Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance

Matthew finds his beloved in Virginia with their
son, whom she has named Madhu, and the two are
wed in a moving ceremony. Immediately thereafter,
the child is feted in what is reminiscent of the efforts
to find the Christ child born to Mary. The novel
ends as Madhu is hailed as “Messenger and Messiah
to all the Darker Worlds!”
The final note in the text is delivered by an
envoy who declares with apparent relish that “[t]he
tale is done and night is come” and bids the sprites
help him to return his magic cape to the Queen of
Faeries who “lent [it] to me for a season.” DuBois’s
invocation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s
Dreambrings the involved tale of intrigue, solidarity,
intimidation, and social evolution to a formal close.
The formal African-American response to
Dark Princesscame in DuBois’s own journal, The
Crisis,and from established leaders of the Harlem
Renaissance movement such as ALAINLOCKE. AL-
LISONDAVIS, who provided the Crisisreview, of-
fered readers an earnest appraisal of the work. He
contextualized the novel in relation to the larger
African-American experience of “great suffering”
and collective survival of “common tragedy.” Davis
made a point of setting Dark Princessapart from
some of the most controversial novels recently

published: The book “will not appeal to the same

public which enjoyed NIGGERHEAVENand HOME

TOHARLEM,” he insisted. “All those who have a

high faith in the destiny and nature of the Negro,

therefore, ought to read it.” Alain Locke, whose

assessment was published in the New York Herald

Tribune,noted the limitations of form but focused

instead on the political implications of the work.

He regarded Dark Princessas a “skyscraper problem

novel of the Negro intellectual and the world radi-

cal” and suggested that not only should readers re-

gard the book as a “document” but that it also

“should be widely read” (Aptheker, 28).

Bibliography

Aptheker, Herbert. Introduction to Dark Princess: A Ro-

mance. 1928, reprint, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-

Thomson Organization Limited, 1974, 5–29.

Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. DuBois: The Fight for

Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963.New

York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000.

Dark Tower

A fashionable literary salon named in honor of the

OPPORTUNITYmagazine column of the same name,

Dark Tower 113

An invitation to participate in one of the many gatherings that socialite heiress A’Lelia Walker hosted at her home
(Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)