There are tons of things Edgar Lee Masters did in his poems

There are tons of things Edgar Lee Masters did in his poems that creates discussion among people, but one of the things that caught my eyes. The most was he talked about religion and sometimes you had to dig deeper to see he was talking about it.He talked about this topic in many of his poems in which he wrote, so even think they are real people, but we are focusing on the religion he used in his poems. We will be discussing why I think Master used religion in so much of his poems.

Masters has written poems about religion and even more in depth. He has written about people who are wanting to meet people on the other side. "Combinations of my imagination drawn from the lives of the faithful and tender-hearted souls whom I had known in my youth about Concord, and whatever on Spoon River they existed"(The Genesis of Spoon River Anthology). What this seems to be saying to me is that Masters has people in his youth who were faithful.

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With him using those words I assume they must have died by that time and I think Masters wants to see them again this particularly sounds like "Blind Jack".

There's a blind man here with a brow

As big and white as a cloud.

And all we fiddlers, from the highest to lowest,

Writers of music and tellers of stories,

Sit at his feet,

And hear him sing of the fall of Troy

What Blind Jack is possibly telling us is that this guy is Homer l, and I assume this must be his idol he wants everything in the world to meet this dude and let him tell his stories about the fall of Troy.

Now, if we think about this, in our own personal lives, we all have someone in our lives whether we admit it or not we want him to see that person again on the other side. So, I particularly think Blind Jack wants to meet this guy that he has most definitely looked up to like I looked up to my past on great grandfather. I believe Masters may have used religion in his poems to make us examine ourselves and make us think how we know we want him I meet are passed on family, friend, or even and idol that we as human beings at this exact moment wanna see those people one day. Maybe we need to examine ourselves and think about this how we would like to see are passed on family, friend, or idols again.

Many authors write many books. Well, that's the case for Edgar Lee Master. He wrote a book called "The Serpent in the Wilderness". Now you may be wondering by now how this relates to Spoon River. Well, there isn't a main connection but the connection I have for you in that Masters just did not write about religion in one specific book or series. He wrote about it in tons of different book and poems. That's where I am getting at with this. Let me give you an example in the poem "Elmer Karr" he states "What but the love of God could have softened / And made forgiving the people of Spoon River"(line 1-2). If you look back in the bible God has forgiven so many people. For example God forgave Adam and Eve for eating the fruit that he strictly told them not to eat. The serpent tricked them into eating that fruit that takes us back to the title of his other book "The Serpent in the Wilderness" and I related that to a poem which was in Master book "Spoon River". Then related that poem to knowledge I already know about the bible. We as humans right now have so many temptations in our lives that we all know we need to get rid of. But in our sake in the poem "Wendell P. Bloyd" he states near the bottom "The reason I believe in God crucified His Own Son / To get out the wretches tangle is, because it / sounds just like him" (21-23). He sent his son to die on a cross for are sins, so we could take the temptations if we really have to. So we have the change in ourselves to let God forgive us or not because he lets us have that decision to make for ourselves we just need to make it. Now why I think Masters may have included religion in to his poems is because he wants us to take the knowledge we already know and put it forth into are lives and know no matter how many temptations we get God will always be there to help us through it.

We all wonder how we can reach heaven , the same for "Judson Stoddard" poem. He states "What does God do with the mountain / that rise almost to heaven" (lines 12-13). This reminds me of a thing that happen in the bible. The people in Genesis wanna build this great city that has a tower which reaches to heaven. But after that God did something so the people would not understand each other. In my own opinion I think God has stopped everything so it will not reach. Same for that mountain in Judson Stoddard poem God wanted to stop that mountain at a very specific spot so it would not reach to the heavens. I think he simply does this because he does not want us to see heaven until we are ready. And so that is why I possibly think he stopped that mountain in this poem so Stoddard could not reach heaven until it was his time to go. So we need to think to ourselves to stop trying to reach something when God is not ready for us to reach that yet. If we add this to our lives right now we need to stop worrying when we are gonna reach a goal or a dream because we need to let God work it out for us when we are ready for that goal or dream to happen in our lives. So we need to let it go and wait until he is ready for it to be presented in our everyday lives. I think Masters added that poem in Spoon River to tell us as people right now and even back then to stop reaching what we can not reach right now and just give it time and you will.

In Masters poems he has tons of reverends and deacons of the church. But I am going to tell you about the poem "Yee Bow". Some people must got her in church represented from the first 2 sentences stating "They got me into the Sunday School / In Spoon River"(1-2). This makes me think of my childhood when I use to be in a Sunday School in my church so I quite related to it alot. Also in Yee Bows poems it talks about some Chinese teaching. It states "And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus"(3). Confucius is a person who believes in teaching about Chinese theorist. As soon as I saw the word confucius I remembers something about teaching. That made me think of when Jesus taught many people in the bible. Now I know he did not teach them Chinese but just the word confucius made me think of teaching so that is why I thought of Jesus and his teaching to people. So if we relate this to our lives maybe we need to start teaching people about religion. That is what I think Masters wants us to do with him using religion so much in his poems is for us to teach about religion.

In conclusion, Masters used religion in his poems to teach us what we need to do in our lives and other lives back then. We talked about four main points in which why I think masters may have included religion in his poems. First, we discussed that we need to remembers are family, friend, or idols that have passed before us and how we would like to see them again some day. Secondly, we need to remember no matter how many time we have temptations in our lives God will always be by your side in each minute of the day. Thirdly, we need to stop rushing God's master plan for us and let him take his time and give us it when he believes we need it even if that mean waiting to get to heaven. And Lastly, we need to teach more about him even when we are young and are in Sunday School. I think we need to apply these thing to are lives to make us better human and mostly to make us better Christians and religious. He never really came out and told is this stuff but like I said before if you dig deeper you can get relations or knowledge you know from this so we can build are lives to make us more religious in our day lives.