American poetry of the first half of 20th century. The specificity of Paul Laurence Dunbar poetry. Content introduction chapter I the Poets Paul Laurence Dunbar

1.2. Career of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
At the age of 16, Dunbar published his poems "Our Martyrs" and "On the River" in 1888 in the Herald of Dayton. In 1890, Dunbar wrote and edited Dayton's first African-American weekly newspaper, The Tattler. It was published by the newly formed company of Wilbur and Orville Wright's school friends. The paper ran for six weeks.
After graduating from formal school in 1891, Dunbar was paid four dollars a week to work as an elevator operator. She dreamed of studying law, but was unable to study because of her mother's financial difficulties. He was restricted in the workplace due to racial discrimination. The following year, Dunbar asked Wright to publish his poems in book form, but the brothers did not have a device that could print books. They invited him to visit United Brothers Publishing House, which in 1893 published Dunbar's first collection of poems, The Oak and the Ivy. Dunbar provided a subsidy for the publication of the book and quickly recouped his investment within two weeks by selling copies to passengers in his elevator.⁶
The bulk of the book, The Oak, consisted of traditional poetry, while the smaller part, The Ivy, contained light poetry written in dialect. The work attracted the attention of the famous "poet Khazir" James Whitcomb Riley. Both Riley and Dunbar wrote poetry in standard English and dialects.
His literary ability was recognized and the elders offered him financial assistance. Lawyer Charles A. Thatcher offered to pay for college, but Dunbar wanted to continue writing because he was inspired by poetry. Thatcher promoted Dunbar by organizing readings of his poetry in "libraries and literary collections" in the larger city of Toledo. and occasionally offers him financial assistance. Thatcher and Toby jointly supported the publication of Dunbar's second collection of poetry, Majors and Minors (1896).
Despite frequent publishing of poetry and occasional public readings, Dunbar struggled to support himself and his mother. Many of his efforts were in vain and he neglected them, leaving himself in debt in the mid-1890s.
On June 27, 1896, writer, editor, and critic William Dean Howells published a positive review of Dunbar's second book, Majors and Minors, in Harper's Weekly. Howell's influence brought public attention to the poet's work. While Howell praised "honest thinking and true feeling" in Dunbar's traditional verse, he especially valued dialect verse. During this period, folklore culture was valued, and it was believed that the black dialect was a variety of it. New literary fame allowed Dunbar to publish his first two books as a collection called Low Life Lyrics, which included Howells' opening remarks.
Dunbar maintained a lifelong friendship with the Wright brothers. Through his poetry, he met and became acquainted with black leaders Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and was close to his contemporary James D. Corrothers. Dunbar also befriended Toledo-based journalist Brand Whitlock, who had gone to work in Chicago. Whitlock joined the state government and held political and diplomatic positions.
Towards the end of the 1890s, Dunbar began to explore the forms of short stories and novels; in the latter, he frequently featured white characters and society.
Dunbar was prolific in his relatively short career, publishing dozens of collections of poetry, four collections of short stories, four novels, the lyrics of a musical song, and a play.
His first collection of short stories, The Men of Dixie (1898), was sometimes favorably reviewed as "a rigorous study of racial superstition".

This was not the case in his first novel, The Uninvited (1898), which was described by critics as "boring and improbable". Dunbar explored the mental struggles of Frederick Brent, a white priest who was abandoned as a child by an alcoholic father and raised by the white Esther Prime. (The names of the minister and the woman are reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Red Letter, which features the main character named Esther Prin.) In this novel, Dunbar was noted as one of the first African Americans to cross the "colored line." only to write a piece about white society. [required page] Critics at the time complained that he was working with the material, not the subject. The novel was not a commercial success.

Dunbar's next two novels explored the life and issues of white culture, and were considered insufficient by some contemporary critics. However, literary critic Rebecca Ruth Gould points out that one of them, The Sport of the Gods, ends up as an object lesson that the power of shame limits the ability of the law to deliver justice—a key component of the guilty mentality.
In collaboration with composer Will Marion Cooke and libretto writer Jesse A. Shipp, Dunbar wrote the lyrics for the musical "In Dahomey", written and performed exclusively by African Americans. It was staged on Broadway in 1903; The musical comedy toured successfully in England and the United States for four years and became one of the most successful theatrical productions of its time.⁷
Dunbar's essays and poetry were widely published in leading magazines of the time, including Harper's Weekly, Saturday Evening Post, Denver Post, Current Literature, and others. Throughout his life, commentators frequently noted that Dunbar appeared to be black African, while many leading members of the African American community were of mixed race, often with large European ancestry.
In 1897 Dunbar went on a literary journey to England; He read his works in London. He met Samuel Colerge-Taylor, a young black composer who had set some of Dunbar's poetry to music. Under the influence of Cholera-Taylor Dunbar, he was able to use African and American Negro songs and melodies in his future compositions. Henry Francis Down, an African-American playwright living in London at the time, organized a joint concert for Dunbar and Cologne-Taylor under the auspices of John Hay, former aide to President Abraham Lincoln and then US ambassador to Britain. United Kingdom While working on his first novel, The Uninvited (1898), Downing also lived in Dunbar, London.⁸
Dunbar was active in civil rights and African American rebellion. He was a participant in a meeting on March 5, 1897, dedicated to the memory of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The members worked to establish the American Negro Academy, led by Alexander Krummel.