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What is the white rose known for and how is that significant to the poem? The white rose is known to symbolize a fresh start. Ironically, the fresh start for the white rose in Louise Glück’s ‘The White Rose’ isn’t quite as the persona envisioned it to be. The white rose finds its new environment repulsive.
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Composed during the era of segregation in the United States, “Daybreak in Alabama” expresses a deep yearning for unity in a racially divided world. Langston Hughes, one of the foremost poets of the Harlem Renaissance, first published the poem in 1940 in a journal called Unquote .
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- Meaning
- Structure
- Literary Devices
- Themes
- Detailed Analysis
- Historical Context
- Similar Poems
‘Daybreak in Alabama’ by Langston Hughesdescribes how the poet will compose some music that consists of equality, brotherhood, and mutual love. This poem begins with a simple wish of Hughes’ speaker. He wants to create a piece that is metaphoricallyabout the daybreak in Alabama. In the first few lines, Hughes describes this song as a representation...
The title of this piece ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ has significance in respect to the overall idea of the poem. The “daybreak” is a stock symbolof a new beginning or hope. Whereas Alabama is considered the place where the Civil Rights Movement flourished. The poet tries to emphasize the importance of this American state in the future development of civi...
The poem is written in a free-verse form that does not contain a specific structure. It consists of an irregular rhyming pattern along with non-metrical lines. Hughes uses slant rhymes in several instances. Besides, there are some internal rhymings that bring harmony between the lines. Even though the poem is written in a specific meterthe lines ar...
Hughes’ ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ contains the following literary devices: 1. Metaphor: The title of the poem contains a metaphorfor hope. It refers to the hope of the colored people after witnessing the daybreak in Alabama. 2. Simile:It occurs in the following lines: “Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist/ And falling out of heaven like soft dew”...
This poem taps on several themes such as harmony, equality, brotherhood, and nature. The most important theme of this piece racial equality and harmony. This theme is present after the ninth line. In these lines, Hughes talks about bringing everyone to one place where they have to show kindness, affection, and respect to everyone’s identity. The pr...
Lines 1–4
The poem ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ begins with the wish of the first-person speaker, the poetic personaof Langston Hughes, to become a music composer. Hughes uses the term “colored” to refer to his racial identity. He accepts how he is and how the world sees him at the time of writing the poem. Generally, non-white people are called colored people. He takes pride in being a colored musician or poet. He talks about writing a song or composing some music about the “Daybreak in Alabama.” It means he...
Lines 5–9
In the following lines, the speaker metaphorically compares the song to several beautiful scenes observed in nature. First of all, he refers to the image of a “swamp mist”. The song is compared to the mist that rises up. In the early morning, the audiencecan see the mists gathering above swaps or any still water body. As the poet is talking about the daybreak, he refers to the mist that can be seen at that time. Another scene is related to the early morning hour which Hughes talks about in th...
Lines 10–17
The use of the conjunction “And” at the beginning of all the lines in this section is important to note. Hughes uses anaphora to create connectivity between the lines. He repeatsthe word for the sake of emphasis. In the previous lines, he talks about several natural images. From this section, he refers to “colored” humans. In his song or poetic creation, readers can find people from different colors, races, or identities. There are people having long red necks, red faces, big brown arms, and...
The poem ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ was first published in the journal Unquote in 1940. Langston Hughes also included this poem in his “The Panther and the Lash ” which was published in 1967. The poem was written before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. But, the reference to the American state Alabama is worth nothing. It was the place t...
Here is a list of a few poems that similarly tap on the themes present in Langston Hughes’s poem ‘Daybreak in Alabama’. 1. ‘Equality’by Maya Angelou – It’s one of the best Maya Angelou poems. This uplifting poem speaks movingly about the possibilities of the future. Read more Maya Angelou poems. 2. ‘Rosa’ by Rita Dove – This powerful poem relays th...
The poem speaks about Parks without mentioning her by name (except for in the title). Dove refers to the act that Rosa Parks is best known for, sitting at the front of a bus in the “white” section. She “stood up” against segregation, oppression, and racism by sitting down and doing “nothing”.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
The White Rose (audio only) Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem. From The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992. The author of numerous collections of poetry, Louise Glück is the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, served as a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets, and twas the Library of Congress’s ...
Famous Rose poems written by famous poets. Examples of famous Rose poetry from the past and present. Read famous Rose poems considered to be modern and old classics.
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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Previously, we picked ten of the best poems about flowers, to create a kind of anthology: the word ‘anthology’ stemming, we might recall, from the Greek for ‘collection of flowers’. Now, it’s the turn of that most emblematic flower: the rose.
