Paul Laurence Dunbar Research Paper

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, America had ample racial tensions between white Americans and African Americans. Many white Americans believed that their social class was above any free or enslaved African American. This belief of superiority by race led to racial strife within the United States which plagued the entire country. Paul Laurence Dunbar used literature as a catalyst to portray the racial strife occurring within late nineteenth century to early twentieth century America, and to influence the Harlem Renaissance. Without his works, the progression on social issues within America would not have progressed as rapidly. Paul Laurence Dunbar had humble beginnings which attributed to his writing style and the rise …show more content…
Oak and Ivy “included his earliest dialect poems and many works in standard English” (“Paul Laurence Dunbar”). Dunbar began to tackle the “dismal plight of blacks in American society” in a poem entitled “Sympathy” and in the “Ode to Ethiopia,” Dunbar “records the many accomplishments of black Americans and exhorts his fellow blacks to maintain their pride despite racial abuse.” (Ibid). Dunbar, as early as his first official work, began to write about the racial issues occurring within America and this fueled him to write more works about the most popular and controversial issue during that …show more content…
He experimented with a variety of literary styles and social themes, but mainly “grouped the more ambitious poems, those written in standard English, under the heading ‘Majors’ and he gathered the more superficial, dialect works as ‘Minors’” (“Paul Laurence Dunbar”). Although Dunbar expected “Majors” to be more popular, his dialectic poetry in “Minors” gained the attention of many White Americans. Dunbar wrote these dialectic poems “in the rhythm that he learned from his mother as she told him stories of black folks.” (Cummings XVII). He carefully wrote his poems to “disguise the poignancy of some of his messages,” which allowed all who read his poetry to read it without first impression prejudice. (Ibid). The main problem that critics had with Majors and Minors was the artificiality. Dunbar was able to learn and improve from the criticism and he began to focus on dialectic