From School Library Journal
YA-- A richly annotated edition resuscitates a fading American classic. Because Hallivas's pithy introduction adds both perspective and gossipy detail, YAs will enjoy learning about the individual struggles of the 244 characters who speak from the cemetery on "the hill." Secondary teachers will find this a useful tool for preparing character sketches, thanks to the lively, specific annotations naming names: who rejected whom; who challenged whom, both physically and politically--and it is all expertly researched. The microcosm of Spoon River comes alive with its central conflicts of agrarian traditionist v. temperance and abolitionist activism. From the grave, the hard-drinking, roughly hewn frontiersmen challenge the do-good social reformers, reenacting the struggle the 19th-century midwestern push kindled: would any government law prohibiting drinking or slavery impress these strong individual-rights townspeople? They offer their own answers as Masters intended, but they offer the responses against a tapestry of detail the editor provides. Hallivas's cogent essay traces the philosophical influences that marked Masters's works: Spinoza, Goethe, and especially Whitman. The inclusion of several photographs of the characters who speak adds important visual detail.- Margaret Nolan, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VACopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Tombstones, as the man who carved them says he learned over the years, are a form of false history. In this 1915 collection, Edgar Lee Masters tells the stories of the dead--through their own posthumous words--in the fictional town of Spoon River. The stories are well told and often harsh, as the dead of Spoon River carry their anger and grievances to their graves. Masters portrays a town filled with injustice, corruption, and cruelty, an inverse to the idyllic community of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The cast of 50, headed by Patrick Fraley and Edward Asner, is well matched to the many characters in this excellent production. J.A.S. 2003 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

ANNOTATION

A notorious success when it was first published in 1915, this collection of dramatic monologues by over 200 former inhabitants of the fictional town of Spoon River topples the myth of moral superiority in small-town America, as the dead give testimony to their shocking scandals and secret tragedies.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

FROM THE CRITICS

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