Frederick Douglass

For his elegy of Douglass, Dunbar chose a more traditional form for his poem by writing it in iambic pentameter, but with “Frederick Douglass,” he deviates from the typical ABAB quatrain of the traditional elegiac stanza. The poem is composed of ten stanzas: The first nine stanzas are sestets (six lines), and the final stanza is an octave (eight lines). Written in iambic pentameter, the poem follows a traditional metric line that divides the line into five iambic feet, containing two syllables: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Take for example the first line of the poem, which like the rest is divided into five trochees:

“A hush | is ov- | er all | the tee- | ming lists,” (Line 1)

This familiar meter calls back to the conventions of the 18th-century elegiac stanza, which by the latter half of the 19th century, had become a form of the past as poets like Walt Whitman began pushing boundaries by composing elegies in a more contemporary free verse. However, Dunbar uses it here to eulogize his former mentor in a traditional and revered form, perhaps asserting that Douglass’s achievements should be revered and considered as monumental as those of the heroes of the dominant, Western culture of his time.