| Description |
xviii, 266 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
The poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the influence of African aesthetics: Dunbar's poems and the tradition of masking / Lena Ampadu -- National memory and the arts in Paul Laurence Dunbar's war poetry / Nassim W. Balestrini -- "Sing a song heroic": Paul Laurence Dunbar's mythic and poetic tribute to black soldiers / Sharon D. Raynor -- Minstrelsy and the dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar / Elston L. Carr Jr. -- Dunbar, dialect, and narrative theory: subverted statements in Lyrics of lowly life / Megan M. Peabody -- Rhetorical accountability: Paul Laurence Dunbar's search for "representative" men / Coretta M. Pittman -- "Jump back, honey, jump back": reading Paul Laurence Dunbar in the context of the Century magazine / Mark Noonan -- The glamour of Paul Laurence Dunbar: racial uplift, masculinity, and Bohemia in the Nadir / Matt Sandler -- Kemble's figures and Dunbar's folks: picturing the work of graphic illustration in Dunbar's short fiction / Adam Sonstegard -- "We know de time is ouahs": the power of Christmas in the literature of Paul Laurence Dunbar / Amy Cummins -- Creating a representative community: identity in Paul Laurence Dunbar's In old plantation days / Willie J. Harrell Jr. -- Memory and repression in Paul Laurence Dunbar's The sport of the gods / Jeannine King -- A little something more than something else: Dunbar's colorist ambivalence in The sport of the gods / Dolores V. Sisco -- Mobile blacks and ubiquitous blues: urbanizing the African American discourses in Paul Laurence Dunbar's The sport of the gods / Michael P. Moreno -- "With myriad subtleties": Paul Laurence Dunbar's constructions of social identity in The sport of the gods / Jayne E. Waterman -- "Nemmine. You got to git somebody else to ring yo' ol' bell now": nigger Ed and the rhetoric of local color realism and racial protest in Dunbar's The fanatics / Willie J. Harrell Jr. |
| Summary |
""Willie J. Harrell's We Wear the Mask focuses its attention upon the most recent and influential Dunbar scholarship, and in doing so refreshes our vision of the man, the artist, his work, and how intensely he skillfully maneuvered his way through the dangerous political, social, and aesthetic pitfalls of dialect and standard English. This volume not only asks but requires us to rethink the African American voices as well as the characters Dunbar infused with vitality and life. He was able to shed the light of humanity upon the African American community more than any other writer who came before him and in doing so richly influenced all the writers who came after him. We are in Dunbar's debt and likewise in the debt of Professor Harrell for assembling this richly energetic and demanding volume."--Herbert Woodward Martin, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Dayton, and The Paul Laurence Dunbar Laureate Poet for Dayton, Ohio" ""These essays make outstanding contributions to the growing body of important commentary on Dunbar's work. Professor Harrell's introduction brings us into new regions of the political statements Dunbar made in complex ways. The wide range of issues covered here is very impressive."--Ronald Primeau, author of Herbert Woodward Martin and the African American Tradition in Poetry" "A Prolific Nineteenth-Century Author, Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African American poet to gain national recognition. Praised by Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Frederick Douglass, who called him "the most promising colored man in America," Dunbar intrigued readers and literary critics with his depictions of African Americans' struggle to overcome a legacy of slavery and prejudice. His remarkably large body of work--he wrote eleven volumes of poetry, four short story collections, five novels, three librettos, and a play before his death at thirty-three--draws on the oral storytelling traditions of his ex-slave mother as well as his unconventional education at an all-white public school to explore the evolving identity of the black community and its place in post-Civil War America." "Willie Harrell has assembled a collection of essays on Dunbar's work that builds on the research published over the last two decades. Employing an array of approaches to Dunbar's poetic creations, these essays closely examine the self-motivated and dynamic effect of his use of dialect, language, rhetorical strategies, and narrative theory to promote racial uplift. They situate Dunbar's work in relation to the issues of advancement popular during the Reconstruction era and against the racial stereotypes proliferating in the early twentieth century while demonstrating its relevance to contemporary literary studies." "We Wear the Mask will appeal to scholars and students of African American literature and poetry, as well as those interested in one of the most celebrated and widely taught African American authors."--BOOK JACKET. |
| Subject |
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906 -- Criticism and interpretation.
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Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906. |
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Criticism and interpretation. |
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Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906 -- Language.
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African Americans in literature.
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African Americans in literature. |
| Added Author |
Harrell, Willie J., Jr.
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| ISBN |
9781606350461 hardcover alkaline paper |
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1606350463 hardcover alkaline paper |
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