Classical Elements in W.E.B. Du Bois’ Novel
Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911)

Reed G. De Marco (Wayne State University)

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) is best known today for his academic work  earning his B.A. (1890) and his doctorate at Harvard (1896), and making important contributions to the realms of political, intellectual and literary history. He is known in particular for his agenda as an activist  in the American Negro Academy, the Niagra Movement, the NAACP and other groups.(1) What is not well known is that he was trained in Greek and Latin.

He began his study in high school at Great Barrington, Massachusetts under the guidance of the school’s principal, Frank Hosmer who noticed the youngster’s intelligence. Years later as Du Bois reflected upon his life and the influence of Frank Hosmer who suggested that he take college preparatory classes and noted that “the gates” “were barred with ancient tongues.”(2) In 1886 while attending Fisk University in Nashville, he based a summer school course on Cicero’s Pro Archia  which he taught to underpriviledged students in  nearby Alexandria. “I put,” says Du Bois “Cicero[‘s] Pro Archia Poeta  into the simplest English with local applications, and usually convinced them-for a week or so.”(3) From 1894 to 1896 he taught Greek at Wilberforce University and served as head of the department of ancient languages. His writings were peppered with elements and allusions drawn from his study of Greek and Latin.(4) One excellent example of this dynamic is his first novel, Quest of the Silver Fleece  whose plot turns on the transference of the myth of Jason and Medea to the cotton fields of black-belt Alabama. My paper will examine the meaning and method of these classical elements in the Quest of the Silver Fleece.

1 David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868-1919 (New York, 1993) passim.

2 David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868-1919 (New York, 1993) pp. 36 and 590-591, note 21.

3 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk,  (Chicago, 1903) p. 65.

4 See for example Carrie Cowherd’s study, “The Wings of Atalanta: The Classical Influences in The Souls of Black Folk,” The Souls of Black Folk: One Hundred Years Later, Dolan Hubbard, (ed.), (Columbia, MO, 2003) pp. 284-297.