Paul Laurence Dunbar – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s ‘We Wear the Mask’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘We Wear the Mask’ is a poem by the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), written in 1895 and included in Dunbar’s 1896 collection Majors and Minors. In the poem, Dunbar writes about the fact that many members of a marginalised community (which can be tacitly understood to mean the Black community in this context) are forced to hide their true feelings from the wider world.

A Short Analysis of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s ‘A Summer’s Night’

A great short poem from one of America’s first modern black poets

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was the son of African parents who had been slaves prior to the American Civil War. Dunbar also wrote novels and plays, as well as penning the lyrics for the 1903 musical comedy, In Dahomey – the first all-African-American musical that was ever produced on Broadway.