Sound Patterns of Hughes' "The Weary Blues"
Hughes' "Blues"
Jazz music is often associated with long, lazy melodies and ornate rhythmical patterns. The Blues, a type of jazz, also follows this similar style. Langston Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," is no exception. The sound qualities that make up Hughes' work are intricate, yet quite apparent. Hughes' use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in "The Weary Blues" gives the poem a deep feeling of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to feel as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poem's character. The Blues musical move was prominent during the 1920s and '30s, a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music characteristically told the story of someone's anguish, the key factors, and the resolution of the situation. This is precisely what Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," describes. Hughes uses the rhythmic structure of blues music and the improvisational rhythms of jazz in his innovative development of "The Weary Blues." The poem opens by first setting the scene. "Down on Lenox Avenue" the speaker heard a "mellow croon" (lines 2 and 4). The tune was played on a piano and sung by a man with the emotions coming from the "black man's soul" (15). The piano man expresses his feelings of loneliness and dissatisfaction with his life in lines 19-22 and 25-30:
"Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quite ma frownin' And put my troubles on the shelf."
"I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can't be satisfied- I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died."
The piano man, in a slightly backward order, tells how he wished that he had died because he feels so alone. But, instead of an ultimate end, the piano man decides to "put his troubles on the shelf," or rather, push them aside and continue living without the distraction of those pains. The tone of "The Weary Blues" is quite dark and
Jazz music is often associated with long, lazy melodies and ornate rhythmical patterns. The Blues, a type of jazz, also follows this similar style. Langston Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," is no exception. The sound qualities that make up Hughes' work are intricate, yet quite apparent. Hughes' use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in "The Weary Blues" gives the poem a deep feeling of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to feel as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poem's character. The Blues musical move was prominent during the 1920s and '30s, a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music characteristically told the story of someone's anguish, the key factors, and the resolution of the situation. This is precisely what Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," describes. Hughes uses the rhythmic structure of blues music and the improvisational rhythms of jazz in his innovative development of "The Weary Blues." The poem opens by first setting the scene. "Down on Lenox Avenue" the speaker heard a "mellow croon" (lines 2 and 4). The tune was played on a piano and sung by a man with the emotions coming from the "black man's soul" (15). The piano man expresses his feelings of loneliness and dissatisfaction with his life in lines 19-22 and 25-30:
"Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quite ma frownin' And put my troubles on the shelf."
"I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can't be satisfied- I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died."
The piano man, in a slightly backward order, tells how he wished that he had died because he feels so alone. But, instead of an ultimate end, the piano man decides to "put his troubles on the shelf," or rather, push them aside and continue living without the distraction of those pains. The tone of "The Weary Blues" is quite dark and