Elements of Literature Course 5

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When I first came to Spoon River
I did not know whether what they told me
Was true or false.
They would bring me the epitaph
And stand around the shop while I worked
And say “He was so kind,” “He was wonderful,”
“She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a
consistent Christian.”
And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,
All in ignorance of its truth.
But later, as I lived among the people here,
I knew how near to the life
Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as
they died.
But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel
And made myself party to the false chronicles°
Of the stones,
Even as the historian does who writes
Without knowing the truth,
Or because he is influenced to hide it.

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After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still and seemed to heave,
And I shot up as the tank exploded,
And down I came with both legs broken
And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs,
For someone left a blow-fire going,
And something sucked the flame in the
tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
Old Rhodes’ son didn’t have to pay me.
And I sat on the witness stand as blind
20 As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over,
“I didn’t know him at all.”

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The earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves° hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;°
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill—only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That someone did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
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.

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Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel—
Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens—
But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Ballades° by the score with the same old thought:
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
And what is love but a rose that fades?
Life all around me here in the village:
Tragedy, comedy, valor and truth,
Courage, constancy, heroism, failure—
All in the loom, and oh what patterns!
Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers—
Blind to all of it all my life long.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics,
While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines.

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To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.
It may serve a turn in your life.
My husband had nothing to do
5 With the fall of the bank—he was only cashier.
The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,
And his vain, unscrupulous son.
Yet my husband was sent to prison,
And I was left with the children,
10 To feed and clothe and school them.
And I did it, and sent them forth
Into the world all clean and strong,
And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet:
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”

1. Think of the people you know in your own town or neighborhood. Compared with them, do these Spoon River characters sound real to you? Cite reasons to support your responses.
2. What does Richard Bone, the stone carver, come to realize about the people of Spoon River? What does he come to realize about himself?
3. How does Butch Weldy feel about the accident that ruined his life? What is the tone of his epitaph?
4. How does Fiddler Jones feel about his life? Cite passages from the poem to support your interpretation.
5. Appropriately, Petit, the poet, uses metaphors to talk about his experiences. In lines 1–3, what is he comparing his own poetry to? How does this small-town poet feel about his work—and why does he mention Homer and Whitman at the end of his epitaph?
6. Summarize Mrs. George Reece’s advice. Do you think her husband would have agreed with her? Explain.
7. What significance can you find in some of the names that Masters gave his characters?
8. Compare the ways any two of these Spoon River speakers feel about life. Consider their feelings about their own work, their attitudes toward other people, and their responses to chance or fate.
9. If you had the chance, how would you reply to these speakers of Spoon River Anthology?
10. In what ways do the speakers’ feelings—such as Bone’s remorse or Petit’s regrets—suggest universal themes? What experiences in today’s world might produce a contemporary Butch Weldy, Fiddler Jones, or Mrs. George Reece?

A good focus for an interpretive essay is the writer's tone. Tone refers to the writer's attitude toward his or her subject. Tone can be ironic, sentimental, critical, admiring, condescending, and so on. read each Spoon River poem several times. Pay particular attention to word choice. How do you think Masters himself feels about each speaker? Cite specific details from the poems to support your interpretation.

In a brief essay, tell what the five Spoon River poems in this text say about life in a Midwestern American town in the early twentieth century. Consider the values of the people, their hopes and dreams, their problems, and their sense of community. What beliefs and experiences , in your opinion, make Masters's characters especially American?

The entire Spoon River anthology has been performed onstage, with several actors taking the parts of the speakers. Prepare these five poems for a performance of your own. The performers' first task is to analyze each character: What is this person's attitude toward life? What tone of voice would he or she speak in? You might wish to include music in your performance and to dress your speakers in some kind of costume (perhaps they could all dress in black). You might also add other Spoon Riverites to your performance.