A troubled literary union

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Lyrics of Sunshine and hadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore

By Eleanor Alexander New York University Press, $26.95)

For those of us who grew up with the image of Paul Laurence Dunbar as a Black hero - the poet whose "Sympathy" we memorized in grade school for oral recitation - it is a sobering and somewhat sad experience to read Eleanor Alexander's Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore. This account of the Dunbar marriage makes extensive use of unpublished letters that previous biographers may have lacked access to or ignored for the sake of propriety.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first nationally famous Negro literary artist. In 1896, America's foremost literary critic, William Dean Howells, made the 24-- year-old poet a celebrity with a glowing review that compared Dunbar to Scottish dialect poet Robert Burns.

Fame proved a mixed blessing. Howell praised Dunbar for his humorous, plantation school poetry, written in a comical dialect associated with minstrel shows. Dialect poetry amused White sensibilities of the day by portraying antebellum Negroes as thoughtless, happy, eating and sleeping children. Dunbar preferred his lyric poetry written in standard English. Far too intelligent to fail to see that his fame was purchased at the sacrifice of his artistic dignity, Dunbar eventually would come to detest the humorous verse for which the reading public clamored.

Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow offers little discussion of Dunbar's historical importance as a writer. The book focuses on a sociological study of upperstrata Blacks at the turn of the century, with the Dunbar marriage offered as a case study.

Earlier biographers have written of Dunbar's psychologically split personality, the bizarre schism between the man who wrote refined, "White" Victorian literary verse, and embarrassingly stereotypical minstrelsy. His memorable poem "Sympathy" (featuring the well-known lines "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") is a gloomy parable of White oppression and battered Black self-identity. Obviously, racial prejudice contributed to Dunbar's depression and the alcoholism that led to his early death at age 33. But there were other factors. Previous biographers have written with less acumen about the conservative, upper crust Black society that Dunbar joined by virtue of his fame, a society of internalized oppression and copycat social mores. Nor have they written much about Dunbar's pathologically abusive nature. That is where Alexander's biography fills in the gap.

Alice Ruth Moore was a poet of considerable accomplishment herself. Moore - with whom Dunbar fell in love immediately upon seeing her picture in a magazine - belonged to a New Orleans community of light-skinned Negroes who frowned upon social interaction with those of a darker hue. She referred to herself as a Creole, rather than as a Negro. No doubt the dark-skinned Dunbar was as much taken with her skin color as with her spiritual or intellectual qualities. Self-conscious and shrewd, Dunbar wooed his beloved with letters, but delayed sending her a photograph of himself, probably fearing she would reject him upon sight. His literary success leveraged Dunbar into Moore's society and her heart, but their relationship was strained - even before the felony which is the book's most disturbing revelation.

The Dunbars have previously been depicted as a tragic, but loving couple and Dunbar as a starcrossed romantic. Alexander describes a couple trapped within strict Victorian social mores, who courted primarily via letters and who scarcely knew each other as individuals. The Dunbars were held together by his desire for an almost White wife and her desire to make the best out of an impossible situation. The betrothal was compelled shortly after their engagement when Dunbar brutally forced himself upon and raped Moore.

Biographer Alexander uses the word "rape" without apology. The reader might at first suspect Alexander is engaging in radical feminist revisionism, but the letters she quotes provide ample evidence. "Do you mean to say that I in my bestial lust have so hurt and injured you - my God - my God....You will get better, dear... God will not let you suffer long for this sin of which I was the sole author... Try to forgive me and believe in me again. I will never drink again."

The assault was especially violent. "Spare no expense," Dunbar wrote. "It will be my right to pay your bills. One thing dear be easy about, you are not with child. I was too drunk for flow." Dunbar purchased a new engagement ring and wrote, "I am not a criminal now, only your ardent tender lover laying his tribute of worship at your feet... keep it whether you marry me or not."

But she did marry him. By Victorian mores, Ruth Moore was a ruined prospect for any other man. The evidence is conclusive that Moore was battered throughout the marriage - and Dunbar at least once came close to killing her. The marriage dissolved after four years, and the historical record is ambiguous whether Moore attended the famous poet's funeral. Moore lived to age 60, never publicly spoke ill of her dead husband, frequently lectured about his work - and preserved the letters that reveal his deepest shames.

Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow debunks Dunbar myths, but the biography is not entirely pitiless toward the man and the social forces that twisted him. The Dunbars lived in a world riddled with racial bigotry and patriarchal assumptions.

Lyrics asks us to consider the ways in which racism and sexism operate together. Certainly the book's revelations behoove the publication of Dunbar's complete letters so that readers might judge the original, unexpurgated source materials for themselves.

Also of interest... In His Own Voice: The Dramatic and other Collected Works of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, edited by Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Ohio University Press, $49.95 hardcover/ $22.95 paper).

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a poet and critic whose work has appeared in The Washington Post and The Boston Review.

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Jan/Feb 2003
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