Verisimilitude

     

    When I was annotating “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, I mainly focused on the constant repetition of different words and phrases such as “I am” and “Let it be”. Then after annotating, we talked about a very unfamiliar and frightening word, and this word was verisimilitude. After attempting to pronounce it correctly, my initial thoughts were that this word was probably going to be another extremely complicated rhetorical device that I am going to have to memorize. But verisimilitude is really just the degree to which a work creates the appearance of truth. The word looked scarier than it actually was. 

    After we learned about this word, I realized that Hughes was able to use different devices to create truth and credibility in his poem. Hughes writes, “For all the dreams we’ve dreamed / And all the songs we’ve sung / And all the hopes we’ve held / And all the flags we’ve hung, / The millions who have nothing for our pay— / Except the dream that’s almost dead today.” In this stanza, Hughes uses an anaphora, the repetition of  “And all”, and also the repetition of the word “we’ve” to create verisimilitude. Hughes repeats these words to emphasize how immigrants and minorities put their blood and sweat into everything in order to achieve equality. They hung their flags, sang their songs, and held their hopes high to collectively bring back the American Dream, which Hughes says the dream is almost dead today. Ultimately, this creates truth because Hughes appeals to the audience’s emotions by revealing that the dream they dedicated their life to is almost dead today. In addition, Hughes also includes everyone by repeating the word “we’ve” which creates truth in his poem but also a sense of unity.