However, this does not mean Dunbar was un-
aware of or wished to distance himself from det-
rimental white racism. “Sympathy” (which is not
included in Lyrics), clearly denotes Dunbar’s pain-
ful awareness:
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Til 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!Near the end of the 20th century, critics be-
came more forgiving of Dunbar’s overall lack of
attention to racial issues in his work. For example,
DARWIN T. TURNER argued that Dunbar should be
remembered for his conscious artistry and experi-
mentation with meter and rhyme and his tributes
to African-American heroes and for writing more
poetry in standard English than in dialect. However,
Turner also argued that Dunbar’s dialect poems are
his major contribution to American literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brawley, Benjamin. Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poet of
His People. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press,
1936.
Dunbar, Paul L. Lyrics of Lowly Life. Introduction by
William D. Howells. New York: Dodd, Mead &
Co., 1896.
Redmond, Eugene B. Drumvoices: The Mission of
Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History. Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1976.
Robinson, Lisa Clayton. “Paul Laurence Dunbar.”
In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and
African American Experience, edited by Kwame
Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 639–- New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999.
Turner, Darwin T. “Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Poet
and the Myths.” In A Singer in the Dawn, Reinter-
pretations of Paul Laurence Dunbar, edited by Jay
Martin, 59–74. New York: Dodd, Mead and Com-
pany, 1975.
Wilfred D. Samuels
Lyrics of Lowly Life 321