Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes: Imagery and Opinions of Two Great Poets

Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes were both American poets. Even though they were working around different times, they still wrote and talked about the same issues and problems, like slavery. Both poets used imagery, diction, point of view, and tone in their own crazy and creative way. Even though they have their similarities they also do some things differently. Langston Hughes was an African American poet which some Africans didn’t like him because they were selling Africans as slaves.

Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes use imagery in their poems. Walt uses imagery by showing the reader understand what is going on through the use of visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory images to which they can easily relate to. Also Whitman’s imagery reveals his imaginative power of the profound understanding of sensory perceptions and his unique capacity to capture instantaneously. Langston uses metaphorical statements to suggest to the reader what the soul of the African American had been through. Langston Hughes uses symbolism in Negro speaks of rivers. This is how they both use imagery in their poems. They both use diction in their poems by using everyday simple words. Hughes uses simple everyday word that ordinary everyday people would understand. Hughes also uses figurative language. Figurative language goes beyond the literal to enhance the meaning or the feelings of the word. Walt on the other hand uses diction to connect to the spiritual world. Other words the speaker uses diction that transcends to the realm of the spiritual. He also uses slang and dialect terms.

They both also use completely different point of views. When Whitman writes his poems he uses his writings to hit a large amount of people. Witmans poems is meant to hit large groups of people and isn’t talking in the sense of someone who'swhose experienced what it’s like but as someone that’s seen and viewed it. Hughes on the other hand is meant to tell it as if he experienced being a slave or as if he knew someone that was one. They also use tone in their own ways. The tone in I hear America sings is joyful. Whitman also uses his ability to embarrass his love for everything. The tone is isceccepting. Langston connects to himself to the painful history of African Americans. The tones that Hughes uses is sorrow, alienation, and loneliness. Neither one of them use the same tone at all. Whitman uses joyful and love as their tone and Hughes uses sad and emotional tone. As you can see even though both of them are great writers they both are similar and different at the same time. For example, asexample as you can see in tone both their tones are different. Sorrow and love are nowhere close to the same. In conclusion they both write about slavery and the life that the African Americans had went threw.