Madison Cawein

Martin Kich (Wright State University)
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Madison Cawein’s ambition was to become one of the great lyric poets of the United States, if not of the English-speaking world. Today, he is largely forgotten. When he is remembered, it is for one of three reasons. First, Cawein is associated with the Midwest regionalism of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries—that is, with the quaint regionalism of James Whitcomb Riley that pre-dated the much more critical regionalism of Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis. Second, Cawein produced a group of lyrics treating the Arthurian myths that provide a roughly contemporaneous American complement to Tennyson’s

Idylls of the King

. Lastly, Cawein produced a doleful lyric called “The Waste Land” that probably served as a source for T.S. Eliot’s much longer, more…

2850 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "Madison Cawein". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 March 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=800, accessed 19 March 2024.]

800 Madison Cawein 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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