In His Own Voice: Dramatic & Other Uncollected Works - Hardcover

Dunbar, Paul Laurence

9780821414217: In His Own Voice: Dramatic & Other Uncollected Works

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0821414216 ISBN 13: 9780821414217

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2002

Paul Laurence Dunbar, introduced to the American public by William Dean Howells, was the first native-born African American poet to achieve national and international fame. While there have been many valuable editions of his works over time, gaps have developed when manuscripts were lost or access to uncollected works became difficult.

In His Own Voice brings together previously upublished and uncollected short stories, essays, and poems. This volume also establishes Dunbar's reputation as a dramatist who mastered standard English conventions and used dialect in musical comedy for ironic effects.

In His Own Voice collects more than seventy-five works in six genres. Featured are the previously unpublished play Herrick and two one-act plays, largely ignored for a century, that demonstrate Dunbar's subversion of the minstrel tradition. This generous expansion of the canon also includes a short story never before published.

Herbert Woodward Martin, renowned for his live portrayal of Dunbar, and Ronald Primeau provide a literary and historical context for this previously untreated material, firmly securing the reputation of an important American voice.

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About the Author:

Herbert Woodward Martin, poet in residence at the University of Dayton and Laureate Poet for Dayton, Ohio, is the author of six books of poetry, two opera libretti, and the text for a new Magnificat. He has given readings of Dunbar's poetry around the world for the past twenty years.

Ronald Primeau is a professor of English at Central Michigan University. He is the author of books on Paul Laurence Dunbar, Herbert Woodward Martin, Edgar Lee Masters, and the literature of the American highway.

From Booklist:

Because of his use of black southern dialect and the embarrassment it has engendered among black intellectuals since the Harlem Renaissance, Dunbar--the most famous black poet of his time--has never enjoyed the modern popularity of other black poets. This collection, which includes many works never before published, shows the breadth and depth of his talent and his subtle genius for using dialect and other cultural signifiers to show the hypocrisy of white society and, despite the restrictions imposed by racism, the creativity of African Americans. Dunbar produced a prodigious body of work, including plays, essays, poems, short stories, and songs. He attempted to avoid the minstrel style favored by whites while retaining the authenticity of black southern life. The collection of 76 works is divided into sections on dramatic pieces, essays, short stories, and poems, each preceded by an introduction that places Dunbar and his work in historical and artistic contexts. The collection adds to Dunbar's reputation as an important forerunner of black American poetry. Vanessa Bush
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