Edgar Lee Masters – Spoon River Anthology (or excerpts from)

Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology" was published in 1915 (Wilhelm). It is a collection of free-verse first-person monologues by people from a Midwestern town. Although many people questioned Masters' work, they were soon to say how wonderful it was. His collection of the monologues was pretty different from the romantic and sentimental poetry that was popular during this specific time period. Despite these facts, his book sold thousand of copies and it has been made into plays (Wilhelm).

Masters grew up in Petersburg and Lewistown, Illinois (Wilhelm). Masters wanted to become a writer, but his father wanted him to go into law. Masters became a very successful attorney, and he even got to argue some cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. Masters wrote several books, but his "Spoon Rivers Anthology" is the most well known and only literary success (Wilhelm).

Exerts from Masters' "Spoon River Anthology" portray Realism because they tell the everyday lives of everyday people. From one poem called "Lucinda Matlock", which is obviously about a woman named Lucinda Matlock, she says, "I went to the dances at Chandlerville, and played snap-out at Winchester. One time we changed partners, driving home in the moonlight of middle June, and then I found Davis. We were married and lived together for seventy years, enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, eight of whom we lost ere I had reached the age of sixty. I spun, I wove, I kept the house, i nursed the sick, I made the garden, and for holiday rambled over the fields where sang and larks, and by Spoon River gathering many a shell, and many a flower and medicinal weed- shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys. At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all, and passed to a sweet repose. What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, life is too strong for you- it takes life to love Life" (Masters).

This short poem from "Spoon River Anthology" portrays Realism because it tells the everyday life of a woman named Lucinda Matlock. Realism deals with real things that really happen in everyday life. This poem is a great example of Realism because it tells us what Lucinda did for most of her life. The poem is very real because the reader can picture a woman taking care of children and working in a garden and nursing people back to health.

Masters' "Spoon River Anthology" not only portrays Realism, but it also depicts Regionalism. All of the short little poems are from a small town in the Midwestern United States. This is a version of Regionalism because the stories are from a specific region of the world, or United States in this case.

From reading one exert from "Spoon River Anthology" I can tell that it reflects the time period because it takes place during the early 1900's which is when people are starting to really live their lives in the Midwestern United States. People's lives were very folk like, and, like Lucinda Matlock, a lot of women would take care of large families, gardens, and just be a house mother. The short poems can somewhat resemble the American Dream because the American Dream was to move west and make a living, and it seems like these people have already done that.

Works Cited:

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Colombus: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey. "Meet Edgar Lee Masters." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Colombus: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.