"Spoon River Anthology"

The two excerpts that I read from Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology were “Lucinda Matlock” and “Fiddler Jones.” The poem “Lucinda Matlock” was about an outgoing woman who went to parties in her younger years, who met her husband whom she settled down with for the rest of her life. She enjoyed the simple things in life and died contentedly. “Fiddler Jones” was about a man who knew how to play the fiddle so he was always playing at parties and get-togethers. Everything he did reminded him on the dances he played at; the rustling of dry leaves remind him of the movement of a certain girl, “Red Head Sammy,” dancing or how the wind tousling the corn in the fields reminds him of the dancing and rustling of a girls skirt at a dance. He was always willing to join in on a good time.

From reading just these two poems from Spoon River Anthology, I got the impression that his philosophies might be similar to the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau. I make the connection between their writings because, for one, in “Lucinda Matlock,” towards the end of the poem the narrator refers to the children of the next generation as “degenerate sons and daughters” (Masters 516). This idea that the new generation is becoming distanced from where they are supposed to be is an idea shared by Thoreau. Thoreau believed that Americans had lost sight of what was really important in their pursuit of material gain and wealth (Grant 2). This claim could be easily backed up by the fact that Thoreau thought that the only way to real meaning is a better “relationship” with nature and in the poem Lucinda was said to have gone out to the fields frequently and singing to the forest (Masters 16). This close connection with nature brought Lucinda to the conclusion that it was the way to find true happiness just like Thoreau did.

Grant, P. B. "Individual and Society in Walden." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed. Encyclopedia of
Themes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Masters, Edgar Lee. "Spoon River Anthology" Glencoe Literature. By Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Douglas Fisher, Beverly Ann. Chin, and Jacqueline Jones. Royster. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. 516-517. Print.