Lyrics of Lowly Life (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Paul Laurence Dunbar
- First Published: 1896
- Type of Work: Book of poems
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: African Americans, Racism, Blacks, Race, Dreams, Death or dying, Masks
The Poem
Lyrics of Lowly Life is a collection of 115 lyric poems by African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. The collection contains poems written in both standard English and African American dialect. The meter of the poems follows standard iambic and trochaic patterns. Dunbar employs a variety of traditional stanza and rhyme patterns.
The first poem in Lyrics of Lowly Life is “Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes,” written in standard English, on the subject of death. In the opening stanza, Dunbar describes the persona’s deep weariness...
[The entire page is 2261 words long]
