 Spoon River Anthology

 The poems are remarkable for the breadth of personalities and the honesty with which they speak. All the poems were written in free verse, which puts them outside the scope of this “formalist” anthology.

 Born in Garnett, Kansas  August 23, 1868  Hardin W. Masters and Emma Dexter  Petersburg, Illinois  Poet and author  Chicago, Illinois  Died in 1950

inspiration Greek Epigrams (antologia palatina) 1s person monologues Features: brevity, irony, objectivity plan Write about the inhabitants of a small country as to turn their life in a sort of “epic representation of modern life” result 1915, Edgar Lee Maters published The Spoon River Anthology, a book of 244 poems spoken by the deceased residents of Spoon River (a rural area in Illinois) from their graves on “the hill”. “Real People”

 The whole of a society which people recognized  Chaucer  244 poems (epitaphs)  Every walk of life  Microcosm

 Hypocrisy of social conventions  Frustrated aspirations  Ironic contrast between reputation and reality  Remembrance of the civil war and of an epic contrast far superior to the corrupt present  Love in all its expressions with its expectations and disappointments  Search for success and fear of failure  Rebellion and dissatisfaction  Futility of life  *time and memory

 In form and in content  In the dismissal of any idyllic, rural community  An outlet to his own indignation about the hypocrisy, the perverted puritanism, the respectability, the hidden sexual transgressions, perversions and tragedies that the previous writers had ignored  A message of love and faith in the simple and humble souls, who, in the end, succeed in triumphing over life

 The Spoon River Anthology  The original work was published as a serialized version in  In the Anthology, the dead in an Illinois graveyard relay, in matter- of-fact but haunting tones, details from their lives. The Anthology was original, provocative and influentual. Its literary significance has been compared with Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass [published in 1855].  Masters wove a thread of partial reality throughout the Anthology. Many of the characters and their experiences can be identified with former residents of Lewistown and Petersburg, Illinois. Masters' used his childhood experiences in these two communities, as a basis for the poems.

 Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology was an immediate commercial success when it was published in Unconventional in both style and content, it shattered the myths of small town American life. A collection of epitaphs of residents of a small town, a full understanding of Spoon River requires the reader to piece together narratives from fragments contained in individual poems.