonracial subjects and themes. “The
Negro Speaks of Rivers” centers on African and negritude themes. Hughes’s writing always
shows an identification with Africa, and his later poetry on African subjects and African themes
demonstrates his growing sophistication and knowledge of the history and problems of Africa.
Along with its emphasis on African themes, this poem so poignantly and dramatically expresses
what it means to be a black American that it helps to assure Hughes’s continuing fame.
Through the images of the river, Hughes traces the history of the African American from Africa
to America. The muddy Mississippi makes Hughes consider the roles that rivers have played in
human history. The first three lines introduce the subject of the poem. The primary image of
water symbolically represents the history of humanity, acknowledging the fact that rivers are
more ancient in the history of the earth:
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
human blood in human veins.
The next line connects the poet with the river and acknowledges the influence of waterways on
the history of the African American: “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This line is
repeated at the end of the poem, reestablishing the connection between the human essence and
the river as well as the river’s role in African American life.
The middle section reveals the connections between the history of the African American and four
important rivers of the world: the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. The three
African rivers are a part of the ancient history of black people when they were free, living in
majestic kingdoms and forming the great civilizations of Africa. The poem more specifically
relates to the African American, who is the victim of slavery and discrimination in the New
World, where rivers were used to transport black slaves.
The last section of the poem, “I’ve known rivers:/ Ancient, dusky, rivers// My soul has grown
deep like the rivers,” re-emphasizes the beginning section by restating the influence of rivers on
the soul and life of black people from antiquity to the twentieth century. The final line of the
poem repeats the statement that connects the human soul to the rivers of the world.
Forms and Devices
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a lyric poem. Lyric poetry is rooted in song and establishes the
ritual of the human condition, in this case the condition of black people. In this poem, Hughes is
both teller (poet) and participant (African American) in the drama being described. Through the
intense images of this poem, the reader is able to participate in the emotion and poignancy of the
history of black people. Since Hughes discusses this history beyond that in America, he
transcends localism and projects upon his reader a world experience.
The diction of the poem is simple and unaffected by rhetorical excess. It is eloquent in its
simplicity, allowing readers of all ages and levels of sophistication to enjoy a first reading;
however, as one reads this poem, the deeper meaning reveals itself.
The primary image of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is water; its function as the river of time is
to trace the heritage and past of the African American. The flowing, lyrical lines, like water, are
charged with meaning, describing what the river has meant to black people in America. Hughes’s
poetic ability and technical virtuosity are nowhere as evident as in this short poem, which formed
the basis for his early acceptance as a brilliant poet. Hughes uses the repeated line “My soul has
grown deep like the rivers” to emphasize the way rivers symbolize not only the physical history
of the African American but the spiritual history (“my soul”) as well. The river is also a symbol
of the strength of black people as survivors who move through history. Finally, the rivers reflect
the direct path of blacks to America.
The entire poem is based on an extended metaphor comparing the heritage of the African
American to the great rivers of the world. The poet reveals the relationship between the river and
the lives of black people, starting with a river known to be important during the earliest great
civilizations and ending with a river on which slaves were transported, to be bought and sold in
the slave markets of America.
Themes and Meanings
Langston Hughes was deeply concerned with the history and social condition of his people. “The
Negro Speaks of Rivers” reflects the poet’s interest in both topics. This poem also speaks of a
mystic union of blacks throughout the world, for it traces their history back to the creation of the
world, giving them credit for spanning time and for founding the greatest civilizations that
humanity has ever known.
Hughes received the inspiration for this poem as he crossed the Mississippi River by train,
feeling melancholy yet drawing pride from thoughts of the rivers that played a part in the history
of his race. The images of beauty and death, and of hope and despair, all fused in his adolescent
sensibility, causing him to create one of his most beautiful poems. The use of words such as
“soul” and “rivers” allows Hughes to touch the deepest feelings and spiritual longings of his own
soul and the souls of his people. With the use of the words “deep,” “flow,” “dusky,” and
“ancient,” Hughes describes the actual rivers that were involved in black history, all the while
emphasizing the long and glorious history of his race. With this poem, Hughes, often called “the
poet of his people,” plunges into the deep well of African American history, uniting it with
global African history.
The poem, with its allusions to the setting sun, human blood, and deep, dusky rivers, suffuses the
images of death as it speaks of the immortality of the soul. Hughes celebrates the life of black
people by acknowledging death, but the images of death presented in the poem are
overshadowed by emphasis on the life of the soul — in this case, a racial soul which runs
throughout time like a river. As the muddy water of the Mississippi turns golden in the sunset, so
does the poet turn the memory of the history and survival of his people into brilliance. With
images of water and pyramid, the verse suggests the endurance of the black physical presence
and spirit from ancient Egypt to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The muddy Mississippi
caused Hughes to think about the roles in human history played by the Congo, the Niger, and the
Nile, as slaves were passed down these waters to be sold; once sold, these same slaves may have
ended up being sold again on the Mississippi. The Mississippi also caused Hughes to think about
Abraham Lincoln and the role he played in the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Pride in one’s history is a constant theme in the poem. Hughes views the history of black people,
even in slavery, with a sense of pride as he points out the ability of his people to survive their
harsh and violent treatment in America. Hughes’s confidence in the strength of blackness is a
major part of his theme of pride; this confidence and pride is his legacy to African Americans.
Black culture is still embattled, but Hughes provides a device for countering the argument that
black people are without a vital and universal history.
On “The Negro Speaks of
Rivers”
Arnold Rampersad
The sun was setting as the train reached St. Louis and began the long passage from
Illinois across the Mississippi and into Missouri, where Hughes had been born. The
beauty of the hour and the setting–the great muddy river glinting in the sun, the
banked and tinted summer clouds, the rush of the train toward the dark, all touched an
adolescent sensibility tender after the gloomy day. The sense of beauty and death, of
hope and despair, fused in his imagination. A phrase came to him, then a sentence.
Drawing an envelope from his pocket, he began to scribble. In a few minutes
Langston had finished a poem.
…
With its allusions to deep dusky rivers, the setting sun, sleep, and the soul, “The
Negro Speaks of Rivers” is suffused with the image of death and, simultaneously, the
idea of deathlessness. As in Whitman’s philosophy, only the knowledge of death can
bring the primal spark of poetry and life. Here Langston Hughes became “the
outsetting bard,” in Whitman’s phrase, the poet who sings of life because at last he has
known death. Balanced between the knowledge of love and of death, the poetic will
gathers force. From the depths of grief the poet sweeps back to life by clinging to his
greatest faith, which is in his people and his sense of kinship with them. His frail,
intimidated self, as well as the image of his father, are liquidated. A man-child is born,
soft-spoken, almost casual, yet noble and proud, and black as Africa. The muddy river
is his race, the primal source out of which he is born anew; on that “muddy bosom” of
the race as black mother, or grandmother, he rests secure forever. The angle of the sun
on the muddy water is like the angle of a poet’s vision, which turns mud into gold. The
diction of the poem is simple and unaffected either by dialect or rhetorical excess; its
eloquence is like that of the best of the black spirituals.
From Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. 1. Oxford University
Press, 1988. Copyright © by Arnold Rampersad.
Onwuchekwa Jemie
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is perhaps the most profound of these poems of
heritage and strength. Composed when Hughes was a mere 17 years old, and
dedicated to W. E. B. DuBois, it is a sonorous evocation of transcendent essences so
ancient as to appear timeless, predating human existence, longer than human memory.
The rivers are part of God’s body, and participate in his immortality. They are the
earthly analogues of eternity: deep, continuous, mysterious. They are named in the
order of their association with black history. The black man has drunk of their lifegiving essences, and thereby borrowed their immortality. He and the rivers have
become one. The magical transformation of the Mississippi from mud to gold by the
sun’s radiance is mirrored in the transformation of slaves into free men by Lincoln’s
Proclamation (and, in Hughes’s poems, the transformation of shabby cabarets into
gorgeous palaces, dancing girls into queens and priestesses by the spell of black
music). As the rivers deepen with time, so does the black man’s soul; as their waters
ceaselessly flow, so will the black soul endure. The black man has seen the rise and
fall of civilizations from the earliest times, seen the beauty and death-changes of the
world over the thousands of years, and will survive even this America. The poem’s
meaning is related to Zora Neale Hurston’s judgment of the mythic High John de
Conquer, whom she held as a symbol of the triumphant spirit of black America: that
John was of the “Be” class. “Be here when the ruthless man comes, and be here when
he is gone.” In a time and place where black life is held cheap and the days of black
men appear to be numbered, the poem is a majestic reminder of the strength and
fullness of history, of the source of that life which transcends even ceaseless labor and
burning crosses.
From Langston Hughes: An Introduction to The Poetry. Copyright © 1976 by
Columbia University Press.
Jean Wagner
Hughes’s first poem, published in The Crisis in June, 1921, attracted the attention it
did precisely because its author revealed the acute sensitivity to the racial past that
Garvey, with his racial romanticism, was then trying to instill in the minds of all. “The
Negro Speaks of Rivers” heralded the existence of a mystic union of Negroes in every
country and every age. It pushed their history back to the creation of the world, and
credited them with possessing a wisdom no less profound than that of the greatest
rivers of civilization that humanity had ever known, from the Euphrates to the Nile
and from the Congo to the Mississippi. . . .
Yet unlike Countee Cullen, and perhaps because he was the only poet of the Negro
Renaissance who had a direct, rather disappointing contact with Africa, Hughes rarely
indulges in a gratuitous idealization of the land of his ancestors. If, in spite of
everything, the exaltation of African atavism has a significant place in his poetry up to
1931, the reason is merely that he had not yet discovered a less romantic manner that
would express his discomfort at not being treated in his own country as a citizen on a
par with any other. If he celebrates Africa as his mother, it is not only because all the
black peoples originated there but also because America, which should be his real
mother, had always behaved toward him in stepmotherly fashion.
From Black Poets of the United States. Copyright © 1973 by the Board of Trustees of
the University of Illinois.
George Hutchinson
Hughes had come to Whitman by way of such Midwestern rebels as Carl Sandburg
prior to the twenties. His was the democratic “transnational,” socialist, “comradely”
Whitman pushed by Horace Traubel and the Masses circle (as opposed to the
Whitman of “cosmic consciousness” Toomer responded to). Nonetheless, he early
sensed the affinity between the inclusive “I” of Whitman and the “I” of the spirituals,
whose fusion shaped one of his first published poems, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” .
…
Readers rarely notice that if the soul of the Negro in this poem goes back to the
Euphrates, it goes back to a pre-“racial” dawn and a geography far from Africa that is
identified with neither blackness nor whiteness–a geography at the time of Hughes’s
writing considered the cradle of all the world’s civilizations and possibly the location
of the Garden of Eden. Thus, even in this poem about the depth of the Negro’s soul
Hughes avoids racial essentialism while nonetheless stressing the existential,
racialized conditions of black and modern identity.
From The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White. Copyright © 1995 by the
President and Board of Fellows of Harvard College.
Joyce A. Joyce
Hughes captures the African American’s historical journey to America in what is
perhaps his signature poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Dedicated to W E. B. Du
Bois and using water or the river as a metaphor for the source of life, the poem traces
the movement of black life from the Euphrates and Nile rivers in Africa to the
Mississippi. Hughes subtly couches his admonishment of slavery and racism in the
refrain “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” The first time the line appears in the
poem it follows the poet’s assertion that he has known rivers “ancient as the world and
older than the flow of / human blood in human veins.” The poet here identifies
himself and his blackness with the first human beings. The second and only other time
the line appears in the poem occurs after the poet has made reference to Mississippi,
New Orleans, and Abe Lincoln. He places the lines “My soul has grown deep like the
rivers” at the end of the poem, this time suggesting that he is no longer the same man
who “bathed in the Euphrates” and “built [his] hut near the Congo.” He is now a black
man who has experienced the pain of slavery and racism, and his soul now bears the
imprint of these experiences.
From “Bantu, Nkodi, Ndungu, and Nganga: Language, Politics, Music, and Religion
in African American Poetry.” In The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry.
Ed. Joanne V. Gabbins. Copyright © 1999 by the Rectors and Visitors of the
University of Virginia.
Adrian Oktenberg
The identification of Hughes as a folk poet obscures the fact that he is a brilliant poet
of ideas, and radical ideas at that. The concepts of negritude and soul, the politics of
Black Power, the psychology of black rage, are so familiar to children of the sixties
that it comes almost as a shock to realize that Hughes was presenting articulate and
concrete images of them in his poetry in the twenties and thirties. While these ideas
did not originate with him, he embodied them in verse of such fluency and power that
it seems undated half a century later. Moreover, he consistently combined them with
the basic premises of revolutionary socialism, and this sympathy is evident–hard to
miss–in his work not only of the thirties but to the end of his life.
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” then, is only the beginning of a long chain of poems
by Hughes which confront, distill, extend, and transform the historical experience of
black people into an art both limpid and programmatic. As in all of Hughes’ hallmark
poems, its distillation is as extreme as any in Issa’s haiku. The “I” of the poem is not
that of “a” Negro but “the” Negro, suggesting the whole of the people and their
history. Most of the consonants–d’s, n’s, l’s, s’s—are soft, and of the vowels, long o’s
reoccur, contributing by sound the effect of an ancient voice. The tone of the repeated
declarative sentences is muted, lulling. Every element of the poem combines to
suggest that when the Negro speaks of rivers it is with the accumulated wisdom of a
sage. The function of a sage is to impart the sometimes secret but long accumulated
history of a people to its younger members so that they might make the lessons of the
past active in the future. This impartation occurs in the central stanza of the poem:
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom
turn all golden in the sunset.
Moving by suggestion, by naming particular rivers and particular activities performed
nearby, the poem implicates the whole history of African and American slavery
without ever articulating the word. “I bathed in the Euphrates” and “I built my hut
near the Congo” are the normal activities of natural man performed in his natural
habitat. That may be an unnecessarily anthropological way of putting it, but the lines
are the equivalent of the speaker having said, “I made my life undisturbed in the place
where I lived.” The shift–and the lesson–occurs in the next two lines. Raising the
pyramids above the Nile was the act of slaves, and if ever “Abe Lincoln went down to
New Orleans,” it would have been in the context of American slavery and the Civil
War. Implicit in the history of a people who had first been free and then enslaved is
the vision of freedom regained, and therein lies the program. The final line of the
poem, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers,” suggests wisdom in the word “deep.”
The wisdom imparted by the poem, beyond the memory of the suffering of slavery,
includes a more deeply embedded memory of freedom. This is perhaps the more
powerful memory, or the more sustaining one, and even if deferred, will reemerge in
one form or another.
From “From the Bottom Up: Three Radicals of the Thirties.” In A Gift of Tongues:
Critical Challenges in Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Marie Harris and
Kathleen Aguero. Copyright © 1987 by The University of Georgia Press.
R. Baxter Miller
The double identification with penetrative time and receptive timelessness…
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