Madison Cawein
Encyclopedia
Madison Cawein was a poet from Louisville, Kentucky
.
on March 23, 1865, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child.
After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write.
His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley
and John Keats
. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month.
In 1912 Cawein was forced to sell his Old Louisville home, St James Court (a -story brick house built in 1901, which he had purchased in 1907), as well as some of his library, after losing money in the 1912 stock market crash. In 1914 the Authors Club of New York City placed him on their relief list. He died on December 8 later that year and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.
as an editor. Scholars have identified this poem as an inspiration to T. S. Eliot
's poem The Waste Land
, published in 1922 and considered the birth of modernism
in poetry.
The link between his work and Eliot's was pointed out by Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott in The Times Literary Supplement
in 1995. The following year Bevis Hillier
drew more comparisons in The Spectator
(London) with other poems by Cawein; he compared Cawein's lines "...come and go/Around its ancient portico" with Eliot's "...come and go/talking of Michelangelo."
Cawein's "Waste Land" appeared in the January 1913 issue of Chicago
magazine Poetry (which also contained an article by Ezra Pound
on London poets).
Cawein's poetry allied his love of nature with a devotion to earlier English and European literature, mythology, and classical allusion. This certainly encompassed much of T. S. Eliot's own interest, but whereas Eliot was also seeking a modern language and form, Cawein strove to maintain a traditional approach. Although he gained an international reputation, he has been eclipsed as the genre of poetry in which he worked became increasingly outmoded.
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
.
Biography
Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, KentuckyLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
on March 23, 1865, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child.
After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write.
His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
and John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month.
In 1912 Cawein was forced to sell his Old Louisville home, St James Court (a -story brick house built in 1901, which he had purchased in 1907), as well as some of his library, after losing money in the 1912 stock market crash. In 1914 the Authors Club of New York City placed him on their relief list. He died on December 8 later that year and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.
Influence
In 1913, a year before his death, Cawein published a poem called "Waste Land" in a Chicago magazine which included Ezra PoundEzra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
as an editor. Scholars have identified this poem as an inspiration to T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's poem The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
, published in 1922 and considered the birth of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
in poetry.
The link between his work and Eliot's was pointed out by Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
in 1995. The following year Bevis Hillier
Bevis Hillier
Bevis Hillier is an English art historian, author and journalist. He has written on Art Deco, and also a biography of Sir John Betjeman.-Life and work:...
drew more comparisons in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
(London) with other poems by Cawein; he compared Cawein's lines "...come and go/Around its ancient portico" with Eliot's "...come and go/talking of Michelangelo."
Cawein's "Waste Land" appeared in the January 1913 issue of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
magazine Poetry (which also contained an article by Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
on London poets).
Cawein's poetry allied his love of nature with a devotion to earlier English and European literature, mythology, and classical allusion. This certainly encompassed much of T. S. Eliot's own interest, but whereas Eliot was also seeking a modern language and form, Cawein strove to maintain a traditional approach. Although he gained an international reputation, he has been eclipsed as the genre of poetry in which he worked became increasingly outmoded.
Volumes of Poetry
- Blooms of the Berry, J. P. Morton (Louisville, KY), 1887.
- The Triumph of Music and Other Lyrics, J. P. Morton, 1888.
- Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems, J. P. Morton, 1889.
- Lyrics and Idyls, J. P. Morton, 1890.
- Days and Dreams: Poems, Putnam (New York and London), 1891.
- Moods and Memories: Poems, Putnam, 1892.
- Red Leaves and Roses: Poems, Putnam, 1893.
- Poems of Nature and Love, Putnam, 1893.
- Intimations of the Beautiful, and Poems, Putnam, 1894.
- The White Snake and Other Poems, Translated from the German into the Original Meters, J. P. Morton, 1895.
- Undertones, Copeland & Day (Boston), 1896.
- The Garden of Dreams, J. P. Morton, 1896.
- Shapes and Shadows: Poems, R. H. Russell (New York, NY), 1898.
- Idyllic Monologues: Old and New World Verses, J. P. Morton, 1898.
- Myth and Romance, Being a Book of Verse, Putnam, 1899.
- One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue, Badger (Boston), 1901.
- Weeds by the Wall: Verses, J. P. Morton, 1901.
- Kentucky Poems, Dutton (New York, NY), 1902.
- A Voice on the Wind and Other Poems, J. P. Morton, 1902.
- The Vale of Tempe: Poems, Dutton, 1905.
- Nature-Notes and Impressions, Dutton, 1906.
- The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volumes 1–5. Small, Maynard (Boston), 1907.
- An Ode Read August 15, 1907, at the Dedication of the Monument Erected at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in Commemoration of the Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in the Year Sixteen Hundred and Twenty-Three, J. P. Morton, 1908.
- New Poems, Grant Richards (London), 1909.
- The Giant and the Star: Little Annals in Rhyme, Small, Maynard, 1909.
- The Shadow Garden (A Phantasy) and Other Plays, Putnam, 1910.
- Poems by Madison Cawein, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1911.
- The Poet, the Fool and the Faeries, Small, Maynard, 1912.
- The Republic, A Little Book of Homespun Verse, Stewart & Kidd (Cincinnati), 1913.
- Minions of the Moon: A Little Book of Song and Story, Stewart & Kidd, 1913.
- The Poet and Nature and the Morning Road, J. P. Morton, 1914.
- The Cup of Comus: Fact and Fancy, Cameo Press (New York, NY), 1915.
Brochures
- Let Us Do the Best We Can, P.F. Volland (Chicago), 1909.
- So Many Ways, P. F. Volland, 1911.
- The Message of the Lilies, P. F. Volland, 1913.
- Christmas Rose and Leaf, Forest Craft Guild (New York), 1913.
- Whatever the Path, Forest Craft Guild, 1913.
- The Days of Used to Be, Forest Craft Guild, 1913.
Anthology Contributions
- Library of Southern Literature, edited by Edwin Anderson Alderman and Joel Chandler Harris, Martin & Hoyt (New Orleans), 1907
- Modern American Poetry: A Critical Anthology, 4th revised edition, edited by Louis Untermeyer, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1930.