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摘 要:美国黑人的“桂冠诗人”兰斯顿·休斯是哈勒文艺复兴运动中推动非裔美国文化发展的重要人物。国内外很多学者对他在推动非洲民间文化的过程中所起到的不可缺少的作用以及在美国白人文化主导的社会中黑人低下的社会地位以及他们所受到的不公平待遇进行了大量的讨论。但是,他们几乎没有研究休斯的《我也歌唱美国》中所蕴涵的黑人深切苦楚。为了填补这个方面部分空白,本文将以休斯的《我也歌唱美国》为例从文化研究的角度去探索被歧视的黑人的深切痛楚。
关键词:黑人;《我也歌唱美国》;兰斯顿·休斯;深切痛楚
Ⅰ
Langston Hughes is an important figure for the development of African-American cultures in terms of literature, music, theater, art, and politics through his innovative poetry over the Harlem Renaissance, known as the Negro Renaissance and the New Negro Movement and generally considered the first important movement of black artists and writers in the United States. And his poem I, Too, Sing America, carries Hughes’s racialist meditation on the discriminatory position of African-American culture as he writes: “The very fact that Negroes do straighten their hair and try to forget their racial background and makes them different from white people…[1](P:36)”
As a matter of fact, Hughes has been aware of the importance of African-American culture, which in Turner’s terms, is “in many respects …there could be a literary culture among Blacks [2] (P: 201-210).” For the sake of this, he produces this poem I, Too, Sing America to express his resistance to racialist culture by transforming the bitterness of Negros into humor and irony and interpret the beauty of his own people as he manifests: “we younger Negro artist who create now intend to express our own individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame… [3](P65-94)”
And Influenced his great innovative poetry, his profound compassion of the Negroes’ life and his enthusiasm to extend African-American folk culture, many scholars and critics from both aboard and at home have not only discussed much about his indispensable role in promoting it on the basis of some contrast among his works but also made a mention of Negroes’ lower social position as well as their unfair treatment in the sort of American society dominated by whites’ culture through the careful combination of his poetry and the unbearable experience of the Negroes suffer from different perspectives but they have hardly built their study of Negroes’ discriminatory folk culture on a sound and detailed discussion about it in just one of his works. To fill little of the gap of their studies, this paper will take one of his poems, I, Too, Sing America, as an example to make an exploration of the discriminated Negroes’ sound bitterness.
Ⅱ
As for foreign studies upon I, Too, Sing America, most of them has made a great exploration on Hughes’s poetical styles in some of his poems from different perspectives, their innovative findings having inspired a great many scholars but few foreign scholars have made a direct mention of this poem, let alone focusing their studies on the sort of sound bitterness the Negroes suffer. Therefore, this paper cannot but make a relevant review of foreign studies as regards foreign scholars’ current studies of this poem. But for the sake of the limited content to be carried in this research and the relevance to this research, there will be just the studies of three foreign scholars (Rampersad, Brooks and Hitchens) just to be covered as a review both to share their insightful comments, arguments or conclusions and also find out the academic gap left in their studies and the tenable space for this paper.
As Rampersad mentions this poem in his studies directly, so his studies center on the discussion of the Writer’s descriptive styles in I, Too, Sing America and the closely-knit combination of his poems with his own personal experience and the valuable relevance to the life of Black people. His study mentions (The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume Ⅰ, 1902-1941): “I, Too, Sing America is a sympathetic, yet clear-eyed portrait of one of America’s most controversial writers that also manages to be a sweeping depiction of the black experience in this country and abroad during the first four decades of the 20th century[4](P:1005).” Besides, Rampersad dose not shy away from “the ambiguities and ironies in Hughes’s life: his possible homosexuality… [4](P: 1005)” So to speak, Rampersad’s study covers both the strength and the weakness of Hughes’s life and reveals both the success and the failure of his work equally.
Unlike the studies of Rampersad, Brooks proposes his opposite views on the Huges’s worries about the quality of his work. He argues that Hughes makes his response to his personal encounter with racism rather his sorrows about his devotion to his poetic craft, with great eager to polish it. In his terms, “Hughes is simply not very vulnerable… [5](P: 7)” Additionally, Brooks’s study also presents to us Hughes’s sound concern for his people as he claims, “America never was America to me…[5](P:9)”due to his intolerance to see the poor situation of his Darker Brother.
Similar to the situation of that in I, Too, Sing America, Hitchens finds out that Hughes has spent a lot of time in white schools and classes, and has little choice but to bear him-self bravely when subjected to vulgar abuses and discrimination after his intensive reading many of Hughes’s works. In his studies, he learns from Rampersad that Hughes has made a distinct impression with his work Good bye Christ and Good Morning Revolution, as well as his plays on the Scottboro case and other outrages of racialism. To find some evidence in this respect, he quotes from Rampersad “On each of the few occasions in his (Hughes’s) life when his internal pressures proved too great to bear, the cause would be private rather than racial [6] (P: 22).” But Hitchens still argues that there is no evidence that color plays much role in his unhappiness. .
The analysis and contrast mentioned previously in this paper shows that foreign studies center on Hughes’s individual experience, his innovative poetic styles and the discrimination he writes in his works. But they have made little study of or even made no mention of this poem, I, Too, Sing America let alone the soundness of the Negroes’ bitterness in their mind when discriminated or insulted by whites.
As far as the exploration on Hughes’s works and humorous poetic language is concerned, a Chinese scholar named Luo Liang-gong, has focused his study on a detailed and penetrative analysis of Hughes’s creating conceptions and art to emphasize the endless efforts and explorations throughout his life by interpreting his humor, which reflects two strategies the Negroes take: the strategy they take for a better life and that to prevent the whites from destroying the eternal and internal environment subservient to their development. The heart of his studies relies on the interpretation of Hughes’s humor, which in Luo’s mind, is the core value of the Negroes’ exclusive psychological mechanism and cultural tradition that they draw from their experience along American continent. In addition to these cultural significance, Luo holds that Hughes’s humor is one the one hand, a bond that links the unbendable fortitude in fighting against whites’ dominant culture to reach his dream of seeking for democracy and liberty to humanity, both the strategic choice he takes to convey his democratic conception and an important approach for him to convey his firm faith of humanity, and on the other hand, a crucial element of Hughes’s literary works [11] (P: 25).
关键词:黑人;《我也歌唱美国》;兰斯顿·休斯;深切痛楚
Ⅰ
Langston Hughes is an important figure for the development of African-American cultures in terms of literature, music, theater, art, and politics through his innovative poetry over the Harlem Renaissance, known as the Negro Renaissance and the New Negro Movement and generally considered the first important movement of black artists and writers in the United States. And his poem I, Too, Sing America, carries Hughes’s racialist meditation on the discriminatory position of African-American culture as he writes: “The very fact that Negroes do straighten their hair and try to forget their racial background and makes them different from white people…[1](P:36)”
As a matter of fact, Hughes has been aware of the importance of African-American culture, which in Turner’s terms, is “in many respects …there could be a literary culture among Blacks [2] (P: 201-210).” For the sake of this, he produces this poem I, Too, Sing America to express his resistance to racialist culture by transforming the bitterness of Negros into humor and irony and interpret the beauty of his own people as he manifests: “we younger Negro artist who create now intend to express our own individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame… [3](P65-94)”
And Influenced his great innovative poetry, his profound compassion of the Negroes’ life and his enthusiasm to extend African-American folk culture, many scholars and critics from both aboard and at home have not only discussed much about his indispensable role in promoting it on the basis of some contrast among his works but also made a mention of Negroes’ lower social position as well as their unfair treatment in the sort of American society dominated by whites’ culture through the careful combination of his poetry and the unbearable experience of the Negroes suffer from different perspectives but they have hardly built their study of Negroes’ discriminatory folk culture on a sound and detailed discussion about it in just one of his works. To fill little of the gap of their studies, this paper will take one of his poems, I, Too, Sing America, as an example to make an exploration of the discriminated Negroes’ sound bitterness.
Ⅱ
As for foreign studies upon I, Too, Sing America, most of them has made a great exploration on Hughes’s poetical styles in some of his poems from different perspectives, their innovative findings having inspired a great many scholars but few foreign scholars have made a direct mention of this poem, let alone focusing their studies on the sort of sound bitterness the Negroes suffer. Therefore, this paper cannot but make a relevant review of foreign studies as regards foreign scholars’ current studies of this poem. But for the sake of the limited content to be carried in this research and the relevance to this research, there will be just the studies of three foreign scholars (Rampersad, Brooks and Hitchens) just to be covered as a review both to share their insightful comments, arguments or conclusions and also find out the academic gap left in their studies and the tenable space for this paper.
As Rampersad mentions this poem in his studies directly, so his studies center on the discussion of the Writer’s descriptive styles in I, Too, Sing America and the closely-knit combination of his poems with his own personal experience and the valuable relevance to the life of Black people. His study mentions (The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume Ⅰ, 1902-1941): “I, Too, Sing America is a sympathetic, yet clear-eyed portrait of one of America’s most controversial writers that also manages to be a sweeping depiction of the black experience in this country and abroad during the first four decades of the 20th century[4](P:1005).” Besides, Rampersad dose not shy away from “the ambiguities and ironies in Hughes’s life: his possible homosexuality… [4](P: 1005)” So to speak, Rampersad’s study covers both the strength and the weakness of Hughes’s life and reveals both the success and the failure of his work equally.
Unlike the studies of Rampersad, Brooks proposes his opposite views on the Huges’s worries about the quality of his work. He argues that Hughes makes his response to his personal encounter with racism rather his sorrows about his devotion to his poetic craft, with great eager to polish it. In his terms, “Hughes is simply not very vulnerable… [5](P: 7)” Additionally, Brooks’s study also presents to us Hughes’s sound concern for his people as he claims, “America never was America to me…[5](P:9)”due to his intolerance to see the poor situation of his Darker Brother.
Similar to the situation of that in I, Too, Sing America, Hitchens finds out that Hughes has spent a lot of time in white schools and classes, and has little choice but to bear him-self bravely when subjected to vulgar abuses and discrimination after his intensive reading many of Hughes’s works. In his studies, he learns from Rampersad that Hughes has made a distinct impression with his work Good bye Christ and Good Morning Revolution, as well as his plays on the Scottboro case and other outrages of racialism. To find some evidence in this respect, he quotes from Rampersad “On each of the few occasions in his (Hughes’s) life when his internal pressures proved too great to bear, the cause would be private rather than racial [6] (P: 22).” But Hitchens still argues that there is no evidence that color plays much role in his unhappiness. .
The analysis and contrast mentioned previously in this paper shows that foreign studies center on Hughes’s individual experience, his innovative poetic styles and the discrimination he writes in his works. But they have made little study of or even made no mention of this poem, I, Too, Sing America let alone the soundness of the Negroes’ bitterness in their mind when discriminated or insulted by whites.
As far as the exploration on Hughes’s works and humorous poetic language is concerned, a Chinese scholar named Luo Liang-gong, has focused his study on a detailed and penetrative analysis of Hughes’s creating conceptions and art to emphasize the endless efforts and explorations throughout his life by interpreting his humor, which reflects two strategies the Negroes take: the strategy they take for a better life and that to prevent the whites from destroying the eternal and internal environment subservient to their development. The heart of his studies relies on the interpretation of Hughes’s humor, which in Luo’s mind, is the core value of the Negroes’ exclusive psychological mechanism and cultural tradition that they draw from their experience along American continent. In addition to these cultural significance, Luo holds that Hughes’s humor is one the one hand, a bond that links the unbendable fortitude in fighting against whites’ dominant culture to reach his dream of seeking for democracy and liberty to humanity, both the strategic choice he takes to convey his democratic conception and an important approach for him to convey his firm faith of humanity, and on the other hand, a crucial element of Hughes’s literary works [11] (P: 25).