Introduction to African American

Question: Write an essay on Introduction to African American? Answer: Introduction to African American Paul Dunbar was regarded as the African-American poet laureate of the Negro Race. Dunbar belonged to a small city where nature and its significance were not much explored. Dunbar mostly expressed his observation from the lives of men. In spite of the fact there was a lot of vegetation like flowers and trees were around his house and the mill race was another significant thing in his entire life of boyhood and manhood. He went out of the way and tried the express his intuition about several things rather than expressing his observations. His love for nature existed but he could not express love in a romantic way. In fact, he tried to express the intuitions that he acquired from the feeling of his race and assign these aspirations in his poems in the form of songs. He was mostly inspired by Tennyson and Lowell because they expressed their aspirations keeping in mind the real natural world. Dunbars one of the most popular poems and the most anthologized dialect poem is When Malindy Sing s. (Dunbar, n.d.) The poem was inspired by Dunbars mother and the times she sang all hymns and Negro spiritual. Dunbar was of the opinion that the powerful melody can be referred to as a natural gifts to the black singers. Another classic work by the author E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk can be described as the autobiography of the author himself and a group of African-American. The story has a outline of the communitys story as depicted by the author. The base of the story is the colour line that the author believes to divide the lives into two parts. The meaning of black music in this novel is revealed in The Sorrow Songs. The plot of both the poem and the novel is about music and the Negro problems of slavery. (Du Bois, 1961) The poem When Malindy Sings in 1895 describes Malindys voice- we tend to her that voice in the lines of the poem but the voice neither speaks or sings in the work. The persona of the poet, Dunbar, relates to us that the voice of a black singer which is evident from the dialect of the poem. The voice of Malindy rings from the alley from the kitchen to the woods and is based on the natural organs of the lady. Dunbar in his work describes the voice of a black woman which is divine and a representation of racial difference. When Malindy Sings the musicians have stop playing their instruments or the mocking birds gets terrorized. The poet was successful to convey the voice of Malindy by another lady who describes her voice in the entire poem. (English.illinois.edu, 2015)Thus basis of Malindys song is the inspiration of the poem. The classic Souls of Black Folk is inspired by the black music depicted in The Sorrow Songs. (Dubois, 1991) Here the grandmother of the authors grandfather is an African. She is considered to be black and New Englands landscape is unfamiliar to her. She roams outside wishing to be at her home and expresses her desire by singing in an unusual tongue. She passes on the black tradition of music to her son between the knees. The overlap occurs when the previous poem Malindy is not only a black woman who can sing but she was also an African woman and is considered to be the mother. The Novel by Du Bois has plotted his work on the Negro race and so did Dunbar in his poem. The two pieces of work describe the voice and the songs of the mother who is a black woman. Here both the author and the poet capitalize the talent of singing in each of the ladies. (Publicculture.org, 2015) Dunbar had already mentioned that the singing talent of the blacks is a natural gift to them. Both the poem and the novel deals with music and art of singing by black women. Music or Songs can be defined as the art of uninterpreted sounds. The expression of beauty, religious faith, tensions, yearnings, human natures, identity and certain social conditions can be conveyed by Music. The poem by Dunbar is represented by the singing talent of the plantation mistress Miss Lucy which the poet describes as a noise. The only song that stands out for the poet is Malindys voice. The Sorrow songs has more to express than just the singing talent. The black lady yearns to find her home and in this wish engages in unusual tone of music which she passes on to her children. Both the pieces of work deals with the art of music in which both the black ladies expresses their emotions, desires and yearnings from the world. Both the works communicates similar social condition of slavery and the racial dif ference through music and the songs. (Juslin, 2013). References Du Bois, W. (1961).The souls of black folk. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications. Dubois, W. (1991). The souls of black folks.Society, 28(5), pp.74-80. Dunbar, P. (n.d.).When Malindy sings. English.illinois.edu, (2015).On "When Malindy Sings". [online] Available at: https://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dunbar/malindy.htm [Accessed 16 Mar. 2015]. Juslin, P. (2013). What does music express? Basic emotions and beyond.Frontiers in Psychology, 4. Publicculture.org, (2015).Du Bois and Art Theory: The Souls of Black Folk as a "Total Work of Art" in Volume 17, Number 2 Public Culture. [online] Available at: https://publicculture.org/articles/view/17/2/du-bois-and-art-theory-the-souls-of-black-folk-as-a-total-work-of-art [Accessed 16 Mar. 2015].