Romancing the Body Politic: Du Bois's Propaganda of the Dark World

Abstract

Although best known for his work as a sociologist, historian, and editor, W.E.B. Du Bois also authored numerous works of fiction and poetry. Despite their dismissal by critics as not much more than failed experiments that test the boundary separating poetry and prose, this article suggests that Du Bois's acts of creative composition are driven by his desire to exert critical force as part of his contribution to the effort of studying "Negro problems." Du Bois's creative writing can be understood as recapitulations of his enterprise as a social scientist and as an attempt to dramatize the workings of the American body politic. As social scientist, Du Bois manifests a vision of what his training allowed him to assert through organized, scientific study. However, as creative writer, Du Bois mediates this project by positing the need for heroic action in issues of gender and sexuality and presents a way to think about African American representations of masculinity in the twentieth century.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Byerman, Keith. 1994. Seizing the Word: History, Art, and Self in the Works of W.E.B. Du Bois. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Du Bois, W.E.B. [1890] 1995. Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization. In W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader, ed. David Levering Lewis. New York: Henry Holt.

————. 1898. The Study of the Negro Problems. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Jan.:1-23.

————. 1899. Suppression of the African Slave Trade. Boston: Longman, Green.

—. 1913. The Negro in Literature and Art. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Sept.: 233-37.

————. [1920] 1969. Darkwater: Voices from the Veil . New York: AMS Press.

—. [1928] 1995. Dark Princess Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

—. 1965. The Souls of Black Folk New York: Avon Books

—. 1969. Black Reconstruction New York : Atheneum.

10.

————. 1994. Criteria of Negro Art. In Within the Circle , ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. First printed in The Crisis, Oct. 1926.

11.

————. 1995. The Philadelphia Negro. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press.

12.

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. 1900. The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories. New York: Arno Press and New York Times .

13.

Fletcher, Angus. 1964. Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

14.

Gatens, Moira. 1991. Corporeal Representation in/and the Body Politic . In Cartographies , ed. Rosalyn Disprose and Robyn Ferrel. North Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

15.

Johnson, James Weldon. [1927] 1965. Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

16.

Madsen, Deborah L. 1996. Allegory in America: From Puritanism to Post-modernism . New York: St. Martin's Press

17.

Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. [1982] 1993. Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of a Religious Myth. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press .

18.

Rampersad, Arnold. 1976. The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. Du Bois Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

19.

Tate, Claudia. 1995. Introduction. Dark Princess, by W.E.B. Du Bois . Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

20.

Turner, Darwin. 1969. Introduction. The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories, by Paul Lawrence Danbar. New York: Arno Press and New York Times.