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    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation"
    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation"
    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation"
    Ebook34 pages23 minutes

    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 26, 2016
    ISBN9781535822183
    A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation"

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      A Study Guide for Langston Hughes's "Dream Variation" - Gale

      1

      Dream Variations

      Langston Hughes

      1924

      Introduction

      Dream Variations, like many of Langston Hughes’s most memorable poems, looks forward to a time beyond the poet’s life when the brutal policies of segregation would be a thing of the past. It was first published in 1932, included in his collection The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, which was Hughes’s only book of poetry specifically intended for young readers. In this poem, readers can see the writer’s anger and frustration at the way that black Americans were required to live at the time, but they can also see his hope for a day when the inequity between the races would be a thing of the past.

      Hughes was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic movement of the 1920s and 1930s that brought the New York African-American arts community to international prominence. As a writer, he was committed to raising awareness of the intellectual ability of African Americans, which mainstream literature often ignored. Unlike other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, however, Hughes employed the common language of his people, many of whom who were given no greater opportunities than to pursue lives as uneducated laborers. Using simple words and catchy rhythms that often showed the influence of traditional blues music, Hughes’s poems subtly reflect his profound thoughtfulness.

      Even if he were not remembered for his poetry, Langston Hughes would still be recognized as one of the twentieth century’s great writers. His works in a number of literary genres, including short stories, novels, plays, and essays, are still read and studied today throughout the world. His poems for children, like this one, stress potential, encouraging them to look for the good things that life has to offer and to actively seek happiness. Since the changes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s—during which Hughes was still an active literary figure—Americans sometimes forget how bleak the racial situation was in the 1930s. Hughes wrote poetry that could be

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