The speaker in Edgar Lee Masters’ “Dr. Siegfried Iseman” from Spoon River Anthology is a disgraced physician who goes to imprison for peddling a concoction he called the “Elixir of Youth.”
First Movement: “I said when they handed me my diploma”
Dr. Iseman begins his confessional by recalling that at the beginning of his entry into the profession of medicine, he promised to be a good, Christian doctor. He intended to be “good / And wise and brave and helpful to others.”
Even as he was “handed” his diploma, these promises he mouthed to himself. Interestingly, because the doctor had only silently “said” these things, there is, conveniently, no witness to his testimony.
Second Movement: “Somehow the world and the other doctors”
Siegfried then philosophically laments that making such a “high-souled resolution” opened him to the fraud, greed, and graft of “the world and the other doctors.” Completely without substantial support for the claim, he decries the fact that they all “know” what is the heart of the man of good intentions. But this kind of conclusion is necessary when a scoundrel needs to justify his own improprieties.
Third Movement: “And the way of it is they starve you out”
Because Siegfried had made a pledge to himself to be good and noble, he became a victim of the other doctors who were not bound by such high-souled intentions. They were free to “starve [him] out.”
Because only the poor came to Dr. Iseman, he found that he could not thrive financially as the others did. His lack of financial success ultimately led him to believe that “being a doctor / Is just a way of making a living.” And he learned this lesson “too late”—this is, too late to change his good intentions and begin acting unconscionably as the others had.
Fourth Movement: “And when you are poor and have to carry”
Poor Siegfried, who remained poor, despite his medical practice became burdened by his “Christian creed” as well as by a “wife and children.” With such heavy responsibilities “on [his] back,” he exclaims, “it is too much!”
Fifth Movement: “That’s why I made the Elixir of Youth”
Siegfried finally reveals that he concocted “the Elixir of Youth,” and that concoction “landed [him] in jail in Peoria.” His reputation was ruined, and he was “[b]randed a swindler and a crook.” He sarcastically blames “the upright Federal Judge” for his predicament.
Dr. Siegfried Iseman’s testimony from the grave resembles so many other Spoon River deceased, who excuse their own behavior by claiming themselves victims of someone else.
Sources:
- Edgar Lee Masters, "Dr. Siegfried Iseman," Spoon River Anthology, bartleby.com
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
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