Transcripts For CSPAN2 Gene 20240706

To become dean of the faculty professor in english about a year ago. And so im so glad to know that this book brings you to labyrinth. Hes been at work on pearl. Laurence dunbar the life and times of a caged bird, published should say by the ever wonderful Princeton University press for well over a decade. His previous books are representing race a new political history of African American literature and deans and truants, race and realism in African American literature. Hes joined evening by his colleague in the English Department simon gikandi, whos currently search projects are on slavery and modernity. Decolonization in literature and global modernism. Professor eric arnesen many acclaimed books i wont list all, but they include slavery and the culture of taste and writing in limbo. Modernism and caribbean literature. Before i hand things over, i just wanted quickly to say, right before reading gene jarrett outstanding biography of Paul Laurence dunbar, i had read saidiya hartmans wayward lives beautiful experiments in which Paul Laurence dunbar makes few appearances and does not cut a great figure. And so came to this biography a bit of a skeptic, only to become quickly absorbed by story. Gene jarrett tells precisely because it allowed me to stay a skeptic, but offers much nuance and understanding dunbar as a prodigiously gifted poet and writer, a deeply flawed human and an important and complicated political voice in the cause of black education, emancipation in jim crow, america. He was also a skilled and tireless promoter. His work who was able to make a living, a black writer and speaker at a time when the terms of his increasing fame always also diminished. And in fact characterized the ambitions of his poetry to attend to human and to answer caricature and inflict judgment with nuance, as this book does at every turn is, it seems me to teach us to see with fresh eyes and more. Could we ask for . So please join me in welcoming welcoming our guests. So delighted to be here today to have a conversation with jean about his book. Paul dunbar, the life and times of a caged bird. We are going to have a conversation for about 40 minutes and then well open it up for. Questions from the audience. Before i start the conversation, i wanted to congrats late jean for the publication, this magnificent book. I had the privilege seeing it in its different iterations in manuscript form, and once i held the actual book. I thought it was not only great book, it was an impressive book and i just wanted to say that especially because the publisher is here to acknowledge work. She did also, in terms of the production of the book, its cover and, indeed its existence as an object that opens up to life of Paul Laurence dunbar. So jean ive noticed in conversations about this book that one of the things that is quite obvious is you spent a lot of time with dunbar. You started thinking about him when you are a student at princeton . And this book took a long time to write, so i wanted to begin the conversation by asking you why. Dunbar what got interest, got you interested in him and whether there was one particular thing thats, you know, struck you when you came across poetry or his life that, made you decide this is the person i to spend a good chunk of my life. Yes, thats right. I did spend upward of 14 and 15 years with Paul Laurence dunbar as a scholar. And that was the full course. My Serious Research and and writing. But as you i became familiar with dunbar when i was a student at princeton, an undergraduate student in the last century. At that time, it was a while ago at that time i was embarking on my life as an english major, and i had to write a junior paper and i focused on a genre of africanamerican writing that did not focus directly on africanamericans experiences. It was a way in which africanamerican writers at various moments in history were to understand universal human experiences. Paul Laurence Dunbar himself published in this genre, he published his first novel called the uncle. It is in 1898, and it was about a young man who was born and raised in dexter, ohio, the fictional town. And there he learned a lot about himself in the forces that were changing his behavior and ultimately became a narrative of spiritual redemption. That me an occasion to learn more dunbars work and i realized that not only did he experiment with the novel, but he was a gifted poet. He was especially a gifted poet. That was the primary in which his contemporaries knew of him. And he was also versatile writer of essays. He was a part time labrecque test. He was someone who excelled in a variety of literary genres. And so that gave me a chance to. Understand the full expanse of, his oeuvre. And it gave a chance further to understand complexity of his approaches to literary theme and form as went on and as i was incorporating doing my interest in dunbar, in my scholarly work through dissertation and my early books. Then i realized that there was even more there. There was a way that i could enrich a story of his life by looking at the biographical material that were at my disposal. So i guess i would say that as time went on, there was the surrounding of access to the of materials about his life. And but i also thought that as time on he preoccupied me as fascinating figure from a personal in terms of his own and his relationship to alice with moral which i imagine well about in a moment but also the the the the various dimensions of his literary esthetics and approach to racial politics. What then makes dunbar an important not just African American. Writer but an important american writer. Yeah. So i would say, first of all, it was the time in which he wrote and so he was born 1872 and died in 1906. And so he was living at a time when africanamericans were trends transitioning from slavery to freedom. And so his generation bespeaks a a group people of african descent who were trying to reckon with the modernity of america at the turn of the 20th century. And i would also say that he was someone who represented the bridge from his matilda and Joshua Dunbar who were enslaved lived and in various ways were were freed or they became free. And they were trying to understand reconstruction in the United States was the bridge to that generation. People who were alive during slavery. He was a child of of slaves. And he was about the future and what it meant to be a professional writer, particularly someone came from a family and then characterized as a race of people who did not have intergenerational across generational wealth. Ill also say what what distinguished him as i mentioned before was his versatility as a literary artist. He covers the variety of genres and in his work he was able to describe you know there were poems of love and nature, the kinds of things that that would hearken back the, you know, british of the 19th century, but was also someone who wrote the form of dialect. And so dialect was in orthography of language that approximated informal english or approximate itd in certain instances, the languages of those who were undereducated as a result of their socioeconomic background or as a result of a variety of other kind of environmental conditions, such local color. And so he he had a kind of a masterful ear understanding, these many voices. And he was able to transcribe these voices, remarkable ways that to many at the turn of the 20th century. I guess one last thing i would add was, he was a fantastic promoter of his work, not only in the commercial sphere, among the literary of his time, ranging from William Dean Howells to, James Whitcomb, riley were distinguished literary critics and writers who were able to advance dunbar in his career. And so his work became successful. And he also ended having a great impact. The lives of people who read his work. And he was also quite entertaining as a writer, but also as a as a performer. So i guess if you take all of these things and the fact that he did all of these things, you know, published 14 books of poetry. Eight novels and books of short stories. He was incredibly prodigious and died in his early thirties. And so it was a long book, was able to write about a short life, but there was plenty to talk about. Yes. The use of figure of the bridge is intriguing me because i was by how, especially in the first part of the book you talk about that background slavery of his parents, the violence of it, the struggles for them to escape from it. And so it became interesting to me that he chooses poetry. He chooses to become a writer. Well, i thought had enough problems. So why what it about poetry or writing in general that was central him as a person, as an american . Yeah. And so one of the key conundrums that faced as a scholar was, you know, just to use that metaphor of a bridge again, is to connect the the social history of slavery life to a kind of an intellect history in which you can situate. Dunbar and so just to phrase it differently, his parents, for a large period of time and also of slaves who were not literate, that was a key background that he was experiencing owing to the kind of background he had as someone who was not only literate, he was a gifted. So in this respect he was someone as i lay out at the outset of the book, he heard these voices of people who were in his inner circle. Those are the voices, family, those in his community. And he was in some ways a literary free expression, an extension, those people. I think that was fundamental fascination. He had the ways that literature itself could be a vehicle for not only moving, as you know, when readers encounter literature, but also how he could in capsule8 the experiences and voices of people who were subaltern, people who as a result of circumstances did not have a history because it was out by slavery. People who were by various accounts in and he was able to bring voice and order to a particular set of lives that required different codes of expression. And so literature was was key context in which he was able to convey the life and times his family and his community to the broader world. Yeah. Well, in the introduction to the book, you say, i quote to that the writing writing, the biography of a famous writer especially one born of african descent, less than a decade after slavery invites a host of challenges. Thats right. So want to ask you, what were some of the challenges you faced and . Why these challenges of opportunity. Yeah. And so obviously, a key challenge was to talk about his parents. And so i started writing this book. I was at the Radcliffe Institute for advanced study at harvard, and i spent a lot of time just trying to piece together the lives of his parents. They were people who did not keep diaries certainly for the period of time that dunbar was Paul Laurence dunbar was squarely their in their lives. And so i had to embark on other ways, kind of recon their experiences in either antebellum america. That is to say, before africanamericans were and into the the post bellum era. So that was one of the key challenges when you are dealing with a population that been enslaved. There arent the standard set of record cards at your disposal to understand how they lived or how to reconstitute their lives. Its also true that they did not write up, you know, per se, slave narratives in the way that you would encounter it in the lives harry jacobs or Frederick Douglass or William Miles brown. There is theres when you think about the historiography of the 19th century, a lot that has occurred through a reading of these slave narratives. And there are other kinds of records that are available, such as those written by amanuensis. But joshua and matilda dunbars parents, they did not have those kinds of records. Lets say a historians of slavery can be accustomed to. And so it depended quite a bit. Dunbars own that all his own letters of correspondence to his mother his mother was into viewed posthumously after he died. And i was able to craft an understanding of her life. And his father had served. His father had in the civil war. And so i was able to put together his civil war records, understand how he was, who navigated through the union army and getting a sense of his profile as. A as a human being. And so i would i would say that that was the the central challenge that i faced early on. I would also say over the course of writing the book it was the kind, tempestuous relationship Paul Laurence dunbar had with his his a girlfriend, eventually fiancee and alice ruth more. It was a relation ship that was by turns full of flirting in great excitement. They had dreams of the world in terms of being exceptional literary artists. But its also true that it devolved into instances of verbal altercation and physical violence in ways that i do talk about in this book. And so i guess you see multiple sides of dunbar, of the kind that has been canonized in literary history, but also the kind that was whose life was full of emotional and mental unrest. Yes. So let me ask you about that relationship with with alice. Two questions. One is, what makes difficult to write about specifically . And the second question is, what does it tell us about dunbars own fragilities and limitations . And so i my time very much in writing about, alice. You know, i wrote about this book for such a long period time. It went through the metoo movement, if i may put it that way. And there was increased attention to. The the the misconduct of individuals, particularly in the massage ni that you would see in the treatment of women, particularly. In the 19th century. I thought it was important to reveal that aspect of his life and. Unvarnished, away as possible to show that much as he is someone who we would revere for his intellectual prowess. Hes also someone who was rather complicated in whos behavior based on not only the moral standards of that time, but our standards. His behavior was rather represen possible. And so as i was looking at letters of correspondence between these two, you have to kind of, you know, plumb the depths of the language. There was a kind of victor and a decorum in language such that it wouldnt be as obscene in as you would encounter today in things ranging from social media to emails to what have you. There was, a kind of propriety cultural and moral propriety that they were abiding by as. They were engaging in these conflicts. And these conflicts would have trans have would traverse their physical lives together and into these epistolary lives that they had in their in their letters. And so the thing that i try do was to elicit the complexity of their lives as best i could without trying to, you know, the facts. And so i very much on on the facts as they were laid out to me. All right. So you many contexts for dunbars life you talk about his parents in the antebellum south and the escape you talk about his father in a civil war. You talk about, course, his life in dayton, ohio so its a very extensive archive. And i just wanted to ask, were there any surprises and what other surprises in that archive . Yes. And so i guess, to make a long story short, again, accomplished so much over a short of time. But i guess in that he was able to access some the great figures of his time. So he had a relationship with theodore roosevelt. He someone that he became acquainted with when roosevelt was the governor of new york. And then obviously, as you know, became president of the United States, they had a special relationship. And in letters such that roosevelt cared about dunbar as well being personal wellbeing, but also his professional progress. Dunbar also had a relationship with someone named William Dean Howells. He was the agent for mark twain. He was someone who could make or break a career and William Howells had a great liking of. Dunbar. He was captivated by dunbar, was able to capture, as i said before, the exposure ences and voices of those who were formerly enslaved. Dunbar as well within the africanamerican community, had relationships with Frederick Douglass, who was a key. Statesman of the 19th century, and he was of the premier figures, africanamerican political progress. Also had a relationship with booker t washington, who was, i would say, foremost in the minds of many at that time, talking about how education particularly Vocational Education was a centerpiece for africanamerican pursuit of political opportunities and social opportunities. So dunbar and i think that was quite fascinating, was able to reach out to all of these esteemed figures in the American Public sphere and. He was able to build relationships with them. And so these so you can imagine someone in his twenties who descended slaves, but hes a gifted writer who has on speed dial. If i can impose that kind of idea with some of the great of his time, ranging from a president of the United States to one of the premier or raiders of his time. Well, thats thats what surprised me that here he is, young struggling artist able to not only make these connections speed dial but actually be liked. Yes. And so i wondered what it about him that enables that kind of connection other people, very powerful people in many ways. And how how does one kind of reconcile that likability with his more qualities. Yeah thats a great thats a great question i think he was unafraid of reaching out to people beyond his innermost circle as someone who was born and raised in dayton, ohio, a kind of a small town in ohio. You would think that he would have a mindset, but thats not true. He is someone who at some point, for example, 1893, he was he went to the to chicago to participate the world worlds columbian exposition. And that was where he connected Frederick Douglass for the first time in person, but also a number of other figures in the africanamerican, a community. But i think i tell that story because hes someone who out from the province of dayton to a kind of an urban enclave in chicago which he had noted for its cosmopolitanism. And he also someone further from 1893 and then later on in 1897, he travels to england where he touring the world. And he is building his cosmopolitan sensibility. And so i guess i would say he was someone who was willing to discover the world. And i think that that that kind of mindset or sensibility is rooted as i talk in the book by his early exposure to Robinson Crusoe, someone who takes a kind of errand into the wilderness and breaks free free from his domestic life into trying to mature as as a young man. And so i think that element could be in place to describe his sensibility. And these patrons enjoyed, the various overtures that they experienced when he reached out to. You mentioned Robinson Crusoe. And that reminds me of how often, at least in the book, you talk about the influence of books on dunbar. And going back to the fact that hes from a generation of parents who are not educated, i was curious to find out why books become so important in fashioning his life. And also, of course, the role of his mother in kind of introducing books to him. Yeah. And so, as i mentioned before, and as kind of a literary historians of slavery have discussed, you know, literacy, being able to read that is a portal to freedom insofar as provides access to information where you can understand your own existential condition as a as a slave, if you will. And so theres this this of having access to that is a truly fascinate aspect of a being acquainted with information and in particular how this information is fashioned into a literary expression. So dunbar was someone who over the course of his high school years, he was interest noted not only in writing poetry and performing poetry, but editing literature. And so he became the editor of a short lived newspaper called the dayton tattler. And he worked, with Orville Wright. And so just to digress so quickly, Orville Wright, as many people know with his brother wilbur, they were perceived as the coinventor of the airplane, but they were also inventors, a variety of other things. There were certain innovations, the bicycle that they were known for. They were also individuals who helped institute or establish a printing press. They had a Small Business when they were in high school of printing pamphlets, newsletters for the west dayton community. And so Paul Laurence dunbar and Orville Wright were classmates in Central High School in dayton, ohio, and together they decided to embark on an interim entrepreneurial to edit a newspaper were called the dayton tattler for the africanamerica community of dayton. So what that is this kind of entrepreneurial activity and spirit that dunbar had. And in that news in that newspaper he experimented with literary form, he was able to circulate information. The midwest, he was able to test out certain ideas about race and culture and the other hand, Orville Wright was even able to put in early about the invention of the airplane. So there are certain stories about flying objects or flying transportation vehicles in chicago or flying busses and the like, which seem outrageous today. But at that time it was a portal to a kind, entrepreneurial imagination, if i may put it that way. These two individuals, a boy and a white boy coming together at the moments of integration racial integration in ohio to to collaborate. To tell a story, for africanamerican community. And so just circling back your original question, it was this his willingness to branch as a writer . And its also the ways in which he was interested in the opportune cities, that literary production made available to him, not only extending an express the voices of people in his life, but also the way literature as a side of information can circulate, bring people together, exchange. And it gave him a platform. Communicate to the world. Quite often when we talk about the history of africanamerican literature, we tend to focus on the institution of the university or the city. But in this book, one of the highlights it seemed to me, is the high school. Yes. The central high. And i wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about why the high school functioned as an important space. Rethinking and thinking, race and culture. Because one is struck by that relationship with orville and wilbur. Its quite unusual for that period. And i wanted again to ask you to talk a little bit about what is it about that space dunbar occupies that is important. Ohio is in the midwest. He has to leave eventually, but thats where the genesis of his writing takes place. And i wanted to hear a little bit about what is it about dayton, ohio, in the 1890 . Yeah. And so, you know, i do talk about this in the book where dayton, ohio was a key stop for the underground railroad, you know, particularly the region, ohio, where africanamericans were fleeing slavery on their to the north. It was especially prominent as africanamericans were making their way to places as far as canada. And then they came back to the United States enlist in the army, in their view, to fight for freedom during the civil war and ohio itself turned out to be an important gestation for africanamerican community. And it simultaneously became key site for industrial design. And so there was great cultural and Economic Activity in this region where africanamerican saw opportunity for themselves. It turned out to be as well hub for the formation of a newspaper circuit. And dunbar had access to not only newspapers of the midwest, but it was a key place where ideas were being exchanged in this particular medium. And so that the backdrop to dunbars, i suppose, education not only in middle school and middle school, but also into high school. And so there was the innovation and the inspiration of editing a newspaper that was a natural aspect of of his life. And its not unusual, therefore, to that as part of his extracurricular activity as a high school student, that he would edit that newspaper the dayton tattler. And he was also part of a debating society and was also there was another High School Newspaper where he was a literary editor and writer for. I would also say at this time in school is the profoundly traditional education of the curriculum. So he had access to such topics as, you know, and, and composition. But it was also his opportunity to learn latin, to learn about a broader western cultural history and the curriculum there as i touched on in the book was reflective High School Curricula across United States and how africanamericans if they had an opportunity to enjoy that curriculum, could truly understand the certain values of western cultural and intellectual history. And so high itself was a key place where he had. He had increased his exposure to the world. All. So i would like to ask you to read from the book. Just give us a sense of the tone, so to speak. And you can select anything you want. Well, i can. One, i dont. Please, i wont charge you by the word. Yes, please. Its again going back to the tattler, the high school. This is page one or seven on tuesday, june 16th, 1891. If you could read a bit of that. Sure. And just to set the context this is the part of the book where he has complete his work on the tattler. It was a short lived newspaper. It lived and died. 1890. And he returned. He was in high school and he graduated. And so this was a moment where i describe the graduation ceremony. And and it gives you a sense, the magnificence of this moment. And it also provides insight to the various kind of inner forces that he was grappling with and how literature itself became a vehicle of his personal expression and to the world on. June 16th, 1891, the temperature in dayton reached the high eighties, but the air felt even hotter than that, with high humidity under these sweltering conditions since the commencement exercises of Central School took place at the majestic Grand Opera House near the corner of north main street and east first street. If paul continued to brood in private, he ensured that melancholia did not infiltrate the words he wrote for faculty. Staff and fellow classmates on graduation day, which occurred 11 days before his 19th birthday. Orval was not listed since he dropped out of high school after the tattler folded thoroughly musical. Commencement was a long ceremony with school anthems, religious choral and a song performed a trio of young ladies of the graduate eating class. It featured many speeches, the typical salute, valedictory speeches, but also ten essays read by graduating students, plus an extended by a Student Graduate with special honors bestowed on only ten others as. The penultimate part the distribution of diplomas to all 43 graduating students. As long as the ceremony was, it gave paul the sole africanamerican student the last word. Transcribe typed in the program was a poem, a farewell song. He especially for the occasion. None of the other five songs recited during event were printed in the keepsake program. What a fascinating scene in the heart of a city in the Southern Region of a state whose schools had been only recently desegregated by race where black and white students could last Learn Together were paul and orville could collab great as partners in a business and were finally before the president of the Dayton School dayton board of education and the principal of Central High School. A young of once enslaved parents could sing among his white pee who would accept, if not his very words. In these words, a young writer wrestled with preconceptions of what the future had in store for him. Whereas melancholy to address solitary anxiety in farewell song, he announced like Robinson Crusoe so personal transcendence from the maternal grip. Whereas the gasoline ghostly images of the unknown haunted him before he now stood unafraid, ready to welcome a new world. Spiritual paralysis gave way to a hope whose energy drew upon a restive imagination, a maturation of what it meant to say farewell, farewell to the past. The final stanzas of the song reach a crescendo. The wind is fair. The sails are spread. Let her hearts be firm. Godspeed is said before us lies. The untried way. And were impatient at the stay. At last we move how thrills the heart so long. Impatient for the start now up over the hill and down through del the echoes bring our song farewell, the breeze as take it up and bear the loud refrain on of air and to the skies the sad notes swell all of this our last farewell, farewell. Well, thank very much to maybe two of the final before before we open it up. The epigraph to the book is from fellow and on time sympathy and famous metaphor of the caged bird. She also use as a subtitle. I wanted to ask you what made bus life comparable to a caged bird. That that image struck because of course its a very popular one we have to think of maya angelou using cell. Thats right. Yeah. So. So what makes him a caged bird. Thats right. And so maya angelou in her 1969 autobiography published focusing on. Gender and race and how a young black girl is fighting against sexism and racism. The title of i know why the caged bird sings. And so bird is a key refrain in this poem that i use as the epigraph. And from which i borrow the language for. Subtitle of the book the life and times of a caged. First of all, bird, thats thats a key term for its proximity to barred representing a poet but also bird in the sense of some an animal that that that sings a song. And so theres this bird is often a trope used, lets say, in the 19th century to allude to the expression of a song and, a poem itself is the embodiment of song. I use bird as well to talk about how there are autobiographical resonances for Paul Laurence dunbar. He, in this poem, describes how this bird is trapped in a cage and it is trying spread its wings as we often know the analogy. But even though its able spread its wings, it cant escape. This cage and i think that encapsulates well the life dunbar himself was facing. The notion of being a poet, you know, vis a vis the bird or the bard, someone who was, if you will pigeon holed, if i want to use that that pun how he was pigeon holed certain kinds of writing people, thought that he should express himself only in terms of black dialog. But he wanted to extend his voice to aspects of of literature and to speak other themes that he thought were important to him as a human being. Its also true that he is somewhat an africanamerican descendant from slaves, and there were only, you know, he was wrestling with preconceived notions about what could do at the turn of the 20th century. Just to put it in perspective, by the time he was entering his literary in 1890, there was only three decades from the end of slavery, a three decades ago from today is it is 1990. And you would say that the 1990s is not that long ago. It was not that long ago for him in the 1890s were africanamericans were not free where people thought that africanamericans did not have the political skill to enjoy the franchise freedom and also to embrace civil rights in order to express their their own voices and their values was through elections. It was a time when he thought as an africanamerican, he belonged to a generation of people who were still trying to understand what kinds of rights were available to him. So he wrestling with how the world thought he was limited in terms of his intellectual, capable ideas, but also in his cultural and political capabilities. So i think this pulled sympathy captures very well. The conundrum that he was in as a literary artist. I think it alludes very well to his most awful use of a bird to capture the autobiographical resonances of his life. But i also think it captures this kind of societal issue of africanamericans in his generation were facing at the turn of the 20th century, the final question, writing a biography is hard work, obviously. That is. I agree. But hawaii jewish. Should we do it . Yes, thats a thats a thats a great question, especially if i told you you to work on something that i would take 14 years that might not sound so appetizing, but but i will say that, you know, by training, i a literary scholar. And so relationship to literature is one of the literary. And so for a long time had been most comfortable close poems, close reading, fiction and essays in order to understand in the choices that writers were facing either at that particular in their life or against the context of what other writers were facing among their contemporaries or at various moments in history. The thing thats wonderful about a biography is that youre able to couch these this literary in various details about what were doing on certain days of the week, how often they actually spending, you know, as as writers, i guess, you know, part of this is connected to my experience with Toni Morrison who was my professor when i was a student and i i remember her playing in the dark. She talks not only about the literary imagination, but she talks about the Creative Process. The literary imagination is a context where you as a writer are making certain intellectual and artistic decisions in order to generate a narrative, a story for people to understand, but Creative Process is something thats not so easily documented that the process that you use to the literature. So what times of the day do you wake up when you go to bed . When do you write . You know, letters of correspondence, you know, the various editions of a work over time. And so knowing the the decisions that you can make across these various revision as that aspect of a life, the Creative Process can be manifest, especially in the biographical details that you could gather in the archive. And i was beneficial to have access to the Ohio Historical societys compilation of dunbars letters of correspondence not only his own, but the correspondence available of his wife, and also his interactions with his mother. And so have the fullest life that exists so in that respect. I think if youre going to approach Paul Laurence dunbar, i think by having a biography at your disposal, you can see the full cont doors of his life and. Based on my experience, theres a way that having a biography to understand writer that could truly advance scholarship in this area. And so my hope is that this biography is in a can inspire scholars to disagree with it and or to say new things that we otherwise have not encountered before about him. All right lets open it up. Thank you for this really rich. It sounds like in that sense, your book is also an invitation to then return to reading dunbars poetry itself. Are there questions in the room. Ill come to you. First of all, congratulations. Your book, jean. And im looking to reading it. I have a couple of questions. One, i wonder if you could say more about dunbars relationship. His mother. Its very close as very complicated relationship. But one of the things that has always struck me is how someone coming her background as you know and its layperson has such a vision for her son. Like, how do you know . How did that happen . That she could be come from such a difficult background and yet you know basically, imagine a whole nother future her son that was quite different her own and the role that she played in his life and influenced him as a writer. And then my second question is as you it is about you as a biographer in the process that you underwent basically to decide that you wanted to to discuss the more or some of the issues around Domestic Violence example because what we know about the relationship between Paul Laurence dunbar and his wife, Alice Ruth Moore dunbar is mostly comes the side of the scott was working on his wife and not much. Theres been i think a hesitancy for scholars of dunbar to to talk about some of the more you know, some of the more problematic aspects of his life with with respect to his relationship with his wife. So im wondering if you could talk about that process for you as, a scholar, to come to to decide that wanted to to basically deal with it openly, honestly and it the the kind of regard that it required. Great questions. I suppose the first question about matilda. So Paul Laurence dunbar and his mother were extremely close and there are a number of reasons for that. First of all, martell, she had two sons from a previous relationship. This was she had she had those sons before she moved to ohio and she was close with them. And in a way, she them with her to ohio, settle down with her with her family. She also had another child, in addition to paul on dunbar, after she met joshua who had died, elizabeth, she had died of what was called dropsy at that time. It was a. A kidney malfunction. And so what you find that by the time dunbar Paul Laurence dunbar is growing in his life, theres a way in which her her life was being her family was being pulled apart. Her first two sons were growing up. Eventually, by the time was in high school, they had moved on. She experienced a death of a daughter. Her husband had her first her first relationship. That was someone who had abandoned her. And and joshua, who she came to marry, abandoned her as well. And after all that was said done, paul was the one there. The person left standing, if you will. And as time went on, they built a close personal relationship. But i would also say she had a key conviction. The importance of education in changing someones life for for the better. And was a strong willed person had to be that in order to the circumstances that she in being enslaved in kentucky and also trying to settle a new world of freedom in ohio. So those circumstances came together to strength the relationship that paul had with matilda, and they stayed in touch very much for much of their lives. Dunbar would communicate his innermost feelings to even things that he would not communicate to alice herself. And in a way, after Paul Laurence dunbar aunt alice kind of came together and parted ways. She was the last person standing his life. And when he settled in a home in dayton, ohio, he had bought a home there. She lived him. And so his life, in a way, came full circle. Early on, they were the last ones as a result of as a as result of a variety of conditions. Then they were together even when he was on his deathbed. As i talk in the book, i would also say that regarding the second part of your question you know, my goal was to produce a comprehensive biography. And by that mean, i still remember early on delineating the different strands that i would track in the letters of correspondence. There was his intellectual royal life, his professional life, his literary life, what going on in the cultural world in the political world . But there was also what was going on in his personal life. And to do justice to a comprehensive biography, its key to illustrate all aspects the good and the bad and what you find is in Paul Laurence dunbar he was an extraordinary talent from a literary standpoint he was an extraordinary intellect but he was also a rather ordinary person in terms of his bouts of depression, his mood swings. He rather typical in how when he interacted with alice he was extremely rude at times i guess what would verge into the realm of being a problem and unseemly was the physical violence that he had behaved in as well. And he was rather at times apologize medic in his letters and he as a result of that kind of victorian that i pointed to, he had to almost be careful in how. He expressed himself so as not to be improper or in the epistolary form, even though he was rather improper or physically when they were together, i it was difficult to tell that story because in a way it forces you to reckon with there could be a time period when hes producing beautiful poetry but its the same moment when he was enraged in with alice and he was beginning in ways that would cast a shadow over this work and that would illustrate the bifurcation that you can experience as a reader, someone who could appreciate his dexterity with, literary form in theme. So you could have his poetry, but also know that that same day, that same week, he was behaving in ways that were utterly problematic. These two aspects of his life existed in the same person. And not to say that they were utterly contradictions, but it created a kind of complexity that i wanted to or capture in the work. Another question here in the back. I congratulations on your book and thank you so much for this amazing discussion. Im actually i have i have so many questions, but im going limit it to two questions first. Im really curious about whether he connected with intellectuals of the us. Did he overlap with intellectuals as across the african diaspora. Did he . I can think about the same mohammad ali, for example, the sudanese egyptian journalist who came to the u. S. And like overlapped with booker t washington. So i wondering if he overlapped with any anyone like that and and also was thinking about religion that does not didnt inform his writing or thinking in any way that youve come like in his novels. Great questions. I think the first one can be rather technical, but i will say that, you know, alexander, although hes someone who he with in the United States, he had a diasporic sensibility. Right. And so Alexander Cromwell was someone who had written about africa. He had traveled the world. He was a cosmopolite often. And dunbar had a close relationship with him at times, because cromwell himself had access to certain opportunities in washington, d. C. And so that aspect brought them together. They also crossed paths again in england, so dunbar had visited england in 1897, and thats you can see if you go to that chapter full scope of his interpersonal relations. Not only did he interact with cromwell there, but he worked with Samuel Coleridge taylor, who was a key musician, who has been characterized a as a kind of a kind of an african diasporic, a musical artist. And so those are two key examples. I would point to for him. And i think its also true, you know, you know, he did not travel as as extensively across the world. And there are a variety of reasons for that financial reasons, professional reasons. But would say during his time in england, that was the place where you could see a crossroads, different intellectuals. And so i would i would begin there and you could out. We have time for one more question over here. All. Sorry, i had two questions that were just related. The hand. Are there models for poetry that hes drawing upon in terms of the relationship between written and spoken english, particularly at a moment of like less formalized orthography in the english language and at a moment when you know the english language. Yeah you know that thats the first question. Like you said, there was a tension between that there was the expectation he would write within the vernacular and that he disobeyed that expectation. And then i had a second question that pertains more or less to the question of, a form. What do you see as the relationship between telling a story of, a biography and trying to tell a story of . A poet who is the say dedicated you. Inscribing himself or herself within a literary tradition . It seems quite remarkable from the story that told that we can recognize tensions within the, you know, the the life that he is and the types poetry that he is writing. Do you think that in the way that you tell the story, you recognize a way in which we to alter the story that we tell about poetry as a particular, you know, the novel or whatever, as a particular, you know, mode of literary expression. And you know the the life story that we tell does alter, you know, your way. Telling the story of dunbar as. A as a you know, as a poet or as a writer. Mm hmm. And those are a very questions. I guess the first part of your series of questions concerns dialect, the late 19th century. And so there are scholars such as, you know, gavin jones and nadia nursing who talk about the key cultural role dialect plays in the late 19th century, just to put in perspective, at that time. In the wake of the civil war, one of the ways in which the cultural sphere or the social sphere of people are reading literature were trying to reckon with this new world was to what used to be like. There was a kind of a nostalgia for a precivil war life, and there was a way that that kind of experience was embedded in dialectic of africanamerican life. And so you found that in the work of Joel Chandler harris there was also James Whitcomb riley. There were minstrel shows that especially prominent in the late 19th century, dunbar himself was mindful of those traditions of of dialect and he was someone who a with charles chestnut, who was contemporary, was able to only develop a mastery of a orthogonal raphe of language, as you point out, but one thing that he did, that the other writers did not, if i may put it that way, is he was able to imbue the africanamerican figures or speakers in these poems with a certain kind of agency that had been denied them in minstrel shows, in the work of Joel Chandler, there was a way that africanamericans in those kinds works were denied the humanity denied, the human, or in particular the human complex ity that he actually affords them in his own writing. And so in that respect, i would say that one effort of his in producing dialect though it was consumed by the public as harkening to nostalgically harking back to a world thats no longer you know. David blight talks about that in his book race in reunion is how he was. Nonetheless able to reappropriate that of literary dialect in order to achieve a political and of imbuing africanamericans with an agency otherwise that they would not receive in american literature, in post bellum, 19th century. And so i that kind of paradigm of analysis is relevant in thinking about dunbar. I would also say regarding the second part of your question regarding is to what extent does this biography enable us to think about his orientation to poetry. Does it our view of it, if i may kind of it that way. You know one of the benefits of a biography is you have access to information that you otherwise would and he very much was interested in the lyric and i talk in the book about how he was attentive to lyric as a key western genre that enabled to express a certain kind voice and in a certain of human vision of the world. And this was also a flexible form that not only did it situate him in that genre, but it was something that could easily be remembered or recited. And so it was available to people not only in education settings as early as Elementary School there were children who were able to recite lyrics, but it was also something that he was able to perform. So the was something that was a rather medium for him to write in. For him to understand different ryan schemes and western prosodic traditions. And it was also key context where he was able to understand, you know, again, African Agency in the wake of of slavery. Theres a great scholar of virginia jackson. She talks very much. And there are a of other scholars who talk about how american poetry writ large in the post bell in 19th century is reckoning with this newfound circumstance of. Africanamerican freedom and that there are profoundly formal ways to approach poetry to understand the kinds of experimental tools to writers at that time. And so i talk about that in the epilog to my book. And, and i do think, you know, the epilog is a rather its more familiarly an academic aspect of my of my work. I talk about the scholarly intervention and that key part about biography of poetic form. Thats one of the things i address. So i know that there are more questions in this room and from your questions tonight, it seems clear that theres such thing as a one part question about dunbar. But i think that weve also a pretty detailed map together in this conversation. You have of dunbars life and yet it only begins. Scratch the surface. So take those other questions to the book and i invite you to maybe sit at that table so anyone who wants a copy signed can go over there and get a copy signed after. We thank both our guests. Thank you