Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

The innovative free verse collection of small-town life that made Edgar Lee Masters a legend

A literary sensation when it appeared in 1915, Spoon River Anthology earned Edgar Lee Masters comparisons to T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman. The characters who speak here tarnish the pure image of their Midwestern hamlet by holding forth from the grave with tales of illicit love affairs, betrayed confidences, political corruption, and miserable marriages. The first serious work of psychological naturalism, this artful indictment of small-town hypocrisy influenced Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, and other luminaries.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780143105152
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 04/29/2008
Series: Penguin Classics Series
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 435,674
Product dimensions: 5.15(w) x 7.72(h) x 0.66(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Edgar Lee Masters was born in 1868 in Garnett, Kansas, and was raised in several small towns in Illinois. He long harbored literary ambitions but was trained as a lawyer, and practiced for several years in Chicago with Clarence Darrow. Using a variety of pseudonyms to avoid possible damage to his law practice, Masters began to publish poetry in magazines. By 1915 he had published four books of poetry, seven plays, and a collection of essays, but none of them had received much critical attention. Masters then began to experiment with poetic form, bringing to life the sort of people he had known in his Midwestern childhood. The result was Spoon River Anthology, which mixed classical and innovative forms to create a work that critics both praised and scorned for its forthrightness and originality. The book experienced great critical and popular success, and influenced a generation of writers. Although Masters published a sequel to the book and many more workshe never succeeded in producing another volume to match his masterpiece. He died in 1950.

Read an Excerpt

Spoon River Anthology

The Hill

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in a jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

 

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?—All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire, One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution?—All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

 

They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying—All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

 

Where is Old Fiddle: Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.

All new material in this edition copyright © 1996 by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

Table of Contents

Spoon River AnthologyIntroduction by Jerome Loving
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text

Spoon River Anthology

Explanatory Notes

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