t undermining the rutual. Moreover, the birth of the African American was as a chattel slave, as a commercial product. If anyone is by birthright opposed to commericalism, it is certainly the African American.The advocacy of freedom and fighting against oppression and exploitation is not simply a question of content but also a question of the use of art. Langston Hughes was keenly aware of the dichotomy of content and aestetic and also of moral disaster of ignoring the reality and repercussions of such a dichotomy. Too many people in their literary criticism completely overlook social context and hence overlook as well the fact that the social thrust of peotry is intergral to its aestetics.Langston Hughes, as subtle as he was, and as innocuous as he may seem by today's standards, is exemplary of a poet grounded in the culture, consistent in his use of music as both inspiration and model, and innovative and iconoclastic in his use of English. Yes, it was and continues to be revolutionary to insist on transforming English into a tool of ritual within the black community and not just a lingua franca of commerce or individual self-expression.Finally, another aspect of Hughes's abilites that is also overlooked or ignored is that he was multilingual and masterfully translated poetry, including seminal work of Nicholas Gullien and Federico Garcia Lorca. The importance of this observation is that this is another piece of irrefutable evidence that Hughes's writing style was not reflective of the limitations of an "undisciplined", unsophisticated, and provincial poet.Much of the criticism of Hughes's poetry by textually influenced academicians would lead the reader to believe that Hughes was simply a hack writer who had some facility with musical imagery and styles. Such views who comfortably spoke three languages, translated literature from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and elsewhere, and traveled incessantly, could be thought of as a r...
