Research Paper on:
'The Return of Simple' by Langston Hughes

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
a poet, a political voice, an author of adult books and also an author childrens stories. According to one individual, "His art was firmly rooted in race pride and race  feeling even as he cherished his freedom as an artist" (Anonymous A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Langston_Hughes2.htm). Beginning during WWII, he wrote "a weekly column in the Chicago Defender  that began in 1942 and lasted twenty years" (Anonymous A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Langston_Hughes2.htm). This column presented us with the character of Jesse B. Semple, or just Simple.  In the following paper we first examine the life and significance of Langston Hughes and then illustrate how much of who he was and what he represented is to be  found in such works as "The Return of Simple." Langston Hughes Langston Hughes was considered to be "both nationalist and cosmopolitan...a radical democrat...He could sometimes be bitter,  but his art is generally suffused by a keen sense of the ideal and by a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. He was perhaps the most original of  African American poets and, in the breadth and variety of his work, assuredly the most representative of African American writers" (Anonymous A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Langston_Hughes2.htm). His work  essentially touched upon all that was important and relevant to the African American. He was born James Langston Hughes on Feb. 1, 1902, in Joplin, Mo. and through his  young years "worked at various jobs, including that of a seaman, traveling to Africa and Europe. His first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, published in 1926, made him  well known among literary people" (Anonymous A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Langston_Hughes2.htm). After earning his B.A. in Oxford, Pa. he began earning his living as a writer, "portraying black