the white writer Carl Van Vechten, he saw his first book, the collection of verse The Weary Blues, published in 1926 (Rampersad xiii). However, in 1927, his second collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew, was widely attacked in the black press for its bold depiction of lower-class African-American life, but its novel use of jazz and blues influences sealed Hughes's reputation as "the most creative and original poet of the Harlem Renaissance" (Rampersad xiii).
In the 1930s, Rampersad argues that certain features of his verse were altered as he began to emphasize the need for radical political action (Rampersad 2). Hughes then wrote some of the most poignant lamentations of the chasm that often exists between American social ideals and American social reality (Rampersad 2). Early in the 1940s, he returned as a poet to older themes. In the postwar years, Rampersad believes that Hughes watched "the historic evolution of African-American culture from its roots in the rural South to its often tangled exfoliation in the cities of the North" (2). His response was a body of verse, notably from Montage of a Dream Deferred to Ask Your Mama, shaped largely by the impact of the transformation of black music (Rampersad 2). He died on May 22, 1967, in Harlem.
Critical Interpretation of "Mulatto."
Langston Hughes's poem "Mulatto" first appeared in his volume of poetry titled Fine Clothes to the Jew, first published in 1927 (Barksdale 4). Fine Clothes was Hughes's second collection of verse; The Weary Blues was his first and it appeared to generally admiring reviews in the national press and black newspapers and magazines in 1926 (Rampersad xiii). Fine Clothes, however, was less warmly received than The Weary Blues due to the bold depiction of lower-class African-American life in its poems (Rampersad xiii). "Mulatto" was one such poem.
"Mulatto" is most easily described as a "racial conflict poem," which is Barksdale's terminology (...