Elizabeth Madox Roberts
Encyclopedia
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
novelist and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, primarily known for her novels and stories about the Kentucky mountain people
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, including The Time of Man (1926), The Great Meadow (1930) and A Buried Treasure (1931). All of her writings are characterized by her distinct, rhythmic prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
. While she was a major influence on Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
and a contemporary of the Southern Renaissance
Southern Renaissance
The Southern Renaissance was the reinvigoration of American Southern literature that began in the 1920s and 1930s with the appearance of writers such as William Faulkner, Caroline Gordon, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Katherine Anne Porter, Allen Tate, Tennessee Williams, and Robert Penn Warren, among...
writers, Roberts has been neglected by critics in recent years.
Life
Born in Perryville, KentuckyPerryville, Kentucky
Perryville is a historical city in western Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 763 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
, on October 30, 1881, Roberts grew up and spent most of her adult life in nearby Springfield, Kentucky
Springfield, Kentucky
Springfield is a city in and county seat of Washington County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,634 at the 2000 census. It was established in 1793 and probably named for springs in the area.-Geography:...
. She was the second of eight children born to Simpson Roberts and Mary Elizabeth Brent Roberts, a Confederate
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
soldier turned engineer and a school teacher. Roberts attended high school in Covington, Kentucky
Covington, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 43,370 people, 18,257 households, and 10,132 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,301.3 people per square mile . There were 20,448 housing units at an average density of 1,556.5 per square mile...
, before enrolling briefly at the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
(then the State College of Kentucky) in 1900 but was forced to drop out after one semester on account of her poor health. For the next ten years, Roberts taught elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
in the Springfield area with her mother.
In 1910 she went to live for several years with her sister in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and it was here that she contributed several poems to a little book of photographs of mountain flowers which would become her first published work. (In the Great Steep's Garden, privately printed, 1915). On the recommendation of a professor friend, Roberts enrolled as a freshman at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
at the age of 36 in 1917, avidly studying literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and fulfilling a lifelong dream of acquiring a college education. At the University of Chicago, she joined the poetry club which included Glenway Wescott
Glenway Wescott
Glenway Wescott was a major American novelist during the 1920-1940 period and a figure in the American expatriate literary community in Paris during the 1920s. Wescott was gay. His relationship with longtime companion Monroe Wheeler lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death.-Biography:Wescott was...
, Yvor Winters
Yvor Winters
Arthur Yvor Winters was an American poet and literary critic.-As modernist:Winters's early poetry, which appeared in small avant-garde magazines alongside work by writers like James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, was written in the modernist idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American...
and Janet Lewis
Janet Lewis
Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters...
forming friendships and professional relationships which proved useful throughout her life. She graduated with honors in 1921 and was awarded the Fiske Prize for a group of poems she wrote which went on to be published as Under the Tree in 1922. After completing her education, Roberts returned to Springfield, Kentucky, where she would spend much of the rest of her life.
The success of Under the Tree led Roberts to write her first novel, The Time of Man (1926), about the daughter of a Kentucky tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
, which garnered her an international reputation. She went on to write several more successful and critically acclaimed novels throughout the 20s and 30s, including The Great Meadow (1930), a historical novel about the early settling of Kentucky, and A Buried Treasure about a rural Kentucky farm family who find a pot of gold. Roberts was diagnosed with terminal Hodgkin's disease in 1936. After this blow, Roberts began spending her winters in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, however she always returned to Springfield for the warmer months as she considered Kentucky to be her true home. Her public recognition was solidified by several major prizes she won toward the end of her life, including the John Reed Memorial Prize in 1928, an O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
in 1930, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina's prize in 1931.
Roberts died in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
in 1941 and was returned home to Springfield for her burial.