The Negro Speaks of Rivers Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Analysis audio

Poem 
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
     went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy 
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


Note :

The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is Langston . Hughes wrote this brief poem in fifteen minutes in July, 1920, while crossing the @Mississippi on a train ride to visit his father in Mexico. 






Theme : 


In his early writing, including "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", Hughes was inspired by American poet.



Summery :

The speaker claims that he has known rivers as “ancient as the world,” older than the blood that flows in our veins. His soul has grown deep, just like the rivers. He writes about bathing in the Euphrates at the beginning of civilization, and later, he built a hut along the Congo and listened to the river as he fell asleep. He looked at the Nile and watched the pyramids rise nearby; he heard the muddy Mississippi sing when Abraham Lincoln traveled to New Orleans. He repeats that he has known “ancient, dusky rivers,” and his soul has grown deep like the rivers.




Anylisis : 

In his early writing, including "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", Hughes was inspired by American poet.The poem is free verse but has the rhythm of a gospel preacher.

He wrote it in 1920 at the age of seventeen, while traveling by train to visit his father in Mexico. The young Hughes was inspired to pen this verse when his train crossed over the Mississippi River. 

It was published  in the journal (1921)  the Crisis, which had a predominantly African American readership. 


When Langston Hughes was writing "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," he was most influenced by the work of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. He particularly cited Whitman's “Song of Myself” as an inspiration for the longer lines in “Negro.” 

Although Hughes did not technically write "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in or about Harlem, he addresses themes that would later become closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance. 


In this poem, the speaker links himself to his ancestors, firmly placing them in important historical, religious, and cultural sites all over the world. The speaker begins by claiming a connection to the world's ancient rivers that predated human beings, and that has made his soul grow "deep like the rivers." The River allows him to make a definitive connection between people of his race and the rest of human civilization. In the early 20th Century, white Americans often viewed their darker-skinned counterparts as less than human, and here, Hughes offers concrete proof of historical equality.



The speaker mentions four great rivers, starting with the Euphrates, which historians and archaeologists often label as the birthplace of human civilization.

Then, he mentions the strong and mighty Congo, along which many great African kingdoms have flourished. 

The speaker then cites the long, winding Nile and the great Egyptian pyramids. He witnessed the creation of these structures, which are amongst man's greatest feats of architecture. Finally, he writes about the muddy and golden Mississippi, which he links American slavery and Abraham Lincoln.



Hughes dedicated this poem to W.E.B. DuBois a few years after its initial publication. It was also read out loud at Hughes's own funeral service in 1967.