his mother in Dayton in 1904 (Columbus). There he died on February 9, 1906, at the age of 33 (G. & C. Merriam Co. 450).Adermann 5Dunbar had many different and unique styles of writing. He wrote poetry in standard English about traditional poetic subjects and heroes of black Americans. He also wrote comic and sentimental poetry in dialect about black and white Americans (Revell 101). Many of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems were written in Iambic tetrameter (Howard). However his fame rests chiefly on his poems written in Negro dialect. Dunbar many times used personification and elaborate phrasing, which produced ringing lines (Revell). He most often wrote and spoke about civil rights issues as in one of his most famous poems, "We Wear the Mask". We 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.In this poem, Dunbar is writing about the "mask" that human beings use in front to others to disguise any pain, sadness, or turmoil that they may be going through at the time. The writer of this particular biography, C.J. Howard, feels that the words Dunbar chooses to use to get his point across are used well (Howard). 6In 1936, the Dunbar house was dedicated by the Ohio legislature as a memorial to Paul Laurence Dunbar and was opened to the public. When Dunbar died he had written a total of twelve books of poetry as well as five novels, a play, and four books of short stories (Howard).Dunbar was known to have stood for justice and equality in the eyes of all African-Americans of his time (Revell). He was the first black author to gain national recognition and a wide popular audience (O’Neill 143), and even today is thought of as an inspiration to most all Americans (Poupard). ...
