A Langston Hughes Survey Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Harlem Renaissance

"The Harlem Renaissance" is the term used to refer to the intellectual and artistic explosion that occurred among African-Americans in the 1920s in Harlem in New York City. Other poets of the Harlem Renaissance include James Weldon Jones, Claude McKay, Melvin Tolson, Sterling Brown, and Countee Cullen.

Answer: The Weary Blues

"The Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. Du Bois is a collection of essays on race. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is an autobiography by Maya Angelou. "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" is a collection by the Romantic poet William Blake.

"The Weary Blues", published in 1926, was Langston Hughes's first collection of poetry. Its title poem was first published in "Opportunity", the Urban League magazine, in 1925 and was awarded the publication's prize for best poem of the year. The poetry collection explores the lives of African-Americans as they struggle against poverty and discrimination.

Answer: dreams

This is the opening stanza of the poem "Dreams". The poem concludes:

"Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow."

The poet was born James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1901 in Joplin, Missouri. He attended Lincoln University and settled in Harlem as a young man.

Answer: America

This is the opening line to the poem "I, Too", which continues:

"I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

[. . . ] They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-

I, too, am America."

Langston Hughes died in May of 1967, when he had abdominal surgery related to his prostate cancer. Today, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University holds a collection of letters, manuscripts, papers, photographs, and clippings documenting his life.

Answer: Mother to Son

In the poem "Mother to Son", a mother advises her child to press on despite obstacles, because she's been doing the same even though her life hasn't been easy:

"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."

Langston Hughes was dubbed "the poet Laureate of Harlem". He was drawn to communism as an alternative to a segregated America and was invited to the Soviet Union to work on a movie that never came to fruition about the African-American struggle in the United States.

Answer: crystal

This line also comes from the poem "Mother to Son":

"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."

"Mother to Son" was first published in "Crisis" magazine in December of 1922. It was also included in the poet's debut collection of poetry, "The Weary Blues", which was published in 1926. The poem is a dramatic monologue.

Answer: money too

In this sardonic poem, the proposed relationship is not, as the title implies, 50-50:

"Big Boy opened his mouth and said,
Trouble with you is
You ain't got no head!
If you had a head and used your mind
You could have me with you
All the time.

She answered, Babe, what must I do?

He said, Share your bed-
And your money, too."

This poem was written during the later part of the poet's career, when he had begun to depict Harlem not solely as joyous and vibrant but, as the critic Arthur P. Davis wrote, as possessing "a certain strident and hectic quality" with "overtones of weariness and despair."

Answer: Black Nativity

"Black Nativity" features traditional Christmas carols sung in a gospel style and was performed Off-Broadway, starting on December 11, 1961. "Simply Heavenly" was a musical comedy with lyrics written by Langston Hughes that was performed beginning on May 21, 1957. Another gospel play of Langston Hughes, "Tambourines to Glory", debuted in 1963 and tells the story of two women who open a storefront church in Harlem.

Tim Rice wrote the lyrics, and Andrew Lloyd Weber the music, for "Jesus Christ Superstar", which came out in 1970.

Answer: The Ways of White Folks

"Skeleton Crew" is a short story collection by Stephen King, and "Dubliners" is by James Joyce. "Winesburg, Ohio" is a 1919 short story cycle by Sherwood Anderson.

"The Ways of White Folks," published in 1934, is a sardonic short story cycle that reflects a certain pessimism about race relations. It contains such stories as "Cora Unashamed", "Poor Little Black Fellow", and "Red-Headed Boy".

Answer: brass spittoons

A spittoon is a receptacle made for spitting into, and was frequently used by those who chew tobacco. The narrator of the poem is paid to clean them and feels the indignity of the work because of the condescending treatment of those who employ him. The poem "Brass Spittoons" begins:

"Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day."

Answer: In a shack

The poem is about the inner turmoil of the mixed-heritage child of a black mother and white father:

"My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm gonna die,
Being neither white nor black?"

Langston Hughes graduated from a high school in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Columbia University. He dropped out of Columbia despite maintaining a B+ average because of the racial prejudice he encountered there, but he later attended Lincoln University.

Answer: Alabama

The poem "Daybreak in Alabama" begins:

"When I get to be a colored composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew."

Several literary critics have speculated that Hughes may have been a closeted homosexual, while his primary biographer Arnold Rampersad suggests he was more likely asexual.

Answer: deferred

These are the opening lines of "Dream Boogie". The theme of a dream deferred appears also in the poem "Harlem", which asks the question, "What happens to a dream deferred?" and goes on to wonder:

"Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?"

One of the poet's collections of poetry, published by Holt in 1951, was titled "Montage of a Dream Deferred". This phrase, "a dream deferred," has become one of the poet's most famous sayings.

Answer: yes

His debut novel, "Not Without Laughter", was published in 1930. It depicts African-American life in Kansas in the 1910s, focusing on its main character Sandy. The novel won the William E. Harmon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement among Negroes (also known as the Harmon Gold Medal).

Answer: Marian Anderson

Hughes wrote the book, subtitled "Famous Concert Singer", with Steven C. Tracy, and it was published in 1954. Other children's books by Langston Hughes include "The First Book of Jazz", "The First Book of the Negroes", "The First Book of Rhythms", and "First Book of Africa".

Answer: compromise and fear

In "Freedom", the narrator rejects the notion of accepting compromise in the quest for equality:

"Freedom will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

The narrator has grown weary of waiting for change:

"I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread."

Hughes won several awards during his lifetime, including the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievements by an African American.

Answer: America

In the emotional poem "Let America Be America Again", the poet talks of how, for many people ("the poor white, fooled and pushed apart"; "the Negro bearing slavery's scars"; "the red man driven from the land"; "the immigrant clutching the hope I seek"), America has never been the idealized version of America. The poet urges Americans to realize the dream of an ideal America where freedom and equality truly do reign:

"Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above."

Although America has not lived up to its own ideals, the poet suggests it can:

"O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!"

Answer: rivers

This line comes from the poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", which concludes:

"I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

In 1963, Howard University awarded Langston Hughes an honorary doctorate, and in 1964, Western Reserve University awarded him an honorary Litt.D (Doctor of Letters).

Answer: English B

In "Theme for English B", the white teacher tells the students:

"Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you-
Then, it will be true."

The narrator of the poem reflects on his place in the world as an African-American and his relationship with the teacher:

"So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white -
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me-
although you're older-and white-
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B."

In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service put an image of Langston Hughes on a postage stamp as part of its Black Heritage series.

Answer: A Raisin in the Sun

"Mule Bone" is a play by Langston Hughes. "The Color Purple" is a novel by Alice Walker. "The Invisible Man" is a novel by Ralph Ellison.

In the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") Hughes asks:

"What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?"

Answer: Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria

The poem was first published in the December 1931 issue of "The New Masses" with illustrations by Walter Steinhilber as a parody of a magazine advertisement. It was later included in "The Big Sea", the autobiography of Langston Hughes. "Listen Hungry Ones!" is the first section of the poem, which is followed by five more sections: "Roomers", "Evicted Families", "Negroes", "Everybody", and "Christmas Card".

The poem ends with a call to communist revolution:

"Listen, Mary, Mother of God, wrap your new born
babe in the red flag of revolution: The Waldorf-Astoria's the best manger we've got. For reservations: Telephone EL. 5-3000."

Answer: my people

The poem "My People" continues:

"The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people."

This poem was first published in "The Crisis" in October of 1923. "The Crisis" is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the first publication to publish Langston Hughes.

Answer: Shoe-shine boys, lawyers, and doctors

"Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate-
My People.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies' maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Porters,
Hairdressers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses-
Dream-singers all,
Story-tellers all."

In addition to his debut collection, Langston Hughes published several collections of poetry in his lifetime, including "Fine Clothes to the Jew" (1927), "The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations" (1931), "The Dream Keeper and Other Poems" (1932), "Shakespeare in Harlem" (1942), "Freedom's Plow" (1943), and "Fields of Wonder" (1947), to name a few.

Answer: Mulatto

Mulatto is a racial classification that has been used in the past to refer a person of mixed white and black ancestry. It's derived from the Spanish and Portuguese "mulato," which in turn comes from the Latin mūlus (mule), which is a hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey. In late 1800s, the term was specifically used to describe people who had between three-eighths and five-eighths black ancestry. In the poem, the white father denies his mulatto son, but the son continues to insist:

"I am your son, white man!

A little yellow
Bastard boy."

Answer: Jazz poetry

Pastoral poetry uses country landscapes. Blank verse is unrhymed, metrical poetry. Concrete poetry, also known as shape poetry, is verse in which the effect of the poem is conveyed visually through indentations, patterns of words or letters, alignment, and other such visual devices.

Langston Hughes was an early innovator of jazz poetry, which has the feel of improvisation and demonstrates syncopated, jazz-like rhythms with repetitive phrases. Jazz poetry influenced poets of the Beat generation, and an evolutionary descendant of this type of poetry can be found in modern poetry slams.