Spoon River Anthology

A CLASSIC IN AMERICAN POETRY... WhenSpoon River Anthologywas published in 1915 it garnered immediate national attention for its truth and its shocking transgression of societal mores. A collection of poems from the graveyard of a rural Illinois town,Spoon River Anthologypoignantly captures the politics, love, betrayals, alliances, hopes, and failures of this small American town. Here is the respected doctor, jailed for swindling; here is the chaste wife, rapt with desire; here is the pastor, angry and resentful; here is the quiet man, filled with unrequited love and devotion. Beneath the midwestern values of honesty, community, family, hard work, and chastity,Spoon River Anthologyreveals the disillusionment and corruption in modern life.With the publication ofSpoon River AnthologyMasters exploded the powerful myth that small-town America was a social utopia. Here for the first time was a community that people recognized in its wholeness and complexity. Comprised of distinctly modern poems that collectively read as a novel,Spoon River Anthologyis the story of a quiet midwestern town whose truths and contradictions are celebrated by its dead.Masters, Edgar Lee is the author of 'Spoon River Anthology', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743255073 and ISBN 0743255070.