Masters and Robinson

Edgar Lee Masters ( 1868 - 1950) Trained as a lawyer (and a one-time law partner of legal legend, Clarence Darrow), Masters made his literary bones with the publication of Spoon River Anthology (1915). Neither Masters' conceit (a kind of collectively voiced collection) nor his subject matter - - small town American life - - were new. What was new about Masters' collection was the way in which it approached small town life in America on the eve of World War I - - resisting sentimentality while refusing to give in to scorn or cynicism. It was probably this ambivalent stance which helped to create the novel poetic voices that Masters conjured up via his literary seance.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869 - 1935). Robinson is one of the most compelling of the "transitional" figures that spanned the close of America's "Victorian" culture and the rise of modernism. He left behind a troubled family and youth in New England to make his literary way in New York City - - one of the earliest exemplars of the "bohemianism" that would come to define Greenwich Village in the American literary consciousness. Until Teddy Roosevelt picked up Robinson's second collection of poems, Robinson was in dire straits. Thanks to the economic stability provided by Roosevelt's patronage, Robinson could continue to write poetry until, eventually, he gained the ear of the American public and literary critics. While apparently straightforward on the surface, like is New England peer, Robert Frost, his poems are complicated - - not so much formally as in tone and stance. Like Frost, Robinson attempts to reckon "modern" experience within more traditional forms and structures. His efforts remain under-appreciated.

But what is one to do?

The four texts (Adams, Du Bois, Bourne, Gilman) we've looked at over the past couple of weeks share a common theme: a crisis is rocking American society and culture as the nation moves into the 20th century. The particular setting of each text varies, and each text seems to take up this crisis in different terms (science and technology, race, ethnicity, gender).

Despite these differences, are there commonalities in the way these texts imagine crisis? For instance, several of the texts share a concern with dysfunctional epistemologies - - problems with the way we know the social and personal world. Likewise, several of the texts focus on subjectivity - - what kinds of people does the new world of modernity produce?. And, several of the texts seem more concerned with how people experience the modern world rather than the dynamics of that world itself. Most of the texts also experiment with different ways of representing the crisis of modernity - - different textualities and forms.

What common motifs, themes, images, conflicts, literary techniques, or plots of crisis can you see among the four texts we've read? Which is most interesting? Which warrants further discussion and development?

Your goal in your first short paper is to describe, explain, and analyze the connections between the "critical" imagination of at least two of the texts we've read. That is, show me how two of the texts we've read seem to use some common motifs, images,conflicts, and/or plots, etc., to imagine and elaborate their sense of national crisis.

Your essay should be typed, no more than two pages, double-spaced. Proofread for typographical, spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. The essay is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, September 17, 2009. Enjoy!

Randolph Silliman Bourne ( 1886 – 1918) Bourne is one of the great, unacknowledged intellects and writers of American cultural history. Born with severe physical disabilities, Bourne went on to join the generation of American progressives - - like John Dewey, Jane Addams, Charles Beard, and William James - - who struggled through the first decades of the 20th century to bring American consciousness up to speed with the demands of modernity. He was a radical pacifist who broke with many of his fellow progressives in denouncing the First World War. His essay, "War Is the Health of the State" remains a powerful argument against war and militarism. Bourne was especially interested in education, nationalism, and redefining cultural democracy. His life was cut short by the influenza epidemic (or Spanish Flu) of 1918.