Willie J. Harrells We Wear the Mask focuses its attention upon the most recent and influential Dunbar scholarship and in doing so refreshes our vision of the man the artist his work and how intensely he skillfully maneuvered his way through the dangerous political social and aesthetic pitfalls of dialect and standard English. This volume not only asks but requires us to rethink the African American voices as well as the characters Dunbar infused with vitality and life. He was able to shed the light of humanity upon the African American community more than any other writer who came before him and in doing so richly influenced all the writers who came after him. We are in Dunbars debt and likewise in the debt of Professor Harrell for assembling this richly energetic and demanding volume.---Herbert Woodward Martin Professor Emeritus of English University of Dayton and The Paul Laurence Dunbar Laureate Poet for Dayton Ohio These essays make outstanding contributions to the growing body of important commentary on Dunbars work. Professor Harrells introduction brings us into new regions of the political statements Dunbar made in complex ways. The wide range of issues covered here is very impressive.---Ronald Primeau author of Herbert Woodward Martin and the African American Tradition in Poetry A Prolific Nineteenth-Century Author Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African American poet to gain national recognition. Praised by Booker T. Washington W. E. B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass who called him the most promising colored man in America Dunbar intrigued readers and literary critics with his depictions of African Americans struggle to overcome a legacy of slavery and prejudice. His remarkably large body of work---he wrote eleven volumes of poetry four short story collections five novels three librettos and a play before his death at thirty-three---draws on the oral storytelling traditions of his ex-slave mother as well as his unconventional education at an all-white public school to explore the evolving identity of the black community and its place in post-Civil War America. Willie Harrell has assembled a collection of essays on Dunbars work that builds on the research published over the last two decades. Employing an array of approaches to Dunbars poetic creations these essays closely examine the self-motivated and dynamic effect of his use of dialect language rhetorical strategies and narrative theory to promote racial uplift. They situate Dunbars work in relation to the issues of advancement popular during the Reconstruction era and against the racial stereotypes proliferating in the early twentieth century while demonstrating its relevance to contemporary literary studies. We Wear the Mask will appeal to scholars and students of African American literature and poetry as well as those interested in one of the most celebrated and widely taught African American authors.