Manchester-by-the-Sea Public Library

Paul Laurence Dunbar, the life and times of a caged bird, Gene Andrew Jarrett

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

individual biography

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Paul Laurence Dunbar

bibliography

1261773751

Gene Andrew Jarrett

the life and times of a caged bird

"This biography explores the life of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), a major nineteenth-century American poet and one of the first African American writers to garner international attention and praise in the wake of emancipation. While Dunbar is perhaps best known for poems such as "Sympathy" (a poem that ends "I know why the caged bird sings!") and "We Wear the Mask," he wrote prolifically in many genres, including a newspaper he produced with his friends Orville and Wilbur Wright in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. Before his early death he published fourteen books of poetry, four collections of short stories, and four novels, and also collaborated on theatrical productions, including the first musical with a full African American cast to appear on Broadway. In this book, Gene Jarrett traces Dunbar's personal and professional life in the context of the historical currents that shaped the author's development-to tell, in Jarrett's words, "the full story of an African American who privately wrestled with the constraints of America in the Gilded Age, but who also sought to express or mitigate this strife through the written and spoken word." Jarrett sketches the life and times of Paul Laurence Dunbar in three main parts. Against the backdrop of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the rise of Jim Crow segregation, the first section, "Broken Home," begins with the lives of Joshua and Matilda, Paul's parents, who were born enslaved, and ends with the years leading up to 1893, when Dunbar published his first book, Oak and Ivy, and befriended Frederick Douglass. The second section, "A True Singer," bookends the era when Paul entered his literary prime and became one of the first professional African American writers. The final section, "The Downward Way," details his troubled marriage to Alice Dunbar-Nelson, his illnesses, including tuberculosis and alcoholism, and his death. An epilogue comments on Dunbar's enduring legacy. The book includes more than 40 black-and-white photographs of Dunbar's family, friends, colleagues, and published works"--, Provided by publisher

Introduction -- Part one: Broken home, beginnings to 1893 -- Broken country -- Broken home -- Public schooling -- The tattler -- A superior gift -- Career choices -- The white city -- Part two: A true signer, 1893 to 1898 -- Chafing at life --The bond of a fellow-craft -- Heroine of his stories -- A true singer -- England as seen by a black man -- East Coast strivings -- The way is dark -- The wizard of Tuskegee -- Part three: The downward way, 1898 to 1908 --The wedding of plebeians -- Our new madness -- Still a sick man -- A sac of bitter sarcasm -- Old habits die hard -- The downward way -- Waiting in Loafing-Holt