Spoon River Anthology

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Spoon River Anthology (1915), by Edgar Lee Masters, is a collection of unusual, short, free-form poems that collectively describe the life of the fictional small town of Spoon River, named after the real Spoon River that ran near Masters' hometown. The collection includes two hundred and twelve separate characters, all providing two-hundred forty-four soliloquies.

Each poem is an epitaph of a dead citizen, delivered by the dead themselves. They speak about the sorts of things one might expect. Some recite their histories and turning points, others make observations of life from the outside, and petty ones complain of the treatment of their graves, while few tell how they really died. Speaking without reason to lie or fear of the consequences, they construct a picture of life in their town that's shorn of all facades. The interplay of various villagers — e.g. a bright and successful man crediting his parents for all he's accomplished, and an old woman weeping because he is secretly her illegitimate child — forms a gripping, if not pretty, whole.

The subject of afterlife receives only the occasional brief mention, and even those seem to be contradictory.

The work features such characters as Tom Merritt, Amos Sibley, Carl Hamblin, Fiddler Jones and A.D. Blood. Many of the characters that make appearances in Spoon River Anthology were based on real people that Masters knew or heard of in the two towns in which he grew up, Petersburg and Lewistown, Illinois. Most notable is Ann Rutledge, regarded in local legend to be Abraham Lincoln's early love interest though there is no actual proof of such a relationship. Rutledge's grave can still be found in a Petersburg cemetery, and a tour of graveyards in both towns reveals most of the surnames that Masters applied to his characters.

Other local legends assert that Masters' fictional portrayal of local residents, often in unflattering lights, created a lot of embarrassment and aggravation in his hometowns. This is offered as an explanation for why he chose not to settle down in Lewistown or Petersburg later in his adult life; though, this too lacks actual proof.

[edit] Adaptations

• In 1943, the book was published in Italy during fascism, and had an enormous success.
• On June 2, 1957, the CBS Radio Network broadcast a radio adaptation of Spoon River Anthology, "Epitaphs," as part of its CBS Radio Workshop series. The adaptation was directed and narrated by William Conrad, with a cast including Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, Parley Baer, Richard Crenna, John Dehner and John McIntire.
• In 1963, Charles Aidman adapted Spoon River Anthology into a theater production that is still widely performed today.
• The 1971 Fabrizio De André album Non al denaro, non all'amore né al cielo was inspired by Spoon River Anthology.
• In 1987 the Spanish writer Jon Juaristi wrote a poem entitled Spoon River, Euskadi (included in his book Suma de varia intención) to denounce the crimes of the Basque terrorist group ETA.
• In 2000, alt-country singer Richard Buckner adapted parts of the Spoon River Anthology for his album The Hill.

[edit] External links

• Spoon River Anthology at Bartleby.com
• Spoon River Anthology, available freely at Project Gutenberg