A. Hughes uses a universal speaker for an exploration of a profound racial divide between blacks and whites.
B. The poem is an analytical exploration of racial differences in the United States.
C. Similar to Hart Crane and Whitman, Hughes uses a personal and universal “I” to address issues of history, race, and identity.
D. The poem is an indictment of racial prejudice in Harlem.
Related Mcqs:
- Which of the following statements best characterizes Langston Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” ?
A. It is a meditation on the alienation of the modern person from nature.
B. It is a meditation on the cultural isolation of African Americans in New England.
C. It is a meditation on the communal and historical aspects of individual identity.
D. It is a meditation on the poet’s personal experience of assimilation. - According to Langston Hughes’s essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (his answer to George Schuyler’s essay “Negro Art Hokum”), what is the “mountain” that stands in the way of “any true Negro art in America” ?
A. It is the racial discrimination endemic in the white community.
B. It is the racial segregation in the South.
C. It is a widespread “urge toward whiteness” among African Americans.
D. It is a widespread “urge to incorporate and neutralize other cultures” among white Americans. - Which of the following statements best characterizes the formal qualities of Langston Hughes’s poem “Life is Fine” ?
A. The diction is much more polysyllabic than monosyllabic.
B. The use of alternating end rhymes and word repetitions enhance the music of the poem and along with its occasional dissonance give it an improvisational jazz-like quality.
C. It is written in Standard American English for middle-class readers.
D. This poem is structured like a villanelle. - Which of the following literary devices are present in Langston Hughes’s poem “Ku Klux” ?
A. Irony
B. Allegory
C. Oxymoron
D. Alliteration - Langston Hughes was among the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Which of the following is an accurate characterization of his experiences before he published his first book ?
A. He was a native New Yorker who did not travel much but who was keenly aware of New York’s complexity and diversity.
B. He moved to New York from Alabama and the stark contrast between these places deeply influenced his writing.
C. He was born in Missouri and traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world before he moved to New York City.
D. He spent most of his life in Washington, DC, moving to Harlem only after he gained literary fame. - According to Professor Hammer, which of the following characteristics did Langston Hughes share with modernist poets like William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost ?
A. Hughes was very conscious that he
was an American poet, and this profoundly influenced his writing.
B. Hughes wrote about the legacy of the American Civil War and its long-term cultural consequences.
C. Hughes introduced new subject-matter and new language into poetry.
D. Both A and C - Ezra Pound’s poem “In a Station of the Metro” reads: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/ Petals on a wet, black bough.” Which of the following statements best characterizes this poem ?
A. It seeks to diminish the distance between society and nature.
B. It seeks to amplify the distance between society and nature.
C. It plays with the relationship between the social, natural, and supernatural worlds.
D. It evokes the beauty of a pastoral scene. - The narrator of Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues” is describing__________________?
A. Negro spirituals being sung in the cotton fields.
B. The call and response of an African American church congregation.
C. African American toasting on a city street corner.
D. Blues being played in a Harlem bar. - Ezra Pound’s “Canto I” opens with the following lines: “And then went down to the ship,/Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and(…).” Which of the following statements best characterizes these lines and the poem as a whole ?
A. These lines set an impersonal tone which dominates the entire poem.
B. These lines establish a rhythmical pattern, which is followed strictly throughout the poem.
C. These lines are the only impersonal lines in the poem, the rest of which is primarily focused on the complexity of human emotions.
D. These lines establish a personal tone, focusing on a lyrical perspective similar to late-Victorian era poetry. - Which of the following statements best characterizes the last two stanzas of Charles Baudelaire’s symbolist poem “Correspondences” ?
A. They describe the author’s experiences as a young child.
B. They use metaphors with subtle political connotations.
C. They ascribe colors and sounds to scents, relying on a device known as synesthesia.
D. They describe a scene in the countryside, which symbolizes the state of the author’s soul.
