Poetry
Lyrics of Lowly Life
Paul Laurence Dunbar · 1896
Opening lines
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought
The magic gold which from the seeker flies;
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
The collection gathers the bulk of the two pamphlets that its author had printed at Dayton and then at Toledo. About three quarters of the poems are written in literary English: sleep that comes to close weary eyes, the mask one must wear while smiling, an ode to the mother race, love and death. The last quarter is in dialect, that of the Black people of the South and the rural speech of the Middle West: a prewar sermon, Malindy's song, hot corn cakes, a party where people dance after supper.
Context
The book owes everything to an article. On 27 June 1896, in Harper's Weekly, William Dean Howells reviewed enthusiastically the poet's second volume, printed in Toledo thanks to two patrons. Dodd, Mead, in New York, immediately took him under contract and published this collection the same year, with an introduction by Howells, a reworked version of his article; an edition appeared in London in 1897, during a lecture tour of England. But Howells had praised chiefly the dialect pieces, and according to critics the praise weighed on what followed: editors and readers demanded more of them, to the detriment of the poems in literary English.
Who it is for
A collection of about two hundred pages, to be read by alternating between the two registers; the dialect, set down by ear, demands attention. No French translation of the collection.
Prizes and reception
It makes its author one of the first Black American poets to gain national recognition.
Sources for this page 9
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