Langston Hughes & Billie Holiday Essay

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Similar to Hughes' usage of strong emotions to effectively convey his message in the poem, "Dream Deferred," Billie Holiday's songs focus mainly on the emotional, using the themes of love, pain, and loneliness as the anchors through which Holiday expressed her emotions as she sang these songs. "Gloomy Sunday" is an example of a song that expressed love and loneliness. The lyrics of the song are straightforward, and the longing and loving expressed in the song is applicable to anyone and not only exclusive to the experience of African-Americans.

Indeed, the writing style and exclusivity or universality of the themes become the point of departure of the similarities between Hughes' and Holiday's poetry and songs, respectively. Looking at Hughes' poetry, it is evident that his writing style is creatively developed through the usage of symbolism and metaphors, not to mention the exclusivity or context-dependent themes and issues depicted in his poems. "Dream Deferred," in fact, is an example of the 'African-American experience' during his time, it was found that "[t]he spiritual aspects of dreaming and dream interpretation most familiar to Hughes would have come from the community he was brought up with" (Wei, 2007:128). The seemingly futile protest of African-Americans for equality became the root of these poems, and Hughes depicted this struggle and subtly incited people to action through symbolism and metaphors: "What happens to a dream deferred / Does it dry up / Like a raisin in the sun… or does it explode?"

As opposed to Hughes' context-dependent themes and usage of literary techniques such as symbolism and metaphors, Holiday created songs that have universal themes and simply stated, because the effect of her songs would be more effectively communicated through the execution -- her manger of singing and performing.

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It is through execution that Holiday highlighted her African-American experience, adopting a jazz and blues genre/style in her music. This distinct jazz and blues style of singing, according to Hawkins (2005), is a "license" that entitles one to redefine self, regardless of how others define or confine…African-American life is not a logical or steady journey…Jazz was created on this premise. Blues and spirituals were manifestations of making do with what you have" (661).

Hughes' and Holiday's works, despite their differences in style, theme, and execution, remain forces through the African-American experience are powerfully reflected, inspiring their fellow Americans, changing the way they viewed discrimination, and inciting them to commit action in pursuit of equality......

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