American Literature / Unit 12 AML 1125 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Two Voices
Captions available
The idea
Dunbar, born in Dayton in eighteen seventy-two to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky, was the only Black student in his class and became its president and editor. He wrote in two modes: dialect poems that publishers wanted, and formal English poems he valued more.
In practice
Dialect for the market, standard for himself.
Where people slip
The market rewarded the work he liked least.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it