Rita Dove, Sonata Mulattica

Cecilia Donohue (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2009

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

For her thirteenth full-length literary publication and tenth volume of verse, American poet Rita Dove has found inspiration in the biography of Classical/Romantic Period musician George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860). A biracial violinist of African-Polish parentage, Bridgetower may be familiar only to music historians, yet this accomplished instrumentalist achieved a measurable degree of celebrity and popularity with the upper strata of European society during the late 1700s and early 1800s. The entire volume of Sonata Mulattica (2009) is devoted to events (accompanied by some imagined incidents) in Bridgetower's life and career, related by Dove in a variety of verse styles. Her word choices are characterized by clarity and …

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717 words

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "Sonata Mulattica". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 August 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=26981, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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