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Spoon River Anthology
“Doc Hill” by Edgar Lee Masters is a poem in which the speaker, Doc Hill, delivers his message to the reader after his death. His marriage fails and his son chooses a questionable path in life,...
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Spoon River Anthology
Fiddler Jones notes that even within the earth there are vibrations, which I take to mean rhythm. While others farm or raise cattle, Fiddler Jones is constantly distracted by musical images in...
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Spoon River Anthology
Masters does not seem to want his readers to view Mrs. Kessler as either a busybody or a nice woman. She obviously holds some disdain for her husband because she mentions that while he gossips or...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Edgar Lee's Masters' Spoon River Anthology, the author uses a variety of literary devices. In "Hod Putt," the author lets Putt tell his story as it relates to Bill Piersol, the man buried next...
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Spoon River Anthology
As you've discovered, there aren't any really clear markers as to what and who she is referring to. That's part of the charm of the piece, especially to actors, who get to fill in the cracks when...
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Spoon River Anthology
You're asking about a collection of almost 250 poems, so I can only give you a smattering of examples of metaphors--comparisons that do not use the word "like" or "as." Poem 3: Ollie McGee But...
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Spoon River Anthology
Poor Pauline Barrett had an operation from which she never really recovered. Ten years after her marriage, she feels herself to be half dead, not fully alive any more, with no vitality, no passion,...
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Spoon River Anthology
The irony presented in this poem is situational irony. Situational irony is when something happens in a narrative that is very different or opposite from the expected outcome. In the poem "Julia...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Spoon River Anthology Benjamin Fraser is the son of Daisy Fraser and Benjamin Pantier. Both parents were embittered outcasts in Spoon River. Daisy was evidently a prostitute, and Benjamin...
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Spoon River Anthology
Benjamin Pantier Theme of the poem: A formerly ambitious attorney is defeated by life and ends up a lonely alcoholic with no other companion but his dog. He loved a woman, his wife, whom he accuses...
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Spoon River Anthology
The major theme in these poems is the commitment of marriage. Roscoe Purkaphile was never keen on the idea of being married, but eventually resigned himself to it. Mrs. Purkaphile, however, took...
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Spoon River Anthology
Each of the poems in Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology is told from the perspective of a ghost. The ghosts, former residents of the small, fictional town of Spoon River, reveal much about...
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Spoon River Anthology
Harold Arnett's epitaph in Spoon River Anthology summarizes the last few moments of his life. He perceives himself as a "failure" - he doesn't go into detail as to why he thinks this of himself,...
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Spoon River Anthology
Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters, is a fascinating collection of poems written as if they were the last testament of the dead citizens of Spoon River. In his piece, Barry Holden begins...
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Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology contains a number of poems about the make-believe people of Spoon River. Poem 110 is entitled "Hamilton Greene." Although his precise age is not given, we...
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Spoon River Anthology
“Jefferson Howard” tells of the life of its eponym, spoken by him from his grave in Spoon River. Howard laments dying alone, after supporting a family, a burden that was “heavy to carry --/Yet...
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Spoon River Anthology
Lillian Stewart introduces herself as "the daughter of Lambert Hutchins." We know then, right away, that her life has been defined by him and his legacy. Lillian was "born in a cottage near the...
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Spoon River Anthology
In his youth, Lucius was a good-looking ladies' man. His whole existence was in putting an attractive appearance forward for the sole purpose of impressing and seducing young ladies. He earned...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Line 5 of "Aner Clute" from Spoon River Anthology, Aner discusses how no matter where she goes, people ask her how she ended up leading the life (becoming a prostitute). Aner tells her...
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Spoon River Anthology
In the poem "Jacob Goodpasture" by Edgar Lee Masters, we hear the voice of an old father mourning the loss of his soldier son. At the opening of the poem, Goodpasture mentions Fort Sumter and "the...
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Spoon River Anthology
One idea to keep in mind when you're reading Spoon River is that it is a Modern American work; so you will often recognize the theme or elements of disillusionment with life, especially with...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Poem 88 of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, we hear the voice of Mrs. Charles Bliss, a woman who wants to divorce her husband but who is advised against it by her preacher and a judge....
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Spoon River Anthology
Lucinda Matlock's epitaph is quite positive. She notes how she met her husband and that they lived together for 70 years. Despite the fact that eight of her twelve children died before she reached...
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Spoon River Anthology
Masters' views certainly do come out in different manifestations in different poems in this anthology. But one thing to remember is that this is what we might call a "social realist" work. In other...
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Spoon River Anthology
Dramatic Monologue reveals the character of every speaker in this poetry anthology. In dramatic monologue, one person speaks his/her thoughts aloud and through what he/she says (or sometimes...
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Spoon River Anthology
Homer Clapp and Lucius Atherton both court Aner Clute. Aner Clute goes out with Homer Clapp but rebuffs his advances, preferring the attentions of Lucius Atherton, who is handsome and a dandy and...
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Spoon River Anthology
In poem 21 of Edgar Lee Masters' collection Spoon River Anthology, Minerva Jones speaks to the reader from her grave. Minerva, the village poet, is ridiculed by the town because she is disabled....
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Spoon River Anthology
Henry Phipps's story is one with which many people, particularly in contemporary America, can probably identify: someone who spent his life making a lot of money for other people, though this deed...
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Spoon River Anthology
"The eternal destiny of life" is death - no one can escape this inevitable end to life. Arnett sees his life as filled with failures, perhaps climaxed by the burning potatoes on the stove near the...
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Spoon River Anthology
I regard this poem as more philosophically existential than the others; it does not reflect on a life that was lived and the errors that were made, as the others do, but instead on the meaning of...
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Spoon River Anthology
Butch Weldy was absolutely not living the American Dream. His attempt to utilize freedom to achieve happiness and success ended up in crime, lies, and personal tragedy for himself. In his...
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Spoon River Anthology
Masters' Spoon River Anthology has a piece entitled, "Oaks Tutt." However there is no mention of his death in this piece or anywhere else in the anthology. Oaks Tutt's mother was a suffragette, it...
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Spoon River Anthology
Madam Lou's is a brothel, and Rosie Roberts is one of the prostitutes who works there. I'm not sure who the "son of a merchant prince" is, but he was one of her customers who became angry when she...
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Spoon River Anthology
Let's look first at the overall theme of James Garber's poem. He is a man ruminating over how brief and unsatisfying life has proven to be. This poem may be the most existential in the series, in...
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Spoon River Anthology
Trainor the druggist's take on the ill-starred marriage of the Pantiers tells us more about him than it does about them. Trainor is an eccentric druggist whose expertise in chemistry enables him to...
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Spoon River Anthology
“Knowlt Hoheimer” and “Godwin James” present very different viewpoints on war. In “Knowlt Hoheimer” we have a character who joined the army during the Civil War to avoid legal trouble. After he is...
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Spoon River Anthology
These poems are all epitaphs; they are all spoken by the dead themselves. Many of them are gloomy. This one is no exception. Lambert notes that, in addition to his tombstone (the granite obelisk),...
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Spoon River Anthology
Henry C. Calhoun is the son of Granville Calhoun, who speaks in the previous poem. Granville had been the County Judge for many years, and wanted to be elected one more time so that he could "round...
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Spoon River Anthology
John Cabanis is a political leader. Whereas many of the sonnets are of an emotional or intimate nature, Cabanis' speak from a political frame of reference. His leadership of the liberal party...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Russell Kincaid's epitaph, (this is Russell speaking from beyond the grave) he recalls the last spring season he experienced when he was alive. He describes a "forsaken orchard" in which he saw...
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Spoon River Anthology
In Edgar Lee Masters's opus Spoon River Anthology, each character is sketched out in short first person poems that express how they should be remembered. In the case of Harmon Whitney, it is...
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Spoon River Anthology
I love Spoon River Anthology and have used bits of it several times in my classes. Mrs. Williams, as you say, was the town milliner, or hatmaker. She was also the mother of Dora Williams, another...
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Spoon River Anthology
She ends up "wasting her life," as you put it, because of one error in judgment that marks her for life. In the poem, she claims that people asked her the same question you do: Over and over they...
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Spoon River Anthology
The poem "Lucinda Matlock" comes from early twentieth-century American poet Edgar Lee Masters's collection called Spoon River Anthology. Each of the poems in Masters's work is spoken by a person...
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Spoon River Anthology
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters captures the spirit of a fictional community through linked poems told in the voices of its residents as they speak from beyond the grave. To understand...
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Spoon River Anthology
I'm not sure that anyone knows with certainty. It has been suggested that she was Lincoln's first love, and that her early death (she was 22) left him depressed. The poem is thought to be a...
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Spoon River Anthology
"Father Malloy" is one of the few poems in Spoon River Anthology that is not narrated in the first person by its central character. As a result, the use of detail by the poem's unnamed narrator...
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Spoon River Anthology
Chandler Nicholas is a meticulous person who takes good care of his health and appearance, but he regrets his lonely life, as he has no one “to take delight” in these things. He is also fond of...
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Spoon River Anthology
Masters' Spoon River Anthology, a collection of poems written from the dead's point of view, illustrates the poet's worldview. 1. Almost all of the "epitaphs" in Spoon River demonstrate Masters'...
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Spoon River Anthology
One must first consider what Zenas's problem is: I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams, And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness. And I couldn't remember the books I read... And...
