Edgar Lee Masters – Spoon River Anthology

I thought that Edgar Lee Masters writing was pretty interesting . I think the reason I like it the most when I was reading some things about him in our book, I realized that there was some pretty cool things about him that I would have never guessed. The one that is the by far the best is, "Edgar Lee Masters was raised in Petersburg, Illinois" (Meet). I live 7 miles from Petersburg, Illinois, I mean that is pretty awesome. Abraham Lincoln lived right around there too, so I bet they probably knew each other. It is amazing the things that I keep learning about the state I live in, and also the town that i live really close to! I also read in the information, that he had a couple of really great writers that were the ones that he said influenced him the most to write. "He read works by Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson.. Those good and talented writers helped him to establish that he wanted to become a writer also" (Meet).

I did not know at first what Spoon River Anthology was, but then when I got to reading I really realized what it was. Spoon River Anthology was not just a story or a poem it was a book of many poems and memoirs of people around that area of the author. I think that this shows us that these poems of the Spoon River Anthology show us a lot of regionalism and a also realism too. I think they show regionalism, because all the poems were about a town that all of the different people were apart of. It also goes into details about some of the deaths of these people in this town. I thought it was cool to see the how he showed all of the townspeople always working together. The time that I saw realism was when the character in the book was talking about how she had raised twelve children and ended up losing eight. "Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, eight of whom we lost" (Masters 516) I thought that this was realism, because she was just being honest and saying how her life really was and the bad things she had went through by losing children. She was just sharing all about her marriage, her kids, and her life and all they go through showing us that they are just everyday people just like everyone else. "I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle- And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, and not a single regret" (Masters 517). I think Edgar Lee Masters ended this poem with a great clip. He ended this with a little clip of realism describing the woman's life. I like how she sad that she had a lot of memories and no regrets. I think that is great, and that is also how life should be.

I think that Edgar Lee Masters works in Spoon River Anthology were pretty good, and writing a book of poems is actually kind of cool. I think that it was also cool that his writings all tied together.

"Meet Edgar Lee Masters." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 514. Print.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 516. Print.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Fiddler Jones." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 517. Print.