| Title | : | Across Spoon River |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0781282764 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780781282765 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Library Binding |
| Number of Pages | : | 426 |
| Publication | : | Published January 1, 1936 |
This intimate and provocative autobiography, first published in 1936,
reveals the innermost thoughts of a great American poet. Edgar Lee Masters
was a transitional figure in American literature with one foot planted
in the nineteenth century and the other firmly placed on the path of what
we now think of as the modern period.
Masters expounds on his own development as a poet and as a human being;
he shares his views on American culture, politics, and the literary criticism
of the times. Masters's friends and acquaintances discussed here include
some of the most prominent writers and politicians of his age. And he
reflects on his life events that shaped, haunted, and inspired his writings
of the classic Spoon River Anthology.
Across Spoon River Reviews
-
During most of my reading of this 1936 autobiography, I forgot all about why I'd sought it out in the first place -- which was because I'd wanted to find out everything I could about the making of Edgar Lee Masters' brilliant and deathless work of free verse, Spoon River Anthology. But instead I became totally absorbed in the author's powerful, short evocations of all the people and happenings of his own life. Hardly ever has a work of nonfiction drawn me from sentence to sentence so compellingly as Across Spoon River. "My mother was acute of perception," he writes, "Her mind flashed with divination, she looked through doors and walls with those clairvoyant eyes, all this beyond nearly anyone I have ever known." In strict chronological fashion, Masters begins with the lives of his New England ancestors, then moves on to describe each of his boyhood homes in the small Illinois towns of Lewistown and Petersburg. He tells what all his teachers were like, how he came upon the mentors of his life, and where amidst the world of books he found his lasting literary inspirations as he progressed to manhood and took up the practice of law in Chicago. Obviously his encounters there with the political and literary lights of the age (Bryant, Sandburg, Theodore Roosevelt, Mencken, etc.) are a delight. But what makes all this story hang together is that one spring day when he'd reached his mid-forties -- after a visit by his mother to Chicago and inspired by their long conversations about their small town past -- Masters went up to his room and wrote the first portraits making up Spoon River Anthology. That book -- unexpectedly filled with penetrating insights into the mysteries the human condition -- made him instantly famous. As he would later reflect in Across Spoon River: "Always in my life my head was down, and I was thrusting my way forward. No great luck ever saw me and took me up. Every step I took was against the wind. I did not know that day by day I was living a life that gave me vast understanding of human nature and the world."
-
This book is a lovely look at living in times bygone. Masters describes, for example, his grandparent's house in detail and explains why it meant so much to him. It makes history come alive in a way that textbooks do not. I really enjoy reading about these details.
However, there is also no denying that Masters is a giant egoist. He wrote about his sister that she could have been a great help to him, but instead she was a great hindrance all his life. He seems to think she should have devoted her life to improving his career. It's odd. But later, he describes law cases that he got through her and vacations that she took him on, so that makes it even odder.
He wrote about both of his siblings for several pages before he bothers to tell the readers their names. It was very odd.
Masters also continually complains about how hard he worked in life, while also describing how he refused to consider the jobs which his father wished to help him obtain.
I enjoy this book for the descriptions of Master's life, but his ego really bothered me. Everything was about him in a way that seemed excessive even for a biography. -
Poetry that is refreshing and there are some incredibly deep metaphors and some great imagery.
