ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS

by Angela Strunk

Preservation Kentucky by artists, journalists, poets, and novelists has not been an easy task. However, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, using her unique style, worked diligently to preserve Kentucky and her life in her poems, short stories, and novels. Her Kentucky home and her style were the most important aspects of her twenty year literary career.

Biographical Information

Roberts was born in Perryville, Kentucky, in the section known as "Pigeon Roost" country on October 30th. The year of her birth date has been a controversy, until recently settled. Some recorded her birth year as 1881 and others as 1886. Her nephew, William R. Roberts said that conference director Dr. William H. Slavick, a native Tennessean who teaches at the University of Southern Maine, came to Kentucky to learn the accurate year. "He found the 19th century census records at the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort that proved Roberts was, indeed, born in 1881" (Edwards F6).

During her childhood in Springfield, Kentucky, she announced, "I am a poet" (Rovit 304). Yet, she did not let anyone, including her poet father, read any of her many poems or essays. She attended high school in Covington, Kentucky. And in 1990, attended the University of Kentucky, but withdrew because of an illness. Between 1900 and 1914, she taught in small public and private county schools in Kentucky. But once again, illnesses, tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments, forced her to resign. With this, she "stayed" in her sister's and brother's Colorado homes to recuperate. While there she had In the Great Steep's Garden poems to accompany photographs of mountain flowers by Kenneth Hartley, published.

Then, at the age of 36, Roberts enrolled as a freshman at the University of Chicago where her writing abilities were recognized. Her poems were printed in University magazines, "Poetry," and other small magazines. She was inducted into the prestigious honorary Ph Beta Kappa, and became president of the Poetry club her senior year. After four years, in June 1921, Roberts earned a bachelor of Philosophy degree in English with Honors. Also, she was awarded the Fiske Poetry Prize of the University of Chicago. Returning to her Kentucky home, she began to write. Within the next year Under the Tree, a collection of childhood "vignettes," was published. At this time, she knew her novels could become her most efficient records of her own experiences (Rovit 305). Undoubtedly, recording her life events, whether physical or psychological, became a part of her style.

With Roberts' next publication, The Time of Man (1926), she gained an international reputation. By 1939, her book was published in England, and translated into Swedish, German, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, and French languages (McDowell 18). In the following years, she had other books published: My Heart and My Flesh (1927), Jingling in the Wind (1928), the Great Meadow (1930), A buried Treasure (1931), The Haunted Mirror (1932), He Sent Forth a Raven (1935), and Black is My True Love's Hair (1938).

Along with the numerous publications, Roberts received many outstanding awards. Her other passion, which provided release from writing, was weaving. Still, her life was not rewarding enough for she was very ill. As a matter of fact, in 1931, she began treatments for skin ailments; in 1934, she had throat surgery, and in 1936, she was diagnosed with the fatal Hodgkin's disease. Her disease caused her to go into a coma. Four years later, she died in Orlando, Florida on March 13, 1941. She was brought home to Springfield, Kentucky, to be buried.

Kentucky and Style

Roberts stayed in and visited many places in her lifetime. Most winters of her later life, she stayed in Florida, while always returning home for the warm seasons. Yet, she claims, she has only "lived" in Springfield, Kentucky, regardless of the years she spent elsewhere. "Her love of Kentucky ancestry, old tales--all were mingled and played an integral part in her writing" (Browning 260). An illustration of how she portrayed her life and love of Kentucky in her writing is "On the Mountainside," a short story published in The Haunted Mirror.

The story is about Newt Reddix, a young man traveling to another county to go to school because the teacher in his hometown has to leave. On his long rough journey over the setting of Kentucky mountains and ridges, he stays in the house of a couple who welcomes travelers. During the very night he stays there, an elderly stranger also stays there. Reddix informs them of his plans. The old man, in contrast, feels like "a plumb traitor" to his God because he left the mountains. Then he says: "I reckon you relish learnen, young man, and take a delight in hit, and set a heap of story by the settle-ments. but the places you knowed when you was a little tad, they won't go outen your remembrance. Your insides is made that way, and made outen what you did when you was a shirt-tail boy, and you'll find it's so. Your dreams of a night and all you pine to see will go back. You won't get shed so easy of hit. You won't get shed" (23).

In my opinion, "On a Mountainside" comes from Roberts life. The old man represents her ready to go to her home in Kentucky. Reddix represents her readers. Through the old man she advised Reddix as her readers to go get whatever they want in life, but their dreams will be of where they were raised. Furthermore, "home is where the heart is." Roberts' heart was in Kentucky, her home. And as already mentioned, she used her Kentucky life as part of her distinct style. Dayton Kohler in Browning's Kentucky Authors agreeably explained, "Her novels, as well as her life, were devoted to the full understanding of a region (Kentucky). . ."(Browning 260).

Although Roberts' style was unconscious, it was of utmost importance. Roberts was quoted by Rena Niles as saying, "Literature, to survive, must have style, and that the lack of style is one of the most serious faults of contemporary American writing."

Elizabeth Madox Roberts, a great writer, has not had ample or proper recognition. A young writer could profit from using her work as an example, and taking her advise to use style. and according to Roberts, "The only way to develop style is to read the great writers, past and present, and to read as many languages as possible." Therefore, an individual could begin to become a great writer by reading one of her various selections. Anyone can lose himself or herself in Roberts' Kentucky home and enjoy her lively style.

Browning, Sister Mary Carmel. Kentucky Authors. 175th ann. ed. Indiana: Keller-Crescent, 1968: 260-266.

Edwards, Don. "Elizabeth Madox Roberts, The Novelist who was Ever a Poet, is Dead." The Courier Journal. 14 Mar 1941: sec.2,7.

McDowell, Federick P. W. Elizabeth Madox Roberts. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963.

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox. "On the Mountainside." The Haunted Mirrors. New York: The Viking Press, 1932: 3-25.

Rovit, Earl H. "Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Kentucky Novelist." The Filson Club History Quarterly. vol. 33: 304-309.