When Life Shuts Doors, Death Opens Windows: Oxymoronic (Re) Presentation of Death in Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology

Abstract

The mystery of death still remains uncovered in human cultures. However, many believe death is continuity of life. The artistic (re)presentation of death in American poetry sparks off interest in this study. Interestingly, a well-known “death” poetess Emily Dickinson, in her versatile depictions of death, paradoxically was able to establish it as an initiation into immortality. However, no poet was known to offer such contradictory perspective of death as Edgar Lee Masters. His Spoon River Anthology’s epitaphs offer room to construe life in a small community as shutting its inhabitants’ mouths whereas death opens it for them to “finally” express themselves. Through an African reader perspective with multiple colonial minds, this study digs for meaning(s) of a life under pressure in a liberator death environment.