Spoon River Anthology: An Annotated Edition - Softcover

Edgar Lee Masters

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252063635 ISBN 13: 9780252063633

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1993

Synopsis

One of the most striking and original achievements in American poetry is now available in a remarkable edition that comprehends the poet and his book in an entirely new way. This edition of Spoon River Anthology probes the social background of the smalltown world that Edgar Lee Masters loved and hated--and finally transmuted into powerful literary art. Extensive annotations identify the people whose lives inspired the 243 poetic accounts of frustration, violence, struggle, and triumph that once shocked American readers. The most extraordinary feature of this edition is the extensive introduction that provides the key to this misunderstood American classic. The book's relationship to Whitman is clearly established, and the important influences of Browning, Goethe, Spinoza, and others are revealed for the first time. John Hallwas's approach combines cultural, biographical, philosophical, psychoanalytic, mythic, and symbolic insights--and concludes with a stunning reassessment of "Our New Poet." The annotated Spoon River Anthology supersedes 75 years of largely misdirected critical commentary. It will send a new generation of readers back to this surprisingly complex book that probes so deeply into the American consciousness--and will send Masters back into our national anthologies.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This first illustrated, annotated version of the American classic was highly praised when it was first released, as much for John Hallwas's insightful introduction as for the work of Edgar Lee Masters.

About the Author:

Edgar Lee Masters was born in 1868 in Garnett, Kansas. He achieved fame in 1915 with the publication of Spoon River Anthology. Though he never matched the success of Spoon River Anthology, Masters was a prolific writer of diverse works. He published several volumes of poems including The Great Valley (1916), Along the Illinois (1942), The Serpent in the Wilderness (1933), and Invisible Landscapes (1935). In the 1940s he was awarded the Poetry Society of America medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. Edgar Lee Masters died in Melrose, Pennsylvania, in 1950 and is buried in Petersburg, Illinois.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0252063635
• ISBN 13: 9780252063633
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464
• Editor: John E. Hallwas