Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
246 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago -Two hundred and twelve residents of a small town tell their stories without fear of recrimination or ridicule. The only difference is that they're all dead! The two hundred and forty-four poems that form the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters is really a series of epitaphs about the citizens of a fictional town called Spoon River and deals with the “plain and simple annals” of small town America.
Edgar Lee Masters grew up in a small town in Illinois. His father's financial problems forced the young Masters to abandon ideas of college and take up a job instead. Though he continued to study privately, he was compelled to work on a series of dull and uninspiring jobs. Finally, he completed his education in law and set up a law practice in Chicago. His firm did extremely well. For nearly a decade, one of his partners was the legendary lawyer, Clarence Darrow. However, Masters secretly nursed literary ambitions and his first book of verse and several essays were published under the pseudonym of Dexter Wallace. He initially considered writing a novel about his early experiences, but soon gave up the idea.
From 1914, he began publishing a series of poems based on his experiences in Lewistown, Illinois, where he spent his childhood. These were published in a St Louis magazine, under another fictitious name, Webster Ford. Finally, in 1915, the entire collection was compiled into a single volume entitled the Spoon River Anthology. In 1930, Masters wrote The Genesis of Spoon River, in which he describes the book's background, its concerns, the conditions in which he wrote and also how it was received by readers. This autobiographical companion piece provides wonderful insight into the workings of the creative mind and is itself a document of great human interest. It allows the reader to have a glimpse of the great humane thinker and compassionate mind that created the Spoon River Anthology.
The book was an instant bestseller and found an immediate echo in the hearts of millions of readers from small rural towns and remote little settlements all over America. The poems provide a rare and unconventional view of small town life and shatter quite a few myths that romanticize such an existence. The poems are in free style and the brilliant imagery and evocative turns of phrase make each one of them memorable. Another interesting thing about Spoon River Anthology is that the poems are like separate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and the reader can put events together to make up the larger picture.
Though Masters wrote several more poems, novels and biographies, none became so popular or well-known as the Spoon River Anthology.
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Episodes
005 – Robert Fulton Tanner
December 29, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
006 – Cassius Hueffer
December 28, 2023 00:00 - 56 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
007 – Serepta Mason
December 27, 2023 00:00 - 53 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
008 – Amanda Barker
December 26, 2023 00:00 - 54 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
009 – Constance Hately
December 25, 2023 00:00 - 46 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
011 – Harry Carey Goodhue
December 23, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
014 – Benjamin Pantier
December 20, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
015 – Mrs. Benjamin Pantier
December 19, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
018 – Trainor, the Druggist
December 16, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
020 – Benjamin Fraser
December 14, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
022 – ‘Indignation’ Jones
December 12, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
026 – Knowlt Hoheimer
December 08, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
027 – Lydia Puckett
December 07, 2023 00:00 - 33 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
028 – Frank Drummer
December 06, 2023 00:00 - 55 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
032 – Andy the Night-Watch
December 02, 2023 00:00 - 58 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
034 – Percy Bysshe Shelley
November 30, 2023 00:00 - 51 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
035 – Flossie Cabanis
November 29, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
038 – Charlie French
November 26, 2023 00:00 - 57 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
040 – Theodore the Poet
November 24, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
041 – The Town Marshal
November 23, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
044 – Nicholas Bindle
November 20, 2023 00:00 - 54 seconds - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
045 – Jacob Goodpasture
November 19, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
047 – Margaret Fuller Slack
November 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
049 – Dr Siegfried Iseman
November 15, 2023 00:00 - 1 minute - 977 KBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com