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Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an influential African American poet during the early twentieth century. He was the son of freed slaves and a friend of Frederick Douglass. James Weldon Johnson, leader of the NAACP from 1920 to 1930 wrote, of Dunbar, “He was the first to rise to a height from which he could take a perspective view of his own race. He was the first to see objectively its humor, its superstitions, its short-comings; the first to feel sympathetically its heart-wounds, its yearnings, its aspirations, and to voice them all in a purely literary form." Today, we will read two of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s most famous poems.365696522989Scholarly critic Peter Revell has called “We Wear the Mask” “arguably the finest poem Dunbar produced a moving cry from the heart of suffering.” Martin and Hudson argue in their anthology of Dunbar’s work that "Dunbar was persuaded that the world was an affair of masks, that he could reveal himself only by the way he concealed himself, that the truths of his being were masked.”According to James Emanuel’s essay on Dunbar, “In the opening lines, [of this poem] … Dunbar is careful to show that the mask is grinning, not the black man. […] The hiding of cheeks and eyes is the concealment of those features that reveal tears and that give quality to smiles. To be blinded to these parts of a person's countenance is to be blinded to his special humanity.” Joanne Braxton explains, in a book of Dunbar’s poetry she edited, that the “we” is black Americans, and the speaker is either a persona or Dunbar himself, lifting his own mask to “speak plainly and unequivocally for just a moment about the double nature of the black experience. … In life, the mask covers the face and eyes, and the "torn and bleeding hearts" and the "myriad subtleties" that are mouthed are deliberately indirect and misleading.” Braxton also explains how, in the final verse of the poem, black America, “cries and even sings out to Christ in pain, but ‘the world dream[s] otherwise,’ unaware of the black man's struggle for equality in the world and for peace within.”00Scholarly critic Peter Revell has called “We Wear the Mask” “arguably the finest poem Dunbar produced a moving cry from the heart of suffering.” Martin and Hudson argue in their anthology of Dunbar’s work that "Dunbar was persuaded that the world was an affair of masks, that he could reveal himself only by the way he concealed himself, that the truths of his being were masked.”According to James Emanuel’s essay on Dunbar, “In the opening lines, [of this poem] … Dunbar is careful to show that the mask is grinning, not the black man. […] The hiding of cheeks and eyes is the concealment of those features that reveal tears and that give quality to smiles. To be blinded to these parts of a person's countenance is to be blinded to his special humanity.” Joanne Braxton explains, in a book of Dunbar’s poetry she edited, that the “we” is black Americans, and the speaker is either a persona or Dunbar himself, lifting his own mask to “speak plainly and unequivocally for just a moment about the double nature of the black experience. … In life, the mask covers the face and eyes, and the "torn and bleeding hearts" and the "myriad subtleties" that are mouthed are deliberately indirect and misleading.” Braxton also explains how, in the final verse of the poem, black America, “cries and even sings out to Christ in pain, but ‘the world dream[s] otherwise,’ unaware of the black man's struggle for equality in the world and for peace within.”We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence DunbarWe wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while ?????? We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, ?????? We wear the mask!Sympathy36572513540300by Paul Laurence DunbarI know what the caged bird feels, alas!3934710176843020000 When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—I know what the caged bird feels!I know why the caged bird beats his wing457185055916This poem, “Sympathy,” is “a heartfelt cry of a poet who finds himself imprisoned amid traditions and prejudices he feels powerless to destroy.” – Jean Wagner00This poem, “Sympathy,” is “a heartfelt cry of a poet who finds himself imprisoned amid traditions and prejudices he feels powerless to destroy.” – Jean Wagner Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting—I know why he beats his wing!I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—When he beats his bars and he would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—I know why the caged bird sings! ................
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