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Poetry Analysis: Symbols and Meanings of Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers

© Linda Sue Grimes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, and died May 22, 1967. He became the central figure of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.  He wrote "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" when he was 18.  

Hughes and the Acceptance of All Races

Hughes lived as an African-American, and suffered the racism of early twentieth-century America, but he rose above it and felt love and compassion for all races. His acceptance is especially evident in "The Negro Speaks of River" spoken by a cosmic voice that includes and unites all peoples.

The poem begins, "I've known rivers: / I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the / flow of human blood in human veins." The river symbolizes the linkage of all human life from the earliest time to the present. He continues, naming rivers that represent the history of Western culture.

From the Euphrates to the Mississippi, the history of mankind from Biblical times to the period of the American Civil War is represented. The Euphrates is considered the cradle of Western civilization. The speaker of the poem claims to have "bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young." Thus the voice begins at the origin of civilization.

The Black, American Experience

The speaker then focuses on the African experience, saying, "I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep / I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it." Neither claim limits the voice to a black one, because the white and yellow races have lived along the Congo and were among the Egyptians' slaves who built the pyramids.

He highlights the American experience claiming, "I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln / went down to New Orleans . . . ." Lincoln reminds us of the process of emancipation of slaves, and the Mississippi River symbolizes the human blood of all races.

The speaker repeats "My soul has grown deep like the rivers." Because the soul is the life force of the body, he person who recognizes his soul recognizes his own identity. In this poem, the river symbolizes the linking of mankind. The river flows like blood, and we are all linked by blood as children of God.

The speaker recognizes his identity as a child of not only his biological parents, but as a child of the cosmos, and he is linked with all races and creeds for all time through the depth of his soul.

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