Paul Lawrence Dunbar

This week we are engaged in a close reading of the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. I want you to consider how Dunbar incorporates the use of “dialect” into his poetry. By “dialect” in poetry, we mean language, word choices, phrases, syntax (word arrangement or word order), that imitates or mirrors the way that a language is spoken. The use of dialect may forge a connection to the earlier vernacular forms found during slavery (though Dunbar is born after the Civil War and after the end of slavery). We know that the vernacular forms change over time and continue post-slavery. The blues would be an example of the vernacular. Everyday speech (how someone in a community speaks) would be another example of the vernacular. I want you to select two Dunbar poems from the reading selections listed for this week and use your two poem selections in your responses. Pay close attention to Dunbar’s use of language in the poems you select.

Part 1: Do you see any traces of dialect or the vernacular in Dunbar’s poetry? If so, why do you think Dunbar would have wanted his readers to see or be exposed to the use of the vernacular or dialect? Does it alter the effect of the poem in any way if dialect or the vernacular is present? Now, keep in mind, not “all” of Dunbar’s writings use the vernacular; often he may writing in a more elevated form of language. So, if in the poems you choose, Dunbar is not using dialect or the vernacular, how then is he using language? If he using language in a more elevated fashion, what then is the effect of it upon the audience? Is there any connection you observe between the language Dunbar chooses and that of his subject or themes in his poems?

Part 2: What are the themes you observe in the two poems you selected? How do these themes potentially ‘speak to’ or address the social situations of the post-Civil War era?

We Wear the Mask

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44203/we-wear-the-mask

A Negro Love Song

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44198/a-negro-love-song

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