The art of “Early Autumn”

李佩哲 英语学院 0601207

With the advent of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, strong black voices, writing with African-American rhythms and cadences, broke out all over the country. Of this remarkable creative outpouring, one voice rose among all of the rest. This was the voice of poet Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was a well known poet, novelist, journalist, and playwright, and was nicknamed the "Poet Laureate of Harlem”. During the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes gained fame and respect for his ability to express the Black American experiences in his works. He was one of the most original and versatile of the twentieth century black writers.

Like the sharp peal of a jazz trumpet, Hughes' works announced a kind of rich and vibrant and fiercely poetic literature to us. In his “Early Autumn”, the sentimentality of female and the rationality of male were thoroughly described. The love story is a continuous cycle, people repeat the process again and again, no complaint, no regret. Hughes saw this love truth with his insightful eyes and depicted a heart-stabbing love between Bill and Mary, or let us say, the wishful love on Mary’s part.

Langston Hughes has showed a tactic art in his “Early Autumn”:        

1).common plot with uncommon meaning;

2).an exterior representation of the psychology;

3). a language full of romantic poetic realism.

First, it is the common plot with uncommon meaning. Langston Hughes just told us that Mary impulsively married another man, which hurt Bill deeply, but didn’t tell us why. We readers now have to resort to our own imagination to reckon. Then many reasons and thoughts involved in when we go on reading. Langston then has successfully brought us to now from pass. They encountered with each other in Washington Square, we’d rather to say that it was Mary who picked up Bill among the crowd, calling his full name: Bill Walker. She was no longer deserved his kiss, his genuine care, even though her little son was name after Bill. The dialogue is a embarrassment to Bill, whose words seemed like the polite yet perfunctory answers to a stranger. His cold reaction disillusioned Mary’s romantic dream. The reason why a dream is called the dream is because it can never come true, especially when it is just on only one’s part. Mary left so awkwardly that they even did not exchange the address. This dynamic plot depicted the real life so lively that readers can not help but to go into it. Someone has ever said that the woman fell in love with a person is a lifelong thing, even if they were separated from each other, she would always remember the passed goodness; man fell in love with a person is a momentary thing, after the separation, that is, the two worlds. Then the countless fanatic men and lamenting women are created in Mundane Life, they agonize mutually, willingly. Is it a piece of good luck or bad fortune when you can be with True Love? You should accept all the significant other’s disposition entirety, lean on each other through your whole life; otherwise, breaking up yet remorsefully. Who can tell which is right or wrong?

Second, it is the exterior representation of the psychology. We all know human beings’ psychological movements are most elusive, and how could literary demonstrate such things out skillfully? Langston has borrowed a unique technique to deal with it. “It was late afternoon. Nearly sunset. Cold.” The description of specific time exaggerates the bleak autumn atmosphere, and sets off and reappears Mary’s sentimental feelings. “The leaves fell slowly from the trees in the Square. Fell without wind. Autumn dusk.” Mary’s heart sank with the falling leaves. “The bus started. People came between them outside, people crossing the street, people they didn’t know. Space and people.” They met in the crowded Washington Square. Hughes gave the crowd around the two protagonists for a detailed description, the purpose is to emphasize that the fate between ex-lovers in the vast human sea. Although Mary and Bill predestined to meet, but a matter in the life of thoroughly changed the relationship between them, then they became the most familiar strangers. During their separation, the crowd around them has changed: husband, wife, children, friends and even strangers. The people and the distance interlude between them in Washington Square is the continuation of their separation.

Last but not the least; it is the language full of romantic poetic realism. Love rules one’s kingdom without a sword. “Suddenly the lights came on up the whole length of Fifth Avenue, chains of misty brilliance in the blue air.” As the lights put on, Mary knew her situation, her wake up gradually, with a bitter grief complex. She was experiencing the mistiness and brilliance of inner struggle. A “blue” reveals the dim light and reflects her melancholy. “The lights on the avenue blurred, twinkled, blurred.” The leaving Mary’s eyes filled with tears of remorse and regret, making street lights in her eyes becomes blurred and twinkled. Entire scenes in the story gave a highly colored sad autumn in Mary’s psychological change from excitement to sorrow to helplessness, expressing the author's positive and optimistic attitude and vision towards the protagonists’ life.

Hughes seemingly detached recounting appropriately reflects the character’s emotional undercurrents beneath the calm surface and also forms a sharp contrast with the characters' intense emotional change. It is an elite fiction worthy reading millions of times.