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Alice Dunbar-Nelson
“You ask my opinion
about the Negro dialect in literature?
Well, frankly, I believe in everyone following
his own bent.”
-Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Biography-Criticism
Relentlessly writing imaginative literature, Alice
Dunbar-Nelson lures readers with her captivating writing techniques. Although Dunbar-Nelson remains well known for
her poems, her preference was not for writing poetry.
In About Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Gloria T. Hull writes,
“What she was able to achieve in prose outweighs her poetic
accomplishments although,
ironically, being taken as a poet has helped immensely to keep her
reputation
alive. Dunbar-Nelson was not driven to
write poems and did not focus on the genre.
When asked by an editor for a short poem in
1900, she confessed to being
short on poetic inspiration and added, 'Mr. Dunbar tells me that I
average one
poem in six months, and that there will be none due for several weeks
to
come.' If anything, Paul’s estimate is a
bit high when spread over her lifetime of writing.”
Dunbar-Nelson’s poetry works are as follows: 1895
(as Alice Ruth Moore) “Violets and Other
Tales”, Monthly Review Press. Between
1917-1928, Dunbar-Nelson’s poems were published periodically in: Crisis,
Ebony and Topaz, Opportunity, Negro Poets and Their Poems, Caroling
Dusk, The
Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, and Harlem: A Forum of Negro Lift.
In comparison, the writing spurts of Dunbar-Nelson’s poetry
as to the consistency for other works are evidence of her interest in
poetry.
Selected Bibliography
Works by the Author
Violets and Other
Tales (1895)
The Goodness of St.
Rocque and Other Stories (1899)
The Author’s Evening
at Home (1900)
Wordsworth’s Use of
Milton’s Description of Pandemonium (1909)
A.M.E. Church Review (1913-1914)
Masterpieces of Negro (1913)
An Hawaiian Idyll (1913)
People of Color in
Louisiana (1916-1917)
Crisis, Ebony and
Topaz, Opportunity, Negro Poets and Their Poems, Caroling Dusk, The
Dunbar
Speaker and Entertainer, Harlem: A Forum of Negro Lift (1917-1928)
Mine Eyes Have Seen
Wilmington
Advocate (1920-1922)
Diary (1920)
These ‘Colored ‘ United States
(1924)
From A Woman’s Point
of View (later changed to Une Femme
Dit) (1924)
As
In a Looking Glass (1926-1930)
Diary (1926-1930)
So It Seems to Alice
Dunbar-Nelson
The Big Quarterly in Wilmington
Works about the
Author
Alexander, Eleanor. Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow; The
Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence
Dunbar and Alice Ruth
Moore: A History of Love and Violence
Among
the African-American Elite. New York:
New York
University
Press, 2002.
Brooks,
Kristina.
“Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Local
Colores of Ethnicity, Class, and Place”. Melus
“Researching Alice
Dunbar-Nelson: A Personal and Literary
Perspective.” Feminist Studies. 6: (1998) : 314-320.
Whitlow, Roger. “Alice Dunbar-Nelson: New Orleans Writer.” Regionalism
and the
Female Imagination. 4 (1): 51-61.
Hull,
Gloria T. “Two-Facing Life: The Duality
of Alice Dunbar-Nelson.” Collections. 4:19-35.
Related Links
Http://www.bib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/selfwork/writers.htm
-Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s “The Confessions of a Lazy Woman”.
Http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dunbar-nelson/essays.htm
-Alice Dunbar-Nelson Essays.
Http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/dunbarnelson.html
-Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s “Hope Deferred”
Http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dunbar-nelson/chronology.
-Chronological order of Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s biography.
This page was researched and
submitted by Shunga
Wright. Please contact the editor
with any questions or
suggestions. |
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