Harlem Summary & Analysis
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Langston Hughes wrote “Harlem” in 1951 as part of a book-length sequence, Montage of a Dream Deferred. Inspired by blues and jazz music, Montage, which Hughes intended to be read as a single long poem, explores the lives and consciousness of the black community in Harlem, and the continuous experience of racial injustice within this community. “Harlem” considers the harm that is caused when the dream of racial equality is continuously delayed. Ultimately, the poem suggests, society will have to reckon with this dream, as the dreamers claim what is rightfully their own.
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The Full Text of “Harlem”
The Full Text of “Harlem”
“Harlem” Summary
“Harlem” Themes
The Cost of Social Injustice
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Harlem”
Line 1
What happens to a dream deferred?
Lines 2-5
Does it dry .
. And then run?
Lines 6-8
Does it stink .
. a syrupy sweet?
Lines 9-11
Maybe it just .
. does it explode?
“Harlem” Symbols
The Dream
“Harlem” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
Anaphora
Allusion
- Lines 9-10: “ Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load.”
Consonance
- Line 1: “dream,” “deferred”
- Line 2: “Does,” “dry”
- Line 3: “raisin,” “sun”
- Line 4: “fester,” “sore”
- Line 5: “run”
- Line 6: “it,” “stink,” “like,” “rotten,” “meat”
- Line 7: “Or,” “crust,” “sugar,” “over”
- Line 8: “like,” “syrupy,” “sweet”
- Line 9: “just,” “sags”
- Line 10: “like,” “load”
- Line 11: “Or ,” “does ,” “it ,” “explode”
Assonance
- Line 2: “Does,” “it,” “dry,” “up”
- Line 3: “like,” “a,” “raisin,” “in,” “the,” “sun”
- Line 5: “run”
- Line 6: “Does,” “it,” “stink,” “meat”
- Line 8: “sweet”
- Line 10: “load”
- Line 11: “explode”
End-Stopped Line
Parallelism
Rhetorical Question
Simile
Imagery
- Lines 2-3
- Lines 4-5
- Line 6
- Lines 7-8
- Lines 9-10
- Line 11
Enjambment
- Lines 2-3: “up / like”
- Lines 9-10: “sags / like ”
“Harlem” Vocabulary
- Harlem
- Deferred
- Fester
- Run
- Load
- Explode
(Location in poem: )
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Harlem”
Form
Meter
Rhyme Scheme
“Harlem” Speaker
“Harlem” Setting
Literary and Historical Context of “Harlem”
More “Harlem” Resources
External Resources
- An Essay From the Poetry Foundation — Read more about "Harlem" in this essay by Scott Challener at the Poetry Foundation.
- Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Hughes — Read a letter from Martin Luther King, Kr. to Langston Hughes, which includes a reference to a performance of Lorraine Hansberry's play “A Raisin in the Sun."
- "Harlem" Read Aloud by Langston Hughes — Listen to Langston Hughes read "Harlem."
- Full Text of "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" — Read Langston Hughes’s 1926 essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."
- The Harlem Renaissance — Learn more about the Harlem Renaissance from the History Channel.
- Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr. — Read about how Langston Hughes influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., including the influence of "Harlem."
LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes
- As I Grew Older
- Aunt Sue's Stories
- Cross
- Daybreak in Alabama
- Democracy
- Dreams
- Dream Variations
- Homecoming
- I Look at the World
- I, Too
- Let America Be America Again
- Mother to Son
- Night Funeral in Harlem
- The Ballad of the Landlord
- Theme for English B
- The Negro Speaks of Rivers
- The Weary Blues
Cite This Page
Definition
Harlem
Full Text
Lines 3-4
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed
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