Spoon River Anthology

A master poet and popular realist writer, Edgar Lee Masters wrote Spoon River Anthology which most consider to be his magnum opus. The poem displays several typical realist traits, among them the American Hero and dream, and paints a convincing portrait of the society of the area and the mentality of the people residing there. Using a simplistic style and monologues from several different characters Masters crafts an enticing piece that successfully portrays a realistic work on the life and mannerisms of an entire town through his masterful poem.

Realism is defined as "denotes the idea of a narrative reflecting accurately the world around the writer and the lives of the people in that world—a reality taken to be self-evident and available through looking and listening and then recording the world as it is (Maunder.)" Through Masters use of plain language and several lifelike characters that express their own opinions, and emotions on matters Masters is able to convey a startlingly realistic piece with heavy emphasis on individual thought process that reveals much about the small community through the thought process of the entire town through individual thought processes. The sociology of the town is revealed by pieceing together excerpts from individuals through the story with use of lines like, "

One died in shameful child-birth,
One of a thwarted love,
One at the hands of a brute in a brothel
One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire,
One after life in far-away London and Paris
Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag—
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill"

Using his simplistic style of writing as evidenced his place as a realistic writer can not be questioned and through his use of plain language that the everyman can understand he made his work accessible to all audiences. He did not use dialect and speech patterns specific to a certain region, Illinois in this case, that would have alienated other readers and appealed to a narrower audiences instead taking the everyman route and not giving any characters speech differentiations instead aiming for a realistic take on the people giving them human emotions, wants, needs, and thought processes similar to those of everyone in the world. With his common thematic elements similar to other realistic works Masters was able to artfully weave in the lives and thoughts of the characters in his epic poem and seamlessly interweave them into the thought process of the entire town and reveal it as a society and the thought process and mentality of the entire society through exploration of key characters who were central to the exploration of the common man, whom Masters based his characters off of. His inspirations came from real people and thusly the characters on the pages are fleshed out to seem like real people a common element in realism that cements his epic work Spoon River Anthology as a realist work and seat Masters as a King among Realist writers.

Maunder, Andrew. "realism." Facts On File Companion to the British Short Story. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CBSS456&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 15, 2011).

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Spoon Rivers Anthology." Bartleby: Great Books Online. 2011. Online. http://www.bartleby.com/84/index.html. February 15, 2011.