Dunbar, Paul Laurence 1872-1906

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE 1872-1906

Poet, novelist

"Poet Laureate of the Negro Race."

Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of America's most popular poets in the 1900s. He was also the first African American poet to achieve national and international fame. Educator Booker T. Washington called him the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race." One of the most unusual features of Dunbar's poetry was his use of both dialect and standard English, a technique that is no longer as controversial or as startling to readers as it was at the turn of the century. Dunbar's poetry blended the humor, pathos, and determination of African Americans' struggle in and out of slavery. He skillfully used rhythm, satire, narrative, and irony to insist that white Americans see the humanity of a black community they often misunderstood.

Early Life

Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872 to former plantation slaves. His father, Joshua, and mother, Matilda, taught themselves to read and write, skills that slaves desperately wanted to have but that slave holders regularly withheld and was prohibited by law. When Dunbar was a young boy Matilda taught him to read, and together they cultivated a devotion to literature. Dunbar's parents told him and his brothers about their lives as slaves, and these stories became an important literary resource for Dunbar's poetry.

Getting Started

Dunbar's intelligence and literary talent soon became obvious. In high school he was the only black student in his class. As a senior he was class president, editor of his school's paper, and president of the school's literary club. He was also the class poet, writing and delivering the class poem at graduation in June 1891. At the age of sixteen Dunbar had already published his poetry in the Dayton Herald. Encouraged by such successes, Dunbar set out to find work as a journalist when he graduated, but he was denied all but the most menial work. He eventually found work as an elevator operator for four dollars a week; in his free time he read William Shakespeare, John Keats, and Alfred Tennyson and wrote poetry and articles for publication. Invited by his former English teacher, Dunbar gave the opening address to the Western Association of Writers in 1892. His twenty-six-line poem drew the attention of many in the audience, specifically James Newton Matthews, who became one of Dunbar's patrons.

Establishing Ties

Encouraged by Matthews and another admirer, the Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, Dunbar published a small volume of poetry in 1892, Oak and Ivy. That volume included Dunbar's first uses of dialect in such poems as "A Banjo Song," as well as standard English, as in "Ode to Ethiopia." Throughout, Dunbar stressed the contributions blacks had made in the building of the United States and their achievements during Reconstruction. Dunbar moved to Chicago in 1893 to work at the World's Columbian Exposition and there met a network of African American artists and intellectuals. Chief among his new acquaintances were Frederick Douglass, Angelina Weld Grimkè, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Hallie Brown, Mary Church Terrell, and fellow poets James D. Corrothers and James Edwin Campbell. At the conclusion of the exposition, Dunbar returned to Dayton and reluctantly resumed his job as an elevator operator.

Arriving

Beset by financial difficulties, Dunbar struggled to make a living. In 1895 Century magazine published three poems, "A Negro Love Song," "Curtain," and "The Dilettante." Other important literary magazines and newspapers followed suit, such as The New York Times, Blue and Gray, and the Independent. He published a second volume of poetry, Majors and Minors, in 1896. William Dean Howel1s, the renowned novelist and critic, reviewed Majors and Minors in Harper's Weekly, and his praise helped establish Dunbar as an important American poet. Friends directed Dunbar to what would now be called a literary agent, Maj. James B. Pond, who had successfully managed tours for Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Cable. Pond arranged a series of readings in New York City and located a publisher for Dunbar's poems. Also in 1896 Dunbar published Lyrics of Lowly Life, which became his best-selling book, introducing him to a national audience.

International Recognition

In 1897 Dunbar sailed to London and there met the woman who later became his wife, Alice Ruth Moore. U.S. Ambassador John Hay arranged a reading of Dunbar's poetry for some of London's most prominent citizens. After six months in England, and again facing financial ruin, Dunbar returned to the United States and took a job in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Dunbar enjoyed the security of his work and the vibrant African American community in Washington, which at that time was the largest in the United States. He energetically turned out seven articles, a musical, two collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, and a novel he had started in London. His royalties, fees, and salary from the Library of Congress gave him financial stability. In recognition of his achievements, Atlanta University bestowed upon him an honorary master of arts degree on 5 June 1899.

Short Stories

In the late 1890s Dunbar began writing short stories about the ongoing problem of racism facing African Americans. In his collection of short stories Folks from Dixie (1898) Dunbar dropped the use of dialect that had won him fame from his white audiences. Instead, he used standard English to rekindle African American awareness of the need for solidarity, pride, and, above all, dignity. Folks from Dixie won him more critical acclaim. In 1899 Dunbar's delicate health forced him to resign from the Library of Congress. Despite his chronic illnesses, he toured the country giving readings and lectures. After his collection of poems Lyrics of the Hearth-side (1899) was published, a doctor diagnosed Dunbar as suffering from tuberculosis and advised him to move to the country. In 1900 Dunbar published a book of stories, The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories, and his publisher republished eight of Dunbar's poems with a photo essay on southern African Americans. Poems of Cabin and Field became widely popular, and other illustrated editions of poems from Dunbar's previous volumes were published: Candle-Lightin Time (1901), When Malindy Sings (1903), Li'l Gal (1904), Howdy, Honey, Howdy (1905), and Joggin Erlong (1906).

Novelist

To support himself, Dunbar also published novels during this period, most notably The Sport of the Gods (1902), considered the first major protest novel by a black American writer. In In Old Plantation Days (1903) Dunbar took what appeared to many African Americans to be a favorable and romantic view of slavery. Many black critics dismissed the book as a form of Uncle Tomism. White audiences, however, enjoyed the book tremendously. Dunbar's fiction maintained a delicate balance between accommodation and protest, in part to ensure that his work would be published by a predominantly white publishing world. Yet even when his work appeared to accommodate racism, he continued to explore the social, economic, and political conditions facing blacks in the United States at the turn of the century. In 1906 the poet died in his home in Dayton.

Source:

Gayle Addison Jr., Oak and Ivy: A Biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor/Doubleday, 1971).