Masters, Edgar Lee (1868-1950), was an American author. He wrote novels, poetry, plays, biography, and history, but he became famous chiefly for one volume of poems, Spoon River Anthology (1915).
Masters modeled the Anthology on a collection of ancient Greek short poems and sayings called The Greek Anthology. Spoon River is an imaginary Midwestern village. Masters’s work consists of more than 200 short poems in free verse. Each poem is spoken by a former resident of the village, now dead and buried in the Spoon River cemetery. Each of the dead persons seeks to interpret, from the grave, the meaning of life on earth.
Through the poems, Spoon River comes to life again. Sometimes the histories of whole families are told. Spoon River is seen as a place where life was hard but could be good and satisfying. One of the best-known poems is spoken by Petit, the village poet. Another poem is spoken by Ann Rutledge, a real-life girl whom young Abraham Lincoln supposedly loved.
Masters was born on Aug. 23, 1868, in Garnett, Kansas, and grew up in Lewistown, Illinois. His father’s financial situation prevented Edgar from completing college. But he studied law under his father and was an attorney in Chicago from 1895 to 1920. From 1903 to 1911, he was a partner in the law firm of the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow. In 1923, Masters settled in New York City. Masters’s autobiography, Across Spoon River, appeared in 1936. He died on March 5, 1950.
See also Spoon River Anthology .
