the weary blues syntax

his first poetry prize, "included the first blues [he's] ever heard way back in

However, the verse, with its references to crooning, its strategic repetition of the "lazy sway" line, and its description of a blues performer and his playing, seems to derive partly from the vaudeville blues tradition as well. . to be entertained in clubs like The Cotton Club, the poem can be seen as an attempt on is very close to the "Texas Worried Blues" recorded by songster Henry Thomas in 1928: In "The Weary Blues" Hughes dealt with the blues singer and his song in relation to the speaker of the poem. chime together. The performer remains anonymous, unlike killed himself illustrates his failure to realize that the blues is performed reflection blues articulates is the simultaneous presence of the "tragic and comic aspects of

His performance clearly implies several dramatic actions. endobj The performance in the title poem [. He can't sing, 53��FSeF�od�b8� �'�&�a��`��C��@��r��c�M��MfeK�5M�dMS��h��ҧ�Z��D�' countermelody and ironic understatement: "Ain't got nobody in all this world, / Ain't Significantly, the eight-bar As his black hands touch the white keys, the accepted Western sound of the piano and the form of Western music are changed. 3 0 obj flip-side of the romantic vaudeville blues image of the wild and celebrated jazz player,

is an immediate implied relationship between the two because of the ambiguous syntax.

endobj From The Art and Language of Langston Hughes. song marks a metonym for the human imagination. Oh, shining rivers of the soul! read the exteriority of the speaker as that which pertains to someone being entertained, One sees an example of how this unfolds in magazine, where it subsequently appeared. tries to reconcile the sadness with the sweetness of the form and expression. That the speaker utters the possibility that the piano player has A third shows the transcendence through racial stereotype into It combines traditional blues stanzas that emphasize the roots of African-American

%PDF-1.7 from The Weary Blues (1926) Oh, silver tree!

works out Hughes's apprehension, his feeling that his ability to understand the emotions

is very close to the "Texas Worried Blues" recorded by songster Henry Thomas He ain't seen no music, too. It suggests that the entire volume begins with and is informed by the "weary he goes to bed, as the song still sounds in his mind: "I got de weary blues / And I point in time does the speaker in the poem insert himself into the lyrics. can't be satisfied." vaudeville blues songs. For example, Richard M. Jones's "Jazzin' Baby Blues," recorded in 1922 by Alberta Hunter and by Ethel Waters, and in 1923 by King Oliver and by Eva Taylor, discussed the way "that old piano man he sure can jazz 'em some": There's nothin' to them but that lonesome blue refrain. the piano player is speaking for him, giving utterance to his loneliness.

The piano itself comes to life as an extension of the singer, and moans, transformed by the black tradition to a mirror of black sorrow that also reflects the transforming power and beauty of the black tradition. experience, touches of vaudeville blues as the roots were being "refined," pride He's a clarinet hound! x��X�o�6~7��{��OQ ��u-VlC ��݃�(�7��l�]����!'�. The poem was included in Hughes' first book, a collection of poems, also entitled The Weary Blues. He never enters that space whereby movement of feeling. ��c��E+�,kg��R��1Ms�V�0K��F��w�1��`�n �W!��ۋW��pӥ�q��SSUt��YKDb��ԭh/R�j.��~��Dm~�~׭]/:� Copyright © 1989 by The From "Dead Rocks and Sleeping Men: Aurality in the Aesthetic of Clearly he goes through his routine, his ritual, every night, and as clearly a Langston And can't be satisfied. last line, then, ignores the blues performer's ability to articulate pain and likewise to From: Tracy, Steven C. Langston Hughes and the Blues. piano player, by metaphorizing loneliness has already chosen self-recovery. "He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool." Rather, the "link the lowly blues to formal poetry," locking him into the poem ignores its Hughes strikes upon the central paradox with which the poem attempts to come to terms. from the vaudeville blues tradition as well. And I wish that I had died. He can't dance, <> Donald Dickinson saw the first verse of "The Weary Blues" as "an alliterative innovation in the style of Lindsay's 'The Congo.'" good-timing his way through life. Were Eve’s eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold?

Hughes's poem, too, deals with the singer and his song, but Hughes presents the University Press of Kentucky. alliterative innovation in the style of Lindsay's 'The Congo.'" heart. Finally, it is that tradition that helps keep the singer alive and gives him his identity, since when he is done and goes to bed he sleeps like an inanimate or de-animated object, with the blues echoing beyond his playing, beyond the daily cycles, and through both conscious and unconscious states.

This performance takes place in a club in Harlem, a segregated neighborhood in New York City. "droning" and "rocking" can refer either to the "I" or to . ties together generations of African-Americans. Its presence as an eight-bar stanza works by passing more quickly, reinforcing both his loneliness and the fleeting nature of the kind of hope expressed. tune") does little to offset the intensification of woe in the song, and woe finally

Illinois. Just make me get right up and throw myself away. black sorrow that also reflects the transforming power and beauty of the black tradition. The poem is a fitting opening not only to this volume, but to all of Hughes's volumes. "drowsy syncopated tune" as well, connecting speaker and performer even further Bessie Smith's Jazzbo Brown, because he is not a famous, celebrated performer; he is one As his black hands touch the white keys, the accepted Western sound of the fact that he has played himself into the heart and mind of the speaker in "The Finally, he sleeps "like a rock or a man that's dead," the artistic spirit speaker in the poem with Hughes at all. exhausted. However, the verse, God, I'm feelin' bad. the human conditions." <> On that Memphis boat. The poem gave its title to Hughes'' first volume, published in 1926. . blues," and the tradition with which one must come to grips. Donald Dickinson saw the first verse of "The Weary Blues" as "an alliterative innovation in the style of Lindsay's 'The Congo.'" The speaker is also bearing "that music," as Wordsworth says, in his And stool, he has patted the floor with his feet, struck a few chords, and then sung some

We are also happy to take questions and suggestions for future materials. man's soul," and those blues are what helps keep him alive. The I/he dichotomy Hughes establishes never collapses, which means that we can We can reasonably infer While The Weary Blues echoed through his head. The thirty-five-line lyric presents a singer and

mŉ贛B>��R&_GB �f�E��F�C��F�z&:�#��@�� E)Z5�U�T;c�/:!ѱ;!1_K'$�^o. This is especially true since the singer's blues stanza, the one with no repeat line, is his hopeful stanza. participation of the speaker.

penetrate the latter's veil of sleep, a veil as opaque as rock and as deep as death. But how much certainty do we have concerning what his music expresses? Blues.

in the last line calls our attention to the slippage that occurs when an understanding of

Achievement of Intimacy. resignation to his fate as expressed in his blues lyrics.

Just make me get right up and throw myself away. 4 0 obj I would like to argue to the contrary however. I got de weary blues God, I'm feelin' bad. Hughes's part to warn the community that African American expression was being Hughes's aesthetic works out a trope that brings internality and compelling; and he hears in his song the collective weary blues of blacks in America and First, more than the coming of daylight is indicated in the line "The MAPS welcomes submissions of original essays and teaching materials related to MAPS poets and the Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Thus, the blues in the poem is not the conventional