Hughes penned “Theme for English B” in 1949 at the age of 47. Here the word ‘English’ stands as a symbol for universality; It does not need to be attributed with any grade (A, B) to mark its significance.The speaker in the poem is an imaginary one conceived by Langston Hughes and not the poet himself, as the speaker is ‘born in Winston-Salem’, while Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. The college that Hughes is speaking of in his poem is not Columbia University. It is the City College of New York located on the highest hill in Manhattan. Arnold Rampersad who edited Hughes’ Collected Poems has stated that the college that features in the prescribed poem is the City College of New York on his visit to the CCNY during its 30th annual Langston Hughes Festival.

 

The title of the poem suggests a theme for English B. The mention of an English B underlines the existence of an English A, that renders the English A default-the standard one. And the question arises for the need for an English B. The instructor in the class asks the student to go home and write a page. The only requirement is that the page must come out of the writer; it is only then that it will be true or ‘genuine’.Such a stance goes against the New Critics who divorced the author from the text; and stated that the text is autonomous.…