Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), was one of the most popular American poets of the 1890’s and early 1900’s. He was the first Black American to become nationally popular as a writer of both poetry and fiction. From 1893 to 1905, Dunbar published 14 books, more than any Black American before 1950.
Dunbar wrote poetry in standard English about traditional poetic subjects and about the heroes of African Americans. In some of these poems, he experimented with metrical forms and rhyme schemes. He also wrote comic and sentimental poetry in dialect about Black and white Americans. Editors of Dunbar’s time preferred his dialect poetry and stories about Black people who enjoy the simple pleasures of life apart from the white world. Dunbar satisfied the demands of the editors but expressed fear that he would be remembered only as a writer of “a jingle in a broken tongue.”
Some modern readers criticize Dunbar for only rarely condemning racial stereotypes and discrimination against Black Americans. In his poetry, Dunbar usually limited his racial concerns to themes praising Black people rather than attacking white people. He pointed out racial injustices bitterly or satirically in his essays and in stories in such works as The Strength of Gideon (1900) and The Sport of the Gods (1902), a novel. Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872, in Dayton, Ohio, the son of formerly enslaved parents. He died of tuberculosis on Feb. 9, 1906.
