Spoon River Anthology

Edgar Lee Masters grew up in Petersburg, Illinois and the small town city environment influenced his writing of the Spoon River Anthology (Masters 514). As he was growing up, Masters read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Dickens (Masters 514). Reading some of the epitaphs in Spoon River, I can detect some Emerson in the passages. In "The Village Atheist", the atheist read "the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus", but just because it was in writing, does not mean that it is true ("The Village Atheist"). Emerson also had that philosophy regarding writing on paper. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, Ralph Waldo Emerson was not on board (Hawthorne). Emerson believed that just because a piece of paper said people were free, they were not free. He thought that being free was a "mindset" and that individuals became free when they lived their lives as though they had been liberated (Hawthorne). The Spoon River Anthology reminds me of the Canterbury Tales. Both tales have many parts telling about different characters. While the Canterbury Tales involved stories told to others for entertainment, Spoon River Anthology involved a town of people telling their first person "epitaphs" ("Table of Contents") ("The Canterbury Tales"). Masters' Spoon River is a gossipy kind of tale when the members of the town called Spoon River told of the town gossip and did not keep any secrets to themselves ("Table of Contents "). The Canterbury Tales contained stories about different people and a certain event in their life with increased bragging or intensity as the people telling the tales tried to "one up" the previous person ("The Canterbury Tales").

The Spoon River Anthology was the first of its kind in America as other literature of the time period involved romantic, touchy feely, and sentimental writing (Masters 514). That is what made the book so popular when it was published. Some critics went as far as saying that Edgar Lee Masters was "America's first poet" as the book was told in first person free verse poems (Masters 514).



Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Canterbury Tales." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

Hawthorne, Julian. "Emerson as an American." In The Genius and Character of Emerson. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1885. Quoted as "Emerson as an American." in Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 28 Feb. 2012.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Before You Read." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 514. Print.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "The Spoon River Anthology Table of Contents." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "The Village Atheist." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.