While scholars have long noted the classical influences apparent in the style and thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, there has been little sustained discussion of the nature of these influences and their manifestations in his writings. This article seeks to correct that absence through an examination of the influence of Cicero’s Pro Archia poeta on Du Bois’s most well-known work, The Souls of Black Folk. Though Du Bois mentions many other authors in Souls, the Pro Archia is the only work of another author mentioned by name as a source for Du Bois’s thought. Extrapolating from this explicit reference to the Pro Archia as well as numerous other references to and influences by Cicero’s works throughout Du Bois’s oeuvre, I posit a two-fold influence of the Pro Archia on Souls as Du Bois draws upon the dual argument in Cicero’s work. First, Du Bois seeks to defend the civil rights of African Americans, drawing on Cicero’s argument for the legal status and citizenship rights of the poet Archias. Both Cicero and Du Bois go beyond mere legal argumentation, however, to provide a defence of the necessity of the liberal arts and a celebration of poets and their work.
W. E. B. Du Bois’s work and thought, including his concept of “double consciousness,” his inspiration by classical myth and thought, and his search for the history of Africans and African Americans, point the contemporary reader toward a modern cosmopolitanism. Du Bois both exposed and exemplified the multiform nature of culture and personal identity. Culture and identity are not monolithic blocs, but rather the result of the frequent cultural exchanges that characterize the history of nearly all of the world’s people groups and the sharing of divergent perspectives within the context of the wider human experience. Du Bois’s formation in the classics and delight in cultural interchange open up for the modern thinker a rich, cosmopolitan perspective.
Among the numerous classical influences in the works of W. E. B. Du Bois, the influence of Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta on The Souls of Black Folk is one of the most important. This chapter examines the influence of Cicero’s ancient defense of the poet Archias on the structure of Du Bois’s argument in defense of full civil rights and access to liberal education for African Americans. This chapter also discusses the classical inflection of other works by Du Bois, examining the classical allusions and foundations in his works of history, sociology, biography, and fiction. Particular attention is given to Du Bois’s attempts in each of these fields to write the story of African American history in the form of an epic, culminating with his final series of novels, The Black Flame Trilogy.
The influence of Plato on the thought of W. E. B. Du Bois is evident in some of Du Bois’s most important ideas, including his dedication to a notion of unchanging truth and the ability to attain justice by overcoming ignorance through the exposure of this fixed and eternal truth, Du Bois’s social vision including his distinctive notion of a “Talented Tenth” dedicated to the duty of group leadership, and Du Bois’s concept of aesthetics and its resulting theory of the social function of art. Given the deep and pervasive influence of Plato’s ideas, Du Bois’s famous conflict with Booker T. Washington over the education of African American young people and the place of African American people within American society is best understood through the framework of Du Bois’s Platonist social and educational ideals.
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