“Nothing Human is Foreign”: Polyphony and Recognition in the Poetry of Robert Hayden

Abstract

This essay argues that the polyphony that features so prominently in many of Robert Hayden’s poems serves as a linguistic parallel for the recognition between distanced subjects his poems both depict and encourage. Drawing on the work of Fanon, Hegel, and Bakhtin, the essay defines recognition as the awareness of mutuality or common ground linking two otherwise distanced subjects. Paying close attention to three of Hayden’s poems—“Night, Death, Mississippi,” “Runagate Runagate,” and “Middle Passage”—the essay then demonstrates how he uses multiple and interweaving voices in his poetry to provoke and evoke recognition. Revealing that the trope of recognition is central to Hayden’s understanding of race, agency, and the human self, this analysis helps us to better understand how he balanced careful attention to his own socio-historical context with a determination to be an internationalist poet not limited by narrow political affiliations.