Edgar Lee Masters’ “Julia Miller” from Spoon River Anthology is an American sonnet, also called Innovative sonnet, with its movements vaguely echoing the Italian form as practiced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
First Movement: “We quarreled that morning”
In Masters’ first movement, which corresponds to the first octave quatrain of the Italian sonnet, the speaker begins cryptically by asserting, “[w]e quarreled that morning.” She then reveals that it is an old man with whom she has quarreled, “[f]or he was sixty-five, and I was thirty.” But she seems not to want to reveal too much too soon.
Julia, however, continues to disclose that she is “heavy with child,” and that she was not happy about giving birth to this child. At this point, the reader might assume that she is an unwed woman and has quarreled with her father.
Second Movement: “I thought over the last letter written me”
The second movement, which echoes the second quatrain in the octave of the Italian sonnet, unlocks the mystery that Julia has been slowly narrating. She avers that she had been thinking about “the last letter written me” by a young man, whom she describes as “that estranged young soul.”
It turns out that Julia married the old man, with whom she has just quarreled, to cover up the fact that this “estranged young soul” had impregnated her and then deserted her. Had she admitted to the old man her true reason for becoming his wife? She allows the listener only to speculate.
Third Movement: “Then I took morphine and sat down to read”
The third movement then takes its form from the first tercet of the sextet of the Italian sonnet form. Julia reports that she has taken morphine “and sat down to read.” She is committing suicide, and as she waits for death, she sees “the flickering light of these words.” And she asserts that even after death, she still sees those words.
Fourth Movement: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily”
The final movement, which completes the Italianesque echo of the second tercet of the sextet, features the Bible verse with which Julia Miller leaves this world: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily / I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt / Be with me in paradise”—the implication is that Julia feels rather optimistic about her journey after death.
Commentary
One might speculate that Masters wanted to infuse certain narrators with a more poetic spirit than others; thus, he employs certain poetic forms to reveal those individuals. “Julia Miller” is one of those chosen few.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
