Born in Spencer, Indiana, Moody attended Harvard University before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago. His early poetry, modeled largely on the Elizabethan poets and John Milton, concentrated primarily on personal themes. But probably under the influence of Hamlin Garland, Moody became passionately interested in political and social issues. His "Gloucester Moors" (1900) displays fine lyric power informing a profound social vision. After writing other poems protesting U.S. imperialism, Moody turned to verse drama, succeeding with his plays, The Great Divide (1909) and The Faith Healer (1909). His poetry represents a transition from nineteenth-century verse to the… twentieth-century work of Edward Arlington Robinson and Robert Frost.