Thoughts of Spoon River

There can be no mistaking Edgar Lee Masters’ intention with the first poem of ‘ Spoon River Anthology ’ – we, the reader, are to be introduced to as wide a range of characters as the poem’s structure deems practicable. These characters, and their fates, are clearly meant to be representative of what is to come in the next 243 poems of the Anthology. Being the introductory poem to an Anthology such as this, it is appropriate to introduce the rather unique setting, its significance being that, for many of the characters, it is the only place from which they could possibly feel free enough to speak. Some, we know, would never have spoken quite so openly before taking up their place on the hill – the embarrassed Zenas Witt , for instance, who would stammer his lessons and forget all he had studied, could never have spoken as eloquently if not lying in his grave, finally free of his nerves. The Hill , then, is the graveyard of the small town of Spoon River. Masters lays out his free-...