University of Baghdad
College of Arts
Department of English
LAW IN AMERICAN POETRY: A STUDY IN THE POETRY
OF EDGAR LEE MASTERS, CHARLES REZNIKOFF,
LAWRENCE JOSEPH, AND MARTIN ESPADA
AS REPRESENTATIVE LAWYER-POETS
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE COUNCIL OF COLLEGE OF ARTS,
UNIVERSITY OF BAGHDAD, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF
PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
BY
WASAN HASHIM IBRAHIM
SUPERVISED BY
PROF AMY A. SEQUEIRA, PhD
April 2018 Sha’ban 1439
ب ِْس ِم ه ِ
اَّلل هالر ْ َْح ِن هالر ِح ِي
النساء ()58
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To my late Grandfather,
The Judge, and Law Abider,
The Poetry Reciter
Anwar Yakta Mustafa,
in whose life Law and Poetry meet and mingle as the
breath of love, imagination, and creativity
TO All the SOULS
who fight for a better world,
free of injustices and discrimination,
and who advocate equity and empathy
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and greatest debt to
my supervisor, Prof. Amy Sequeira, PhD, for her scholarly guidance, insightful
comments, support, and the countless hours she spent reading and commenting
on the drafts of this dissertation, without which this study would not have been
accomplished in its final form.
I am greatly indebted to the great and honorable professors of PhD
courses: Prof Amy Sequeira, PhD, Prof Munthir A. Sabi, PhD, Prof Sabah
Attallah Diyaiy, PhD, and Prof Lubna Riyadh Abdul Jabbar, PhD, for their
invaluable efforts.
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the lawyer-poet, Lawrence
Joseph, who, in spite of his busy hours, finds time to answer my emails and to
provide me with various sources on his poetry.
I am deeply grateful to the Associate Prof Christina G. Bucher, from Berry
College, Georgia, for her critical comments, and support in sending me sources.
Special words of thanks go to my PhD colleagues, especially Marwa
Ghazi, and Najwa Abdul Kareem for their support, and Maysaloon Khalid for
her help to get online access to important libraries, journals, and articles.
I am profoundly grateful for the love, and support of my parents and
sisters who encouraged and supported me all the time.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband, Mohammed, and my
kids, Sama, Mustafa, Shahd, and Malek, for believing in me, and for their
continued helpful, patient, and enthusiastic support.
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ABSTRACT
Throughout the ages, poetry and law shared a close interrelation between
each other. The European heritage of the Greek philosophers, and the law-
related poems and other works of the British poets and writers, established a
unique and an instrumental foundation for the eminence of law and poetry in
American literature. Lawyers, who are attracted by this affinity, find in poetry a
powerful voice to fight injustices, and to advocate human rights and dignity. It is
historically deemed that the true man of law has poetic gifts and whose pleading
is instilled with rhetoric to achieve persuasion, leading to unanimity among the
juries. Reciting legal cases in poems written by lawyer-poets makes their poetry
more authentic and accurate, as they have the authority to convey legal facts out
of their own experiences that come from their reading of the kept-on-shelf legal
records, and their talks in the corridors of courts and behind the courts’ closed
portals.
The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between law and
poetry and to examine the law-related poems in the poetry of four American
lawyer-poets from diverse cultural ethnicities, namely Edgar Lee Masters (1868-
1950), Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976), Lawrence Joseph (1948- ), and Martin
Espada (1957- ). The study is divided into five chapters and a conclusion.
Chapter One is an introduction, and it includes two sections. Section
One is concerned with defining poetry, law, and the law-related poems. The
section also presents a survey of the most influential European heritage in this
concern. Section Two focuses on the American law and literature movement,
and explores selected poems written by American lawyer-poets.
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Chapter Two deals with the mainstream American lawyer-poet, Edgar
Lee Masters. The chapter is divided into two sections. Section One introduces
the influences that affected Masters’ poetry, his adherence to legal realism, and
his revolt against the village that represents the background setting to most of his
poems, and which is wrongfully thought to be a simplistic and unsophisticated
place. Section Two discusses selected poems from his most famous collection of
poetry: Spoon River Anthology (1915), where his clients are the dead villagers
whose death grants them the immunity to confess their secrets in poetic epitaphs,
seeking for justice and the rest for their souls.
Chapter Three introduces the American (son of Russian-immigrants)
lawyer-poet, Charles Reznikoff. The chapter consists of two sections. The first
one studies the literary and legal influences on Reznikoff’s poetry, and his
contributions as a member in the objectivists’ school of poetry. The section also
discusses the concept of the poetry of witness, and the documentation method.
The second section depicts Reznikoff’s preoccupation with the poor, the
workers, childhood abuse, marital problems, and African-Americans through
selected poems from his collection of poetry: Testimony: The United States
(1885-1915): Recitative (1965), which presents, in an extensive use of scenes,
things, places, and the Napoleonic-code, poems based on actual court records.
Chapter Four tackles the Arab-American lawyer-poet, Lawrence Joseph.
The chapter is divided into two sections. Section One is dedicated to the
influences on the poetry of Joseph and his concepts of law and poetry presented
in his essays that have contributed in developing the law and literature
movement. The section also concentrates on his anti-violence, anti-
discrimination, anti-terrorism, and anti-war attitude. Section Two studies
selected poems from his collections of poetry: Shouting at No One (1983),
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Curriculum Vitae (1988), Before Our Eyes (1993), all published later in one
volume entitled Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos: Poems 1973–1993
(2005), Into It (2005) and So Where Are We? (2017). As a witness from the heart
of events and a victim of violence and racial discrimination, the poet narrates,
via his poems, stories of violence through images of brutality, degeneration, and
death that occurred in his hometown, Detroit, later in New York, and in different
countries in the world.
Chapter Five is devoted to the Latino-American lawyer-poet, Martin
Espada. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first section sheds light on
the influences on Espada that created out of him an advocate of the powerless,
the poor, the working class, and the rebels. It also exposes the history of the
Puerto Rican struggle against colonialism, injustice, and marginalization. The
second section portrays Espada’s advocacy and rebellion against poverty,
depravation, discrimination, injustices, hard labor, eviction, terrorism, and wars
in selected poems from his collections of poetry: Trumpets from the Island of
Their Eviction (1987), Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990), City of
Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993), Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996), A
Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (2000), Alabanza: New and Selected
Poems, 1982–2002 (2003), Republic of Poetry (2006), and Vivas to Those Who
Have Failed (2016).
The conclusion sums up the findings of the study.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Subject Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………. vi
ABSTRACT..………………………………………………… vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………… x
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Poetry and Law ……………………………………….. 1
1.1.i. Mutual Relation …………………….…………… 1
1.1.ii. Classical European Heritage …………………… 10
1.2. American Law and Literature Movement and the
American Lawyer- 31
Poets……………………………..………………
NOTES………………………………………………………….. 50
CHAPTER TWO: EDGAR LEE MASTERS
2.1. Edgar Lee Masters: Life and Influences …………………... 68
2.2. Legal Cases in Spoon River Anthology ……………………... 92
NOTES…………………………………………………………….. 123
CHAPTER THREE: CHARLES REZNIKOFF
3.1. Charles Reznikoff: Life and Influences ……………………. 137
3.2. Legal Testimonies in Testimony: The United States, 1885–
1915: Recitative ……………………………………………..
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166
NOTES………………………………………………………….... 192
CHAPTER FOUR: LAWRENCE JOSEPH
4.1. Lawrence Joseph: Life and Influences ……………………….. 205
4.2. Law and Violence in Lawrence Joseph’s Selected Poems 221
…….
NOTES……………………………………………………………….. 256
CHAPTER FIVE: MARTIN ESPADA
5.1. Martin Espada: Life and Influences 266
…………………………...
5.2. Legal Advocacy and Political Resistance in Martin Espada’s
Selected Poems …………………………………………………. 291
NOTES……………………………………….………...…………….. 326
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………… 340
BIBLIOGRAPHY...………………………………………………… 343
ABSTRACT IN ARABIC….……………………………..………. ج-ب
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