Letters

__** Poetry Analysis and Connections to The Great Gatsby **__

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO VIEW POEMS & ANALYSIS:

__Richard Cory__ //By: Edwin Arlington Robinson//

__Let America be America Again__ //By: Langston Hughes//

=Reflection:= Poetry has always fascinated me. It amazes me that poets can get across such an extensive message with a theme running through their prose, through symbolism in their poems. Since poetry often reflects a poet's deepest thoughts, morals, and beliefs and the themes in The Great Gatsby have a lot to do with F. Scott Fitzgerald's life and values, I wanted to represent the novel through poetry. I thought one of the main themes in the novel was the American Dream, and how it is unattainable for most, however, everyone strives towards it. Through my research, I found many poems that touched on this theme, however two stuck out to me: __Richard Cory__, by Edwin Arlington Robinson and __Let America be America Again__, by Langston Hughes. Richard Cory specifically touches on the lower class striving to be like the upper class and the carelessness of the upperclass. Edwin Arlington Robinson was born into a wealthy family, however his brother died of a drug overdose around the time this poem was written. The poem represents an American Dream gone wrong, and can easily be attributed to his brothers tragic death. Let America be America Again moreso focuses on the American Dream in general and how it has detiriorated over time from the building blocks that it originally represented. Langston Hughes believed that corruption in the United States is what changed the values of the American people from freedom to money and status. After doing some research about the authors, I also learned that Langston Hughes, an influential poet throughout the Harlem Renaissance, wrote this poem in the 1920's, reflecting the values and beliefs throughout this time period.

=**Sources:**=

Before I decided upon connecting The Great Gatsby to these two specific poems, I read many other poems from various websites, however, although I visited many sites, I'm only including the sites that I used poetry from.

Let America be America Again: __http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Hughes-America-Again1938.htm__ Richard Cory: __ http://www.bartleby.com/104/45.html __

Next, I researched the authors and these are the websites I used--

Langston Hughes: __http://www.kansasheritage.org/crossingboundaries/page6e1.html__

Edwin Arlington Robinson: __http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/robinson.htm__