Wiki Article WS 5

Wikipedia Article

The Negro Spoke of Rivers

 

I've known rivers

 I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

 flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

 I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

 I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

 I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

 went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy

 bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers

 Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

 

For this post I will be breaking down a bit more in depth the symbolic meaning of this  poem.  This poem has metaphorical verses, and musical as well as similes.

The “rivers” are use as metaphors. Rivers are long and can extend for miles. The way rivers are used as metaphors are used is through the extension of the black community. The deep roots of what has made black people so wise. 

In some of the research that I have done I found out that the poem is describe to have a musical component. It is viewed musical because Hughes repeats “I’ve known of Rivers.” Just like in a song the chorus is repeated. This correlates with Hughes verse “I’ve known of rivers” this is the chorus for The negro Spoke of Rivers .

The Negro Speaks of Rivers has great similes. Similes are some of my favorite things in writing. I love the figure of speech involving the comparison. One of the similes that stands out to me is when he uses a simile to compare the age of the rivers to the age of the Earth: "ancient as the world."