Spoon River Anthology is a dark look at small town life in the early 1920s.

Spoon River Anthology was written by Edgar Lee Masters in 1914 and 1915. The Anthology is composed of poetry written as monologues using flatly realistic and ironic free verse. These monologues are spoken by the dead in a mid-western cemetery. The stories focus on the inner lives of even the violent and the sexually maladjusted. Masters wrote these monologues analyzing not just one individual who was trapped and defeated, but a deeply interrelated community of people. It became his interpretation of members of his family and friends or people he had come in contact with as a child and young man. These stories are based on two Illinois communities where the poet grew up: Petersburg on the Sangamon River in Menard County and Lewistown forty miles further north near the spoon river in Fulton County. In 1914 Masters began a series of poems about his boyhood experiences in western Illinois. He was published in Reedy’s Mirror under the pseudonym Webster Ford. After a few months William Marion Reedy (owner of the paper) wrote the first evaluation of Spoon River in Reedy’s Mirror before it was even finished. He revealed the true identity of Webster Ford asserting that Spoon River was in fact a “great work of literary art.” His review of the anthology helped create an enthusiastic readership for the book to be. Spoon River Anthology was published in 1915 and became his most famous book. Of the 22 volumes of poetry that followed Spoon River Anthology the only one that was well received was its continuation, The New Spoon River.

Although Spoon River was not performed very often during the 20s and 30s, it is still very relevant to the time period, as it represents what many small towns were like during that time. The rumors, the secrets, the inner lives of the inhabitants are all apparent through Masters monologues. Spoon River works to sustain that life has significance, because despite humanities predicament, these individuals struggle for self realization and successful or not they learn from their experiences.

Sources:

Spoon RIver Anthology (an annotated edition)Edgar Lee Masters.

edited by John E. Hallwas