Category: Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters’ “John Horace Burleson”

The character John Horace Burleson is a failed writer, whose ambitions did not match his abilities.

Introduction and Text of “John Horace Burleson”

In Edgar Lee Masters’ “John Horace Burleson” from his American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker remains rather vague about important details of his life.  The speaker had the unfortunate luck to win a prize for a school essay, and that bad luck tainted his view of his talent.

Even though Burleson was later lucky enough to publish a novel, he yearned to write a great epic about the war.  As many mediocre and moderately talented artists do, Burleson overrated his abilities and then ends up blaming his marriage and his job for his failure to become known as the great writer he fancies he is.

John Horace Burleson

I won the prize essay at school
Here in the village,
And published a novel before I was twenty-five.
I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art;
There married the banker’s daughter,
And later became president of the bank—
Always looking forward to some leisure
To write an epic novel of the war.
Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters,
And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson.
An after dinner speaker, writing essays
For local clubs. At last brought here—
My boyhood home, you know—
Not even a little tablet in Chicago
To keep my name alive.
How great it is to write the single line:
“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!”

Commentary on “John Horace Burleson”

The character speaking this epitaph is John Horace Burleson, a failed writer, whose ambitions did not equal his abilities.  Comically, one might think of him as “Writing while pathetic.”

First Movement:  Winning Can Be Bad

I won the prize essay at school
Here in the village,
And published a novel before I was twenty-five.

John Horace Burleson begins his epitaph by announcing that while a boy in school in the town of Spoon River, he enjoyed the pride of having won an essay contest. The speaker’s writing ability later landed him a publishing deal, and he came out with a novel before he had attained the age of twenty-five.

These Spoon River speakers customarily begin with some past memory that has made a deep impression on them.  Burleson’s memory puts him at the beginning of what should have been a career in writing.

Second Movement:  A Fly in the Ointment

I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art;
There married the banker’s daughter,
And later became president of the bank—
Always looking forward to some leisure
To write an epic novel of the war.

The speaker then begins to open up about what will turn out to be a fly in his ointment, that is, an eventuality that leads him astray.  He moved to the city, which is Chicago, of course, as Spoon River is a fictional town in Illinois.  Burleson then asserts that he moved to the city to bolster his writing career.  He hoped to acquire subject matter for writing.  He claims he wanted to, “enrich [his] art.”

Then the speaker reveals that he took the daughter of a banker for his wife.  Later Burleson himself even became the bank’s president.  As a man with the heavy responsibilities of husband and bank president, he does not have the time and wherewithal to do much writing.

However, the would-be writer could dream!  And that’s what he did.  Instead of writing, he just continually kept waiting until he could get sufficient time for the “leisure” that would afford him space to write his great American novel.

Burleson claims he had in mind to pen “an epic novel of the war,” which gives one pause.  Perhaps he was chasing after the wrong goal.  With his experience of winning a childhood essay contest, publishing a nondescript novel, and serving as a bank president, what experience did he have for writing about war, much less an epic about said subject?

Third Movement:  Art Friendly

Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters,
And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson.

As his life progresses, Burleson remains a friend of the arts and the great writers of the day because he fancied himself a great “lover of letters.”  He claims to have entertained Matthew Arnold, the poet who composed the great and challenging poem “Dover Beach.”

Burleson also claims to have hosted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who composed many important, classic American essays and poems. The speaker merely name drops as he does not even make clear anything about the event during which he served as “host” to these great writers.   Both Arnold and Emerson did lecture in Chicago—Emerson in 1867 and Arnold in 1884, nearly twenty years apart.

The visiting lectures of these writers reveal that Burleson could have, in fact, hosted each of them, but his failure to elaborate implies that he might be making up his claims and not actually had the privilege of meeting and greeting these great writers.  Burleson offers no indication that he absorbed any influence or even acquired any lasting impressions of the writers.

Fourth Movement:   Talentless and Driveless

An after dinner speaker, writing essays
For local clubs.

Nevertheless, Burleson’s life continues and he does find himself capable of giving after-dinner speeches from time to time.  He also composes essays for “local clubs.”  Again, the speaker remains mum about the subject matter involved in his speeches.

Burleson also offers no clue about what he wrote about for the clubs. The purpose of this omission is to likely throw suspicion on Burleson’s true talent as a writer.  He claims to have had great ambitions but he makes it clear that he did not possess the talent and drive to accomplish his worthy goals.

Fifth Movement:   Garnering no Notice

At last brought here—
My boyhood home, you know—
Not even a little tablet in Chicago
To keep my name alive.

And now Burleson’s death has brought him back to Spoon River, which is his “boyhood home.”  And his next revelation is both telling and pathetic. Burleson’s life has made little impression on Chicago. 

He has not even become well-known enough the merit a mention in the local newspapers.  His name will die because no one has cared to even take note of his life and death.  Thus it is, no doubt, likely that he is the only one who is taking note of his passing.  And what happened to his wife?  Did he spawn any offspring?

All the reader can glean from the little biographical information he offers is that Burleson yearned to write a great novel, met two of the biggest names in the field of the day but did not produce enough creatively to garner any notice.

Sixth Movement:  How Great to Write . . .

How great it is to write the single line:
“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!”

Burleson’s final lines put the proper cap on his complaint.  He singles out a line from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, Section 179, “Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!“

Regarding this line, Burleson remarks how “great it is to write” such a line. Thus again the speaker is leaving his listeners scratching their heads wondering just what Burleson’s goal was.

Although he claimed he had the great desire to pen an epic war novel, he had won an essay contest, and had, in fact, published a novel, yet he selects a line from a poem to exalt as a model.   Instead of writing, Burleson’s talents must have resided elsewhere, and he obviously did not know it; thus his claimed, chosen goal continued to elude him.

Ephemeral Fame

Many of the Spoon River soliloquists have been guilty of not truly being aware of their own intentions.  Burleson’s true goal was likely just to achieve fame, not to actually become a great writer.  And the great poet Emily Dickinson has succinctly summed up the ephemeral character of “fame”:

Fame is a bee.
It has a song –
It has a sting –
Ah, too, it has a wing.

Burleson’s bee of fame stung him and fled on its wing, leaving him little to sing about but his own sense of loss.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “The Circuit Judge”

The speaker in the Spoon River epitaph series titled “The Circuit Judge” indicts the legal system, using himself as a symbol.   The judge is actually judging his own life.

Introduction and Text of  “The Circuit Judge”

In Edgar Lee Masters’ “The Circuit Judge” from Masters’ American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker is a circuit judge who judges himself rather harshly.    While he remains indignant that the weather has etched little notches in his tombstone, in the end, he seems to deserve every indignity he might have suffered in life and now in death.

This judge sentenced the character “Hod Putt” to death, and Putt then died by hanging.  But the judge’s final judgment about his own character is shocking as it reveals the hell to which the judge seems to be condemning himself and his profession.

The Circuit Judge 

Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions
Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain—
Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred
Were marking scores against me,
But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory.
I in life was the Circuit Judge, a maker of notches,
Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored,
Not on the right of the matter.
O wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone!
For worse than the anger of the wronged,
The curses of the poor,
Was to lie speechless, yet with vision clear,
Seeing that even Hod Putt, the murderer,
Hanged by my sentence,
Was innocent in soul compared with me.

Commentary on “The Circuit Judge”

The speaker in the Spoon River epitaph series titled “The Circuit Judge” makes a clear indictment of the legal system as symbolized by the judge as he judges his own life.

First Movement:  Pointing out Flaws

Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions 

Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain—

The circuit judge begins his testimony by commanding his listeners and readers to observe that his tombstone has been etched with “sharp erosions.”  These etchings have been colorfully “eaten” into his marker by the “wind” and “rain.”

The judge immediately identifies his complaint as one that will include all of nature conspiring against him.  Even the wind and rain have joined in the battle against this man by carving little “erosion” into the very stone that will give the judge his final presence.

Second Movement:  A Destructive Conspiracy 

Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred
Were marking scores against me,
But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory. 

The judge’s complaint then begins to describe what he feels is the conspiracy to “destroy” his memory.  While etchings in tombstones are placed to “preserve” the memory of the deceased, these eroded markings made by the elements function to obliterate the judge’s memory.

The judge likens the fact of the etchings to the work of an “intangible Nemesis” which is marking “scores” against the judge.  This Nemesis can also be thought of as simple “hatred” against the men.

Third Movement:  Passing the Buck

I in life was the Circuit Judge, a maker of notches,
Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored,
Not on the right of the matter. 

The speaker then reports the while living he served as the “Circuit Judge.”  He states that his function was to make notches.  But instead of deciding cases on their merits, he had to judge them from the presented “points” that the “lawyers scored” as they argued before this bench.

The judge is beginning to pass the buck when he whines that he had to judge cases based on the argument of the lawyers instead of what was “right” in each case.

The judge is implying that he would have preferred to judge differently from what he did.  He would have preferred to judge by the “right of the matter.”    With this complaint the judge is implying that the law and the lawyers were corrupt, and he was merely an innocent victim sucked into the quagmire of corruption.

Fourth Movement:  Commanding the Weather

O wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone!

The speaker, however, remains fairly vague about his complaint, offering no example of corrupt law or lawyers who argued without merit.  But then the judge yells out to the wind and rain, demanding that they cease carving their marks into his headstone. 

Instead of confronting any living human being who might have been responsible for passing poor laws or addressing any of the lawyers who argued them, the judge rails at the natural elements of wind and rain.  Knowing that these elements will not choose to refute his claims, the judge feels safe in demanding that the wind and rain leave his tombstone in peace.

Fifth Movement:  Injustices from the Bench

For worse than the anger of the wronged,
The curses of the poor,
Was to lie speechless, yet with vision clear,
Seeing that even Hod Putt, the murderer,
Hanged by my sentence,
Was innocent in soul compared with me.

The speaker then makes his odd conclusion: he shows that because of his judicial decisions, he has suffered “the anger of the wronged.”  He has also had to live with “curses of the poor.”  But as bad as these indignities have been, it is far worse that he now has to lie in his grave where he cannot speak out against those indignities. 

Yet, the judge then makes a stunning confession.  He claims that even the murderer, Hod Putt, whom the judge condemned to death by hanging, was a more innocent soul than the judge himself.

If the judge is more culpable then a murderer whom the judge had sentenced to hang, then it must be assumed that he caused many deaths and a multitude of other injustices from the bench.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “William and Emily”

The speaker’s epitaph is titled, “William and Emily,” with no details offered about the pair.  But the gravity of the message is unique and interestingly appropriate.

Introduction and Text of “William and Emily”

In Edgar Lee Masters’ “William and Emily” from his American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker makes a profound statement about the cessation of passion in a marriage.  It is quite likely that he does so unwittingly.

William and Emily

There is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other’s arms,
Passing from the familiar room—
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!

Commentary on “William and Emily”

The speaker’s epitaph is titled “William and Emily”  with no details offered about the pair.  But the gravity of the message is unique and interestingly appropriate.

First Movement:  Death and Love

There is something about Death
Like love itself!

The speaker begins with an intriguing proposition, vaguely offering, “there is something about Death.”  Don’t we all know that?  We dread it, we crave it, we mostly wonder about it, but yes, dude, there is definitely something about “Death.”  What the reader is not expecting is that someone would assert that death is “like love itself.”  

Readers have come to expect all sorts of nonsense from the residents, or might one say, inmates of the Spoon River cemetery. So when one of them asserts that death and love have something in common, readers might not blink an eye, as they curiously wait to find out what this dude thinks death and love have in common.

Second Movement:  Reason Is an “If”

If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,

The speaker then offers his reason for making such a statement that love and death have something in common.   The curious speaker begins with an “if” clause—if you have known someone with “passion” and “the glow of youthful love,” but you start losing that fiery passion of youth.

Third Movement:  A Fiery Thought

Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other’s arms,
Passing from the familiar room—
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!

The speaker then breaks the fiery thought.  This slow loss, “Gradually, faintly, delicately” builds up a drama that might have easily been glossed over.  It is a cliché that sexual passion fades with the age of the paramours, but if it is lost slowly, the loss takes on a different context. 

The cessation of violent sexual passion between two individuals is scheduled by nature to occur.  That cessation allows room for the spiritual bond between them to flower.  After all, sexual passion has only one true purpose—to create other human beings. 

Once the physical ability to give birth has passed, there is no longer a need for sexual passion, even though, as many erroneously believe otherwise, the ability to be sexually aroused does not subside, unless, of course, there are health issues. 

Perfectly healthy octogenarians are as capable of basking in the “glow of youthful love” as they were in their twenties, thirties, etc,—but should they?  What do they lose if they do?  

Fourth Movement:  Soul Unity

That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!

They lose “the power of unison between souls”—a man who continues to pound his wife as a sex object past the age of the ability to conceive and spawn offspring can hardly be considered a soul-living creature.   

The main purpose of sexual coupling long past, all that is left is that “shudder in the loins” that speaks only one word, “selfishness.”  Or perhaps two words, “selfish ignorance.”   It is the “power of the unison between souls” that speaks to the union with “love itself.”

So what is there about “Death” that is like “love itself”? God is love—pure love:  not sex, not physical passion that leads to procreation, which is only a tiny aspect of God.  As the human being grows older, s/he becomes more aware of the necessity of knowing God. 

After procreating, the human body/mind has only one true, dual-pronged purpose:  to pursue and find itself as a soul connected it to the OverSoul, or God.  After the human being leaves the body/mind at “Death,” it craves only the company of its Creator.   A little preparation beforehand is always advisable on this mud ball of planet Earth.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Sersmith the Dentist”

Edgar Lee Masters’ character, a dentist named Sersmith, pontificates on the political atmosphere, using rhetorical questions to emphasize his stance. 

Introduction and Text of “Sersmith the Dentist”

In Edgar Lee Masters’ “Sersmith the Dentist” from the American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker asks four rhetorical questions and then offers a final philosophical summation. 

This dentist proves to be one of the more bankrupt characters of the lot.  He sees everything in terms of money.  Although he does not offer a personal complaint as most of the speakers do, he goes on carping about societal and political issues.

Unfortunately, Sersmith’s clouded mind remains a one dimension of mediocrity and error.  Misinterpreting religious and historical events leads him to ludicrous conclusions.   While Sersmith the Dentist surely thinks himself clever as he remarks about the hollow tooth filled up with gold, his quip merely signals the hollow mind of the speaker.

Sersmith the Dentist

Do you think that odes and sermons,
And the ringing of church bells,
And the blood of old men and young men,
Martyred for the truth they saw
With eyes made bright by faith in God,
Accomplished the world’s great reformations?
Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Would have been heard if the chattel slave
Had crowned the dominant dollar,
In spite of Whitney’s cotton gin,
And steam and rolling mills and iron
And telegraphs and white free labor?
Do you think that Daisy Fraser
Had been put out and driven out
If the canning works had never needed
Her little house and lot?
Or do you think the poker room
Of Johnnie Taylor, and Burchard’s bar
Had been closed up if the money lost
And spent for beer had not been turned,
By closing them, to Thomas Rhodes
For larger sales of shoes and blankets,
And children’s cloaks and gold-oak cradles?
Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth
Which must be propped with gold.

Commentary on “Sersmith the Dentist”

While Sersmith the Dentist no doubt thinks himself a clever fellow as he remarks about the hollow tooth filled up with gold, his quip merely signals the hollow mind of the dentist.

First Movement:  The Rhetorical No

Do you think that odes and sermons,
And the ringing of church bells,
And the blood of old men and young men,
Martyred for the truth they saw
With eyes made bright by faith in God,
Accomplished the world’s great reformations?

First, Sersmith denigrates religion.  His question reveals that he thinks “odes and sermons,” “the ringing of church bells,” and people whose faith brighten their spirit did not, in fact, “accomplish [ ] the world’s great reformations.”  

By forming his deliberations into questions, Sersmith tries to emphasize the resounding “no” that he believes is the correct answer to each query.   In fact, the dentist’s narrow-minded view can easily be refuted by pointing to the meaning of great historical movements:  the birth of each of the world’s five major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam demolishes his putative claims utterly.  

Each religion has had its martyrs and their names live in the hearts of the reformed.  Thus the “no” that Sersmith expects is not forthcoming.  Rhetorical questions can also be employed as weasel questions signaling that the questioner is basically unsure of his stance.  While the effective rhetorical question offers a unique emphasis for its truth, when employed by imbeciles and jerkwaters, the device falls flat.

Second Movement:   Revisionist History

Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Would have been heard if the chattel slave
Had crowned the dominant dollar,
In spite of Whitney’s cotton gin,
And steam and rolling mills and iron
And telegraphs and white free labor?

Sersmith’s second question is merely foolish.  Slavery was abolished primarily because of moral reasons, not economical ones.  Those who take the bash-America-first side always look for ways to malign events that prove otherwise.  

Those who continue to disparage the United States over slavery turn a willful blind eye to the fact that hundreds of thousands of brave men and women died in order to accomplish that feat.  As an educated man, Sersmith should know this historical fact.

Third Movement:   Lack of Credibility

Do you think that Daisy Fraser
Had been put out and driven out
If the canning works had never needed
Her little house and lot?

Sersmith now alludes to the character, “Daisy Fraser,” a prostitute who seems to know all kinds of lurid details about other members of the Spoon River community. Unfortunately, Daisy’s credibility is suspect, and now by associating his lot with hers. Sersmith adds yet another block of incredulity to his stack.  

Fourth Movement:   The Spoonian Evil

Or do you think the poker room
Of Johnnie Taylor, and Burchard’s bar
Had been closed up if the money lost
And spent for beer had not been turned,
By closing them, to Thomas Rhodes
For larger sales of shoes and blankets,
And children’s cloaks and gold-oak cradles?
Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth
Which must be propped with gold.

Beginning to repeat himself, again Sersmith decries the selling off of one establishment in order to benefit another.  He invokes the name, “Thomas Rhodes,” which becomes a spoonian meme for evil.  “Thomas Rhodes” turns up often throughout the Spoon River Anthology, whenever a villain is needed.

Fifth Movement:  The Vacuous Mindset

Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth
Which must be propped with gold.

Sersmith’s final couplet attempts to couple his dental wisdom and his political acumen by likening a “moral truth” to a “hollow tooth” which is filled with gold.  The dentist’s quip is more comical than wise, more pathetic than informative.  Such is the nature of this mindset, forever and anon.

Origin of the “Sexsmith” Error

The title of this Edgar Lee Masters’ epitaph “Sersmith the Dentist” is often misspelled across the Internet as “Sexsmith the Dentist.”  In all published print copies of the Spoon River Anthology in which that epitaph appears, beginning with the 1916 edition published by Macmillan in New York, the spelling is “Sersmith” not “Sexsmith.” 

The “Sexsmith” misspelling appears in a number of contemporary sources, such as a bartleby.com entry from July 1999.  Other current reprints replicate this error, including youtube.  Other errors appear here, here, and here.  Unfortunately, these sites are not the only ones perpetuating this error.

Fraktur:  Possible Reason for the Error

This misspelling likely comes from an optical character recognition (OCR) error in reading the ornate typeset in which the titles were displayed in that early edition of the Spoon River Anthology.

In that first edition in which the Sersmith epitaph appears, titles are displayed in a font called “Fraktur,” which is a typeface style developed in the early 16th century in Germany.

The typeface Fraktur is ornate, rather flowery with curves and spikes, and thus it is highly decorative. It was widely used in German printing until the 20th century. (See image below.)