DOCSLIB.ORG

Racial Ideas of the Nineteenth Century in Dunbar's Lyrics of Lowly

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Racial Ideas of the Nineteenth Century in Dunbar's Lyrics of Lowly A Reflection of the Times: Racial Ideas of the Nineteenth Century in Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life Nerlande Adolphe Adolphe 1 Before Lyrics of Lowly Life: Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Influence of his Race In 1872, five years before the end of Reconstruction, Paul Laurence Dunbar was born. The time Dunbar was born is significant it speaks to how Dunbar grew up during a time when the racial tenor was signified by pervading theories of racial hierarchies and racial caricatures, socio-political entrenchment for African Americans, and growing black scholarship. In this social context, Dunbar flourished as a poet and influential figure and became the first African-American commercially recognized poet. As William Dean Howells’s cannot help noting in the introduction of Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896), Paul Laurence Dunbar was the child of once enslaved people; his father escaped to Kentucky and his mother was freed during the Civil war (xiv). This particular detail of his life is not a defining marker of Dunbar’s identity as a poet or man, but it becomes integral, for it reveals Dunbar’s racial identity. Furthermore, similar to Phyllis Wheatley, Dunbar’s history and race are factors that attract some of his admirers, especially those who identify with his poems written in African American dialect. Additionally, Dunbar further developed his talent and acquired connections through his education, which later assisted with his literary popularity. Paul Laurence Dunbar was the only African-American in his high school class in Dayton, Ohio. During his time in Central High School, Dunbar involved himself with programs that involved writing; he was the president of the literary Philomathean Society, editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and class poet. Despite clear indications of aspirations, Dunbar did not attend college after high school due to his family’s limited funds. He did become the editor of the Dayton Tattler, which he founded. However, when the publication folded, Dunbar sought other work with already established newspapers, but most times, prospective employers turned him away because of his race, which forced him to rely on a menial job as an elevator boy at a hotel (Dunbar, Paul Laurence; Haralson). This is not abnormal, Adolphe 2 especially during a time of legalized discrimination, but this is just one instance where race is inseparable from Dunbar’s literary aspirations, which is the reality for Dunbar’s career during and posthumously. However, Dunbar kept writing during his free time at his job, and eventually, a former teacher asked Dunbar to address the Western Association of Writers in 1892 (Haralson). Ultimately, this meeting began his profitable career. At the meeting, Dunbar met James Newton Matthews who would become one of Dunbar’s champions. Matthews and other supporters like James Riley Whitcomb and Wilbur Wright circulated Dunbar’s poetry and name by sending letters to various newspapers about the poet (Jarret). And although these letters helped promote Dunbar, they ground his poetry within his race. For example, below is an excerpt from the letter that James Newton Mathews sent to newspapers, and his comments regarding Dunbar’s race are telling of the period that Dunbar and his poetry would have to contend with: Great was the surprise of the audience to see stepping down lightly down the aisle...a slender negro lad, as black as the core of Cheops’s pyramid. He ascended the rostrum with the coolness and dignity of a cultured entertainer, and delivered a poem in a tone ‘as musical as is Apollo’s lute’...He then disappeared from the hall as suddenly as he entered it, and many were the whispered conjectures as to the personality of the man, and the originality of his verses, none believing it possible that one of his age and color could produce a thing of such evident merit. (Eident, 307) The letter shows how people, Matthew’s included, are in awe of Dunbar’s, an African American, talent. Although such lines like “a poem in a tone ‘as musical as is Apollo’s lute’” shows a worthwhile appreciation for Dunbar’s capabilities since within the sentence, Dunbar is equated with the symbol of literary excellence itself, it is compromised by “as black as the core of Cheops’s Adolphe 3 pyramid.” The exaggerated simile of the latter quotation conveys a hyperawareness of Dunbar’s body, of a black body, that white readers would seek in his collections such as Lyrics of Lowly Life. Additionally, for some time, there was a desire to clarify who was Dunbar’s initial benefactor (Eident 308). This is important to think about in terms of possessing ownership of Dunbar’s career. Of course, seeking recognition for those who aided in the rise of a prolific writer is not strange; however, this apparent concern about who is the first to initiate Dunbar’s career speaks to a reality of Dunbar always being explained in the context of his white supporters who one way or another projected their ideas of Dunbar’s race onto him and his writing. Even in this paper, I found it difficult to discuss Dunbar’s struggle of being a representative without referring to the thoughts of his white benefactors and supporters. However, explaining the role of certain figures is still necessary to enumerate why Paul Laurence Dunbar both perpetuated and subverted the racial ideas of the time in his poetry. For example, one of Dunbar’s newly acquired benefactors, Wilbur Wright, funded the self-publication of Dunbar’s first collection, Oak and Ivy (189) (“Dunbar, Paul Laurence”). The success of that book lead to Dunbar publishing the second collection, Majors and Minors (1893) by garnering support, and finally, the success of Majors and Minors (1985) lead to the third collection, Lyrics of Lowly Life, to be commercially published. Lyrics of Lowly Life and the social context surrounding the collection are worth examining in order to understand Paul Laurence Dunbar and his poetry in nineteenth-century post-Reconstruction United States. Adolphe 4 Paul Laurence Dunbar is a prolific poet whose works garner as much praise as they do criticism, and most of the praise and criticism comes from Dunbar’s poetic style. The poems that Dunbar wrote in black vernacular are regarded as “[affirming] the past and present social structure in what has become an identifiable black voice” and “[offering] a primitive version of blackness that satisfies a particular racial fantasy” (qtd. in Elston 52). This assessment of Dunbar’s work is correct to an extent. Dunbar’s poetry written in standard English and dialect depicts him at times a problematic writer who could be lumped with other writers of the period who wrote minstrel- like poems. However, it would be a disservice to ignore the pro-black sentiments in his poetry, and the tension between Dunbar’s poetic aspirations and the societal demand, which Lyrics of Lowly Life captures. What makes Lyrics a unique text is not only its content, for it is an accumulation of the poems featured in Dunbar’s previous two collections, Oak and Ivy and Majors and Minors, but it is also the fact that it is his first relatively popular collection. After his second collection of verse, Dunbar moved from the peripheral awareness of powerful literary figures such as William Dean Howells and his name came into mainstream circulation, which lead him to the leading publishing company of the period, Dodd, Mead, and Company. Ultimately, the publication of Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life signals his rising popularity, and this popularity brought a wider audience to read and then later laud Dunbar’s poems. As this paper will demonstrate, Dunbar’s poems that mimic the southern black tongue and perpetuate a plantation slave stereotype are the ones that received the most contemporary attention, mostly because these poems seemed to satisfy a societal desire to validate a collective prejudice. Some of Dunbar’s newly-acquired audience would possess such prejudices that feed off what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would call the “single story,” which concerns how people and cultures are reduced into a single narrative that is widely circulated. The Adolphe 5 single story of African Americans dominating this period was that related to the southern-negro type of blacks being lazy, superstitious, aggressive, hypersexual, complacent, and entertainers (Jones). Dunbar’s poems, even in Lyrics of Lowly Life, perpetuates that single story but it also reflects a complex balance of personal identity and social identity reflective of the time. Furthermore, the repeated poems featured in the third collection are no less integral to the text, considering these are the pieces that Dunbar and/or his editor chose to recirculate for a growing audience. The elevation that the publication of Lyrics brought is signified by the book’s slight variations, such as the introduction, a more ornate cover, a table of contents instead of an index of poems organized by alphabetical order, and the intermixture of the dialect poems and formal English poems instead of them being divided. Mostly, these slight changes mark the beginning transformation of Dunbar’s poetry into what is acceptable for mass, popular consumption. Simple changes like these are taken-for-granted as the editor’s control but however minute these details about aesthetic and organizational shifts are, they begin to illustrate the “popularization” of Dunbar’s work, which will increase as Dunbar published more collections and novels in rapid succession. The very fact Paul Laurence Dunbar was able to sign with Dodd, Mead, and Company is significant in a period when black writing failed to “make its way among...white fellow-citizens to anything like a desirable extent, and...to a degree which [African American authors’] literary merit deserves” (Kaestle).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Narrative Section of a Successful Application
    Narrative Section of a Successful Application The attached document contains the grant narrative and selected portions of a previously funded grant application. It is not intended to serve as a model, but to give you a sense of how a successful application may be crafted. Every successful application is different, and each applicant is urged to prepare a proposal that reflects its unique project and aspirations. Prospective applicants should consult the Humanities Connections Planning guidelines at https://www.neh.gov/grants/education/humanities-connections-planning-grants for instructions. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to consult with the NEH Division of Education Programs staff well before a grant deadline. Note: The attachment only contains the grant narrative and selected portions, not the entire funded application. In addition, certain portions may have been redacted to protect the privacy interests of an individual and/or to protect confidential commercial and financial information and/or to protect copyrighted materials. Project Title: The Life, Works, and Legacy of Paul Laurence Dunbar: Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development Institution: University of Dayton Project Director: Minnita Daniel-Cox, Jennifer Speed, and Ju Shen Grant Program: Humanities Connections Planning 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024 P 202.606.8500 F 202.606.8394 [email protected] www.neh.gov TABLE OF CONTENTS Summary 1 Narrative Project Rationale & Desired Outcomes 2-5 Intellectual Content 5-7 Planning Committee 7-10 Planning Process 10-11
    [Show full text]
  • TABLE of CONTENTS GRADES 6–12 OPEN a WORLD of IDEAS It Is Important to Understand That Learning Is Different in the 21St Century Than It Was in the 20Th Century
    TABLE OF CONTENTS GRADES 6–12 OPEN A WORLD OF IDEAS It is important to understand that learning is different in the 21st century than it was in the 20th century. For many of us educated in the 20th century, our learning modalities are closer to Gutenberg than Zuckerberg! Learning changes as technologies change. We’re moving from what would have been a receptive learning ecology to an interactive and productive one. The 21st century is about producing knowledge. It’s a century where students need to develop unique and powerful voices plurally and consider the following questions: How do I speak to different audiences? How do I understand the rhetorical situation? How do I know what my audience needs to hear from me? How do I meet them where they are? There’s not just one generic academic voice; there are multiple voices. It’s also about learning to consider and engage diverse perspectives. —Dr. Ernest Morrell, myPerspectives Author ERNEST MORRELL, Ph.D., Coyle Professor and the Literacy Education Director at the University of Notre Dame 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS myPerspectives ensures that students read and understand a variety of complex texts across multiple genres such as poetry, myths, realistic fiction, historical fiction, speeches, dramas, literary criticism, letters, speeches, articles, short stories, and more. These varied texts allow students to encounter new perspectives, rethink ideas, and deepen their knowledge of contemporary, traditional, and classic literature. STUDENT EDITION UNITS Grade 6 . .. 6 Grade 7 . .. 9 Grade 8 . 13 Grade 9 . 16 Grade 10 . .. 21 American Literature . 26 British and World Literature .
    [Show full text]
  • As the Month of April Winds Down, We End the Last Sunday of the Month Honoring Paul Laurence Dunbar During National Poetry Month
    As the month of April winds down, we end the last Sunday of the month honoring Paul Laurence Dunbar during National Poetry Month. Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began writing stories and verse when he was a child. He published his first poems at the age of 16 in a Dayton newspaper, and served as president of his high school's literary society. Dunbar's popularity increased rapidly after his work was praised by William Dean Howells, a leading editor associated with Harper's Weekly. Dunbar became one of the first African-American writers to establish an international reputation. In addition to his poems, short stories, and novels, he also wrote the lyrics for the musical comedy In Dahomey (1903), the first all-African-American musical produced on Broadway in New York. The musical later toured in the United States and the United Kingdom. Suffering from tuberculosis, which then had no cure, Dunbar died in Dayton, Ohio, at the age of 33. Much of Dunbar's more popular work in his lifetime was written in the " Negro dialect" associated with the antebellum South, though he also used the Midwestern regional dialect of James Whitcomb Riley. Dunbar also wrote in conventional English in other poetry and novels. Source: Wikipedia Two brief examples of Dunbar's work, the first in standard English and the second in dialect, demonstrate the diversity of Dunbar's works.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar's Naturalist Strategies
    %ODFN1DWXUDOLVP:KLWH'HWHUPLQLVP3DXO/DXUHQFH 'XQEDU V1DWXUDOLVW6WUDWHJLHV Thomas L. Morgan Studies in American Naturalism, Volume 7, Number 1, Summer 2012, pp. 7-38 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI1HEUDVND3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/san.2012.0009 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/san/summary/v007/7.1.morgan.html Access provided by University of Dayton (12 Sep 2014 11:11 GMT) Black Naturalism, White Determinism Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Naturalist Strategies Thomas L. Morgan, University of Dayton Paul Laurence Dunbar was born into a country with already existing ex- pectations regarding African Americans. While this is not a novel observa- tion, it is intended to acknowledge the differing assumptions critics and readers, both then and now, bring to his work. As a black male author in a predominantly white literary world, Dunbar had to navigate the racial presumptions of editors and readers alike in order to succeed. To be fi - nancially successful while maintaining his political and aesthetic stance, Dunbar had to create literary strategies capable of critiquing the social, political, economic, and cultural problems facing African Americans that, at the same time, would not explicitly confront white readers’ internal- ized beliefs regarding blacks. As Gene Jarrett argues in Deans and Tru- ants (2007), Dunbar’s experience with the racial realism of William Dean Howells led to Dunbar’s experimentation with literary naturalism.1 And it is this experimentation that informs Dunbar’s naturalist depictions of white
    [Show full text]
  • “When Dey 'Listed Colored Soldiers”: Paul
    Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 13 May 2008 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Terry, J. (2007) '"When dey listed colored soldiers": Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetic engagement with the Civil War, masculinity and violence.', African American review., 41 (2). pp. 269-275. Further information on publisher's website: http://aar.slu.edu/ Publisher's copyright statement: Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk “When Dey ’Listed Colored Soldiers”: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Poetic Engagement with the Civil War, Masculinity, and Violence aul Laurence Dunbar’s poetic treatment of the Civil War and its legacies explores heroism, patriotism, citizenship, P Jennifer Terry is Lecturer in death, mourning, and trauma. In reflecting on the war, consid- English at the University of ered a worthy and elevated national theme, the author found an Durham, UK.
    [Show full text]
  • Dunbar's Georgics
    127.4 ] “Work and Wait Unwearying”: Dunbar’s Georgics margaret ronda AUL LAURENCE DUNBAR’S LEGACY AS A POET HAS BEEN LARGELY P determined by the critical debates about his dialect poetry. he persistent emphasis on dialect originates in William Dean Howells’s description, in his introduction to Dunbar’s 1896 Lyrics of Lowly Life, of the poet’s dialect verse as the marker of his “artistic completeness.” Dunbar’s dialect poems, Howells argues, illuminate the “precious diference of temperament between the races” and of- fer unique “divinations and reports of what passes in the hearts and minds of a lowly people” (xvii–xviii). Howells’s pronouncement on the aesthetic merit of Dunbar’s poetry reverberates across a century of criticism that debates the capacity of dialect to graph racial difer- ence.1 Whether inluenced by New Negro tenets, Black Arts politics, or poststructuralist or new historicist reading practices, however, Dunbar’s critical readers oten share Howells’s verdict that dialect po- etry represents Dunbar’s most notable achievement, even if they do not share Howell’s patronizing rhetoric.2 hese critics’ methodologi- cally divergent readings all regard linguistic diference, codiied in dialect’s orthography and rhythms, as the key measure of racialized expression in Dunbar’s poetics. hey force his poetry into the neatly dichotomous categories “standard” and “dialect” and foreground the literary coding of racial authenticity as his poetry’s essential stake.3 However instructive these dialect debates have proved, they have necessarily circumscribed critical approaches to Dunbar’s various MARGARET RONDA, an assistant pro- body of work.
    [Show full text]
  • Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park Service
    National Park Service Dayton Aviation Heritage U.S. Department of the Interior Paul Laurence Dunbar State Memorial IS Dayton Aviation Heritage \*7 National Historical Park Paul Laurence Dunbar State Memorial PAUL LAURENCE-.DSKBAR BW)Ll,U'Rl-i;CEI>U! S s/FIELD Paul Laurence Dunbar Qune 27,1872 - February 9,1906) was an American poet and author who was best known in his lifetime for his dialect work and his use of metaphor and rhetoric, often in a conversational style. In his short career he pro duced an impressive twelve books of poetry, four novels, four books of short sto ries, and wrote the lyrics to many popular songs. Dunbar became the first African American to support himself financially through his writing. 'The child within the Paul was born in Dayton, Ohio. His mother with books of short stories and poetry. Paul was a cradle rail..." Matilda and his father Joshua were former slaves popular speaker in high school, gaining the nick from Kentucky. Joshua Dunbar served in the 55th name "Deacon Dunbar" for his authoritative style Massachusetts Infantry and the 5th Massachusetts of speech. Cavalry of the United States Colored Troops dur ing the American Civil War. Pneumonia prevented Paul from getting his diplo ma on time, but he persevered and it was during Paul had two half brothers, William and Rob this time that he wrote the poem "Keep a Pluggin' ert, sons of Matilda from a previous marriage in a Way." High school was a productive time for Kentucky. Matilda and Joshua had a second child, Dunbar.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar and Turn-Into-The-20Th-Century African American Dualism" (2007)
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series Afro-American Studies 2007 Paul Laurence Dunbar and Turn-into-the-20th- Century African American Dualism James E. Smethurst University of Massachusetts - Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/afroam_faculty_pubs Recommended Citation Smethurst, James E., "Paul Laurence Dunbar and Turn-into-the-20th-Century African American Dualism" (2007). AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW. 54. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/afroam_faculty_pubs/54 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Afro-American Studies at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Paul Laurence Dunbar and Tum-into-the-20th-century African American Dualism Paul Gilroy has powerfully claimed that the notion of double consciousness in which the black subject "ever feels his James Smethurstteaches twoness" was used by W. E. B. Du Bois to figure a diasporic, and in the W. E. B. Du Bois sometimes transatlantic black modernity expressing the ambiva­ Department of Afro-American lent location of people of African descent simultaneously within Studies at the University of and beyond what is known as "the West" (111-45). Certainly, Du Massachusetts Amherst. He Bois's articulation of dualism has remained a powerful trope is the author of TheNew Red available to a wide range of artists and intellectuals both inside Negro: The LiteraryLeft and and outside of the United States down to the present.
    [Show full text]
  • Texts and Subtexts in Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking in Key and Peele As a Lens for Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar's M
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses March 2017 Texts and Subtexts in Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking in Key and Peele as a Lens for Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Musical Comedy Spencer Kuchle University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the African American Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Performance Studies Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Kuchle, Spencer, "Texts and Subtexts in Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking in Key and Peele as a Lens for Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Musical Comedy" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 886. https://doi.org/10.7275/9399331.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/886 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Texts and Subtexts in Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking in Key and Peele as a Lens for Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Musical Comedy A Dissertation Presented by SPENCER JAMISON PASQUERELLA KUCHLE Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2017 W.E.B. Department of Afro-American Studies © Copyright by Spencer Jamison Pasquerella Kuchle 2017 All Rights Reserved Texts and Subtexts in Performing Blackness: Vernacular Masking in Key and Peele as a Lens for Viewing Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Musical Comedy A Dissertation Presented By SPENCER JAMISON PASQUERELLA KUCHLE Approved as to style and content by: ___________________________________ Steven C.
    [Show full text]
  • MCAS Grade 8 English Language Arts, Reading Comprehension Release Items Spring 2015
    VII. English Language Arts, Reading Comprehension, Grade 8 Grade 8 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension Test The spring 2015 grade 8 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on grades 6–12 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses. ■ Reading (Framework, pages 47–52) ■ Language (Framework, pages 64–67) The Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy is available on the Department website at www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html. ELA Reading Comprehension test results are reported under two MCAS reporting categories, Reading and Language, which are identical to the two framework content strands listed above. The tables at the conclusion of this chapter indicate each released and unreleased common item’s reporting category and the standard it assesses. The correct answers for released multiple-choice questions are also displayed in the released item table. Test Sessions and Content Overview The grade 8 ELA Reading Comprehension test included two separate test sessions. Each session included reading passages, followed by multiple-choice and open-response questions. Selected common reading passages and approximately half of the common test items are shown on the following pages as they appeared in test booklets. Reference Materials During both ELA Reading Comprehension test sessions, the use of bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed for current and former English language learner students only. No other reference materials were allowed during any ELA Reading Comprehension test session. 92 MCAS_2015_Gr8_ELA_RID Grade 8 English Language Arts READING COMPREHENSION DIRECTIONS This session contains two reading selections with fourteen multiple-choice questions and two open-response questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar Selected Poems
    Paul Laurence Dunbar Selected Poems Overview Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African American poet to receive national recognition. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, he started publishing poetry when he was 16 years old and continued until his death in 1906 at the age of 33. Dunbar’s poems included light Victorian lyric poetry and entertaining poems in the Negro dialect, but some of his most famous and moving poems are written in standard English and deal with racial issues. In this lesson, students will read, interpret, and write poems in both stan- dard English and dialect. They will interpret and explore their connection to poems through essays and letters. At the end of the lesson, they will work individually to interpret Dunbar’s 1899 poem “Sympathy” and (through research) place the poem both in its historical context and in its relation to their own lives. Getting Started Note: This lesson includes Lesson Objectives complex themes and At the conclusion of this lesson, students will be able to: imagery. This lesson is •Interpret (explicate) the meaning of a poem, in terms of both their best suited for grades 7–8. own perspective and the poem’s historical context •Define/explain poetic terms and concepts including stanza, image, simile, and metaphor •Identify and describe dialect poetry, and explain its history in 19th and 20th century America •Write poems in standard English and in the students’ own dialect PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 159 Grade Level Indicators In meeting the above lesson objectives, students will: D Identify and explain
    [Show full text]
  • The Advent of "The Nigger": the Careers of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henry 0
    The Advent of "The Nigger": The Careers of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henry 0. Tanner, and Charles W. Chesnutt1 Matthew Wilson Pretext: The Chicago World's Columbian Exposition as Racial Locus In 1893, America celebrated itself in the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago2 in the aptly named "White City." Although the term came from the dazzling quality of the architecture surrounding the Court of Honor, the term "white" was inevitably racialized at the end of the nineteenth century. An ex­ ample of this racialization is a poem by Richard Watson Gilder, the editor of the Atlantic, entitled "The White City." In this paean, he connects the exposition to the world of ancient Greece: "Her white-winged soul sinks on the New World's breast. /Ah! happy West - / Greece flowers anew, and all her temples soar!"3 He constructs a tradition in which the Greeks were "white" and the United States the fruition of that whiteness, a connection reinforced by the pastiche of classi­ cal allusions in the architecture of the fair. Thus, the White City could be read as emblematic of the triumph of whiteness in a decade that saw the repression of African American political and economic aspirations. Since the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South following the election of 1876, African Americans had been progres­ sively robbed of their political rights. As Charles Chesnutt himself noted in his essay "The Disfranchisement of the Negro" (1903), "the rights of Negroes are at a lower ebb than at any time during the thirty-five years of their freedom, and the 0026-3079/2002/4301-005$3.50/0 American Studies, 43:1 (Spring 2002): 5-50 5 6 Matthew Wilson race prejudice more intense and uncompromising."4 In addition, the lynchings in Atlanta in 1892 of three African American businessmen and the coup d'état/ pogrom in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 (the subject of Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition) signaled that African Americans in the South would not be allowed to compete economically with European Americans.
    [Show full text]