1. Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
A collection of epitaphs which creates a fictional community through the short dramatic monologues spoken by its deceased inhabitants. The volume, first printed in 1915, was both praised and condemned.

2. The epitaphs speak for the deceased, asking the passerby to “stop, look, and listen.”
To contemplate for a moment something of the life of the deceased.
The epitaphs vary in rhetorical mode but include confession, plea, ironic narrative, and wide-reaching parable.

3. Definition of EPITAPH
: an inscription on a grave stone in memory of the one buried there : a brief statement commemorating a deceased person or something past