B.A.V. Semester Optional English Paper Topic
Cross by Langston Hughes: Poem and Summary
New NEP Syllabus: Basic English and Optional English Subjects.
“Cross”
by Langston Hughes
POEM TEXT
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And I wish she were in hell.
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well.
My old man died in a fine, big house.
My mother died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m going to die.
Being neither white nor black?
About the author :
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Hughes, one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
He famously wrote about the period when “the Negro was in vogue,” which was later paraphrased as “when Harlem was in vogue.” He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes.
Works Poetry
The Weary Blues, Knopf, 1926
Fine Clothes to the Jew, Knopf, 1927
The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, 1931
Dear Lovely Death, 1931
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, Knopf, 1932
Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1932
Shakespeare in Harlem, Knopf, 1942
Fiction
Not without laughter. Knopf, 1930
The Ways of White Folks. Knopf, 1934
Simple Speaks His Mind, 1950
Laughing to Keep from Crying, Holt, 1952
Simple Takes a Wife, 1953
Sweet Flypaper of Life, photographs by Roy DeCarava, 1955
Simple Stakes: a Claim, 1957
Non-fiction
The Big Sea. New York: Knopf, 1940
Famous American Negroes, 1954
Marian Anderson: Famous Concert Singer, 1954
I wonder as I wander. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer, 1956
Famous Negro Heroes of America, 1958
Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP, 1962
Major plays
Mule Bone, with Zora Neale Hurston, 1931
Mulatto, 1935 (renamed The Barrier, an opera, in 1950)
Troubled Island, with William Grant Still, 1936
Little Ham, 1936
Emperor of Haiti, 1936
Don’t you want to be free? 1938
Works for children
Popo and Fifina, with Arna Bontemps, 1932
The First Book of the Negroes, 1952
The First Book of Jazz, 1954
The First Book of Rhythms, 1954
The First Book of the West Indies, 1956, etc
Summary of the Poem:
Langston Hughes’ literary output is plenty, as he is a poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. In his writings, Langston tried to portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. Hughes honestly recorded the nuances of black life and its frustrations in his writings. His poetry is about workers, roustabouts, singers, and job hunters in New York, Washington, and Chicago. In his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston writes, “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful and ugly too.”. Much of the early work was criticized by many black intellectuals for portraying what they thought to be an unattractive view of black life.
Hughes’ poems concern themselves mainly with black music, racial protest and affirmation, black idiom, and sympathetic depictions of black families in urban settings. He brought a varied and colorful background to his writings. Before he was 12, Langston lived in six different American cities. When his first book was published, he had already been a truck farmer, cook, waiter, college graduate, sailor, and doorman at a nightclub in Paris and had visited Mexico, West Africa, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Holland, France, and Italy.
Hughes has perhaps the greatest reputation that any black writer has ever had in this position. American literature seems secure due to its simplicity, honesty, originality, and directness. He was the first black American to earn his living solely from his writing and public lectures. Langston Hughes died on May 22, 1967, due to complications from prostate cancer.
