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PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR was a contemporary of Charles W. Chesnutt. He made his reputation as a poet before extending his talent to the writing of short stories. Both Dunbar and Chesnutt very often used the same subject matter in their stories. Their writing was different in style. These two writers reached a larger reading audience than any black writers who came before them.
Dunbar's pleasant folk tales of tradition-bound plantation black folkways were more acceptable to a large white reading audience with preconceived ideas about the life styles of black people. In all fairness, it must be said that Dunbar did not cater to this audience in all his stories. In such stories as "The Tragedy at Three Forks," "The Lynching of Jube Benson" and "The Ordeal of Mt. Hope" he showed a deep concern and understanding of the more serious and troublesome aspects of Afro-American life. Collections of his stories are: Folks From Dixie (1898), The Strength of Gideon (1900), In Old Plantation Days (1903) and The Heart of Happy Hollow (1904). Only one of his novels, The Sport of the Gods (1902), is mainly concerned with black characters. This novel, produced at the turn of the century, was the first major protest novel by an Afro-American writer. In his portrayal of the disintegration of a respectable southern black family forced to move to the North, Dunbar was the first to expose the quality of life in the then developing urban community called Harlem.
Dunbar was the first black poet that all America accepted wholeheartedly. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he was educated in that city. His formal education ended with graduation from high school. He found work as an elevator operator and continued to study and write verse. He had begun to write verse while he was in grammar school. His first book Oak and Ivy appeared in 1893. His second volume, Majors and Minors (1895), attracted the attention of the famous New England critic and literary figure, William Dean Howells, who sponsored his next book Lyrics of Lowly Life, made up from the best of his first two volumes. This book was published in 1896. The commendatory preface by Howells helped to make Dunbar a national figure. From this time on his career was assured. The best known magazines in the country accepted his work, and he almost ruined his health

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