Masters, Edgar Lee. (1869 - 1950).
W o r k
- poet, playwright, biographer, novelist
P o e t r y :
Spoon River Anthology (1915) and The New Spoon River Anthology (1924):
< E. A. Robinson’s stoicism and his naturalistic portraits
< the ancient Greek epigrams, especially epitaphs: the expression of the essential in the most condensed form, as if the dead people themselves were addressing the passers by
- the title: from Spoon River = an imaginary town x but: based on actual places in Illionois, especially the graveyard from which he adopted some names
- a series of about 200 portraits of the inhabitants of one town: all of the depicted persons have already died and tell their sad stories from the other world
- in a free verse and colloquial language
- the epilogue: attempts the Whitmanian all-embracing tone x but: remains the prevailing impression of the destroyed lives, helplessness, and abuse
=> the deconstruction of the rural idyll myth
> influenced S. Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio
“Lucinda Mattlock”
“Petit the Poet”
“Seth Compton”
B i o g r a p h i e s :
Lincoln: The Man (1931)
Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America (1935)
Mark Twain: A Portrait (1938)
Quote
"You may think, passer-by, that Fate / Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, / Around which you may walk by the use of foresight / And wisdom".
From "Lyman King".
Basics
(Photo: Britannica).
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Author
Edgar Lee Masters. (1869 - 1950). American.
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Work
Poet. Author of Spoon River Anthology (1915).
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Genres
Modernism. Naturalism. Regionalism.
Literature
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1994.
McQuade, Donald, gen.ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper & Collins, 1996.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.