While “We Wear the Mask” is written in standard English, Paul Laurence Dunbar also wrote poems in African-American dialect verse, and was in fact acclaimed mostly for his work in dialect poetry. His 1895 collection Majors and Minors consists of the section “Majors,” which includes standard English poems like “We Wear the Mask,” and the section “Minors,” which features dialect poems. The poem “When Malindy Sings,” for instance, celebrates the experience of community and joy in Black song culture (“Folks a-playin' on de banjo / Draps dey fingahs on de strings— / Bless yo' soul—fu'gits to move 'em, / When Malindy sings”). “The Ol’ Tunes” contrasts the richness of this tradition against mainstream music (“You kin talk about yer anthems / An' yer arias an' sich, / An' yer modern choir-singin' / That you think so awful rich”).
William Dean Howells’s positive review of the “Minor” poems on Harper’s Weekly brought Dunbar success and fame—while also limiting the poet’s popularity to his work in dialect poetry. “Dunbar now faced a dilemma. America's most influential critic had dubbed him a dialect poet, uniquely gifted to represent his race to the white world,” writes David L. Dudley in the Oxford Encyclopedia of English Literature. While many readers of Dunbar preferred his works in dialectic verse, dialect poetry was not the only medium in which the poet wished to establish his writing career. Only a small part of Dunbar’s oeuvre, in fact, consists of his work in dialect verse—his literary legacy consists of a diverse set of poems (in both standard and dialectic English), novels, short stories, and essays.
