DuBose Heyward - Literary Career

Literary Career

By 1924, Heyward had achieved a measure of financial independence, allowing him to give up business and devote himself full time to literature. That year he published his first poetry collection, Jasbo Brown and Other Poems (1924). Between stints of writing, he supplemented his income by lecturing on southern literature at colleges and the Porter Military Academy.

He observed closely and thought deeply about the lives of blacks of that area. His mother participated in an amateur Southern singing society performing Gullah songs, and he sometimes joined her. It was open to anyone whose family had lived on a plantation, whether as owner or slave.

In Charleston, Heyward found inspiration for his book, including what would become the setting (Catfish Row) and the main character (a disabled man named Porgy). The novel Porgy became a bestseller in 1926. Literary critics cast Heyward as an authority on Southern black life, later writing, "Heyward's attention to detail and reality of the Southern black's lifestyle was not only sympathetic but something that no one had ever seen done before."

Opening on Broadway in 1927, the non-musical play "Porgy" was a considerable success, more so than the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess (1935) produced eight years later. The plot line of the opera follows the play almost exactly, while both differ greatly from the novel, particularly in the ending. Large sections of dialogue from the play were set to music for the recitatives in the opera.

Describing Heyward's achievement in Porgy, the African-American poet and playwright Langston Hughes said Heyward was one who saw "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive." Heyward's biographer James M. Hutchisson characterizes Porgy as "the first major southern novel to portray blacks without condescension" and states that the libretto to Porgy and Bess was largely Heyward's work. Many critics have believed that Heyward was sympathetic in his portrayal of the Southern black. Others, however, have noted that the characters in Porgy, though viewed sympathetically, are still viewed for the most part as stereotypes.

In his introduction to the section on DuBose Heyward in Invisible Giants: Fifty Americans Who Shaped the Nation But Missed the History Books, Stephen Sondheim wrote:

"DuBose Heyward has gone largely unrecognized as the author of the finest set of lyrics in the history of the American musical theater - namely, those of Porgy and Bess. There are two reasons for this, and they are connected. First, he was primarily a poet and novelist, and his only song lyrics were those that he wrote for Porgy. Second, some of them were written in collaboration with Ira Gershwin, a full-time lyricist, whose reputation in the musical theater was firmly established before the opera was written. But most of the lyrics in Porgy - and all of the distinguished ones - are by Heyward. I admire his theater songs for their deeply felt poetic style and their insight into character. It's a pity he didn't write any others. His work is sung, but he is unsung."

Heyward continued to explore black Charleston with another novel set in Catfish Row, Mamba's Daughters (1929), which he and Dorothy also adapted as a play.

Heyward wrote the play Brass Ankle, produced in 1931 in New York, which dealt with issues of mixed-race ancestry and its effects on an ostensibly white couple in a small southern town. Reviewers treated his play favorably as a version of the "tragic mulatto" genre, but it was not a commercial success.

He wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (1933). His children's book, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939) was quite popular.

His novella Star Spangled Virgin (1939) was set in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and dealt with the domestic life of Adam Work and his woman Rhoda. It was described as "singularly charming and very original", covering their and friends' interpretations of "the relations of men and women".

Heyward died from a heart attack in June 1940, at the age of 54, in Tryon, North Carolina.