Anaphora is the repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or sentences. Note, for example, the repetition in "The Hill" of one at the beginning of lines in the first and third stanzas, the repetition of and in the fifth and sixth stanzas, and the repetition of nor lines and of lines in the last stanza..
The theme of Spoon River Anthology is that residents of America's small towns have provocative secrets to tell about themselves or others—secrets which, for the most part, the residents wish to keep hidden during their lifetimes. The residents of Spoon River decide to reveal their secrets from the grave. Many of the secrets center on unseemly, shocking, disappointing, hypocritical, or tragic developments; others focus on little incidents that reveal a good or bad quality of themselves or someone else.
Still others present an overview of the corruption in the town, as in the following monologue by the town prostitute. Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received For supporting candidates for office? Or for writing up the canning factory To get people to invest?
Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. But I—Daisy Fraser who always passed Along the streets through rows of nods and smiles, Other Themes.
The individual poems each have their own themes, such as frustrated ambition, loneliness, and racial prejudice. Attitude of the Speakers. With a few exceptions, the attitude of most of the speakers in the poems is somber, bitter, complaining, or regretful.
Need help with Shakespeare? Click here for Study Guides on the Complete Works. From the dust I lift a voice of protest: My flowering side you never saw! The speaker uses a metaphor, comparing herself to a flower, to present a complaint against the townspeople. Because they were ignorant of "the ways of the wind" line 7 and of "the unseen forces" line 8 in life, they saw only her ill-favored side—with its "stunted petals" line 2 —not her beautiful side.
Serepta may be making excuses for not having the wherewithal to promote her good side, or she may be lodging a legitimate complaint against the "fools" of Spoon River. Whatever the case, she is a bitter woman. The White men played all sorts of jokes on me. One time I entered my blacksmith shop And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling Across the floor, as if alive— Walter Simmons had put a magnet Shack Dye, a black man, says his Spoon River neighbors played many practical jokes on him.
But he was aware of what motivated their shenanigans: racial prejudice. Dye well knew their inmost feelings even though they would not own up to them or perhaps were not fully aware of them. Consequently, in his eyes, they were the fools. The last line seems to say that it was Shack Dye's blacksmith business that kept Spoon River's horses—and commerce—moving. He was the backbone of the town. Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium!
But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! You do not need to speak— Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst, Mabel Osborne compares herself to a geranium thirsting for water.
But no one gives it the water necessary to nourish it. Osborne, of course, sought love and attention while living in Spoon River. She received neither and thus lived a lonely life. Now she is eternally lonely, lying in a grave beneath the geranium that everyone ignores.
Lines 2 and 3, as well as lines 9 and 10, contain anaphora. Lines 16 and 17 contain a simile: "You who knew and saw me perish before you, like this geranium.
Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain— Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory.
O wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone! For worse than the anger of the wronged, The circuit judge admits that he was dishonest, making unjust decisions that wronged many people.
He now realizes that even Hod Putt, a murderer that he sentenced to hang, was a better man than he was. Now his guilt and remorse are eating away at him, like the wind and rain that erode his gravestone and slowly erase the memory of him.
Circuit Judge : Judge who travels from county to county in a particular area to hear cases beyond the jurisdiction of local judges. Nemesis : In Greek mythology, the goddess of justice and vengeance.
In modern usage, it often refers to someone who causes another's defeat or downfall. Abner Peet. I had no objection at all To selling my household effects at auction On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance To get something which had belonged to me But that trunk which was struck off To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts Of a lifetime of sermons? The Rev. Peet assumes that the townsfolk value his memory, as lines 4 and 5 suggest. Apparently, in his will, he directed that his "household effects" line 2 be sold at auction. But Burchard the barkeeper thinks little of his sermons. To prevent others from preserving copies of them, he buys a trunk containing the copies, then burns them.
Perhaps the good reverend had too high an opinion of himself. Or perhaps he did not know when to shut up. Peet's sermons lasted for more than an hour. When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me I went to Springfield. There I met a lush, Whose father just deceased left him a fortune. He married me when drunk. My life was wretched. A year passed and one day they found him dead. I moved on to Chicago. After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate Went mad about me—so another fortune. He died one night right in my arms, you know. There was almost a scandal. I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman, Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich. I wed Count Navigato, native of Genoa. We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think. The speaker has a miserable life with the wealthy "lush" line 2 in Springfield, Illinois. So one day she murders him and inherits his fortune.
She relocates to Chicago, but has no luck with the villainous Tyler Rountree. Next, she moves to New York. There, an older man—also wealthy—falls for her and marries her. She murders him, too, and thus enlarges her fortune. After marrying an Italian count named Navigato, she moves to Rome with him. But this time he strikes first, poisoning her and apparently inheriting her fortune.
After her death, the Italians erected a memorial to her on which were chiseled these words: Contessa Navigato Implora eterna quiete.
It presents a paradox, asking for eternal rest for a woman who is restless. Campo Santo : Italian for holy field Implora eterna quiete : Entreat eternal rest; rest in peace. In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, And now another is watching Spoon River As others watched before me. The speaker was a night watchman who, with his dog and lantern, made the rounds in Spoon River to make sure everything was all right.
Now, however, as he lies at eternal rest under the ground, another watchman has taken his place, just as he took the place of watchmen who came before him.
No one needs to watch over him—or Doc Hill, who lies with him in the Spoon River cemetery—because no one wishes to confront death. The speaker represents continuity and the passage of time, as well as the fearsome mystery of death. Note the use of anaphora in the phrases and clauses beginning with and.
I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to be reaching the heights of art And to breathe the air that the masters breathed, And to see the world with their eyes. And what could I do, all covered over And weighted down with western soil, Except aspire, and pray for another Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River Archibald Higbie blames Spoon River for his shortcomings as an artist.
The community lacked culture and therefore held him back, he says. But many great American artists painters, sculptors, writers, etc. Among them were John James Audubon , a naturalist painter who grew up in small towns in Haiti and France before migrating to the United States when he was eighteen; Thomas Hart Benton , a regionalist painter who grew up in Neosho, Missouri; and Frederic Remington , an abstract artist who grew up in Canton, New York.
Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter; So I traveled all the way to Washington. I was more than an hour finding the White House.
And when I found it they turned me away, Hiding their smiles. Then I thought And when he saw me he broke in a laugh, And dropped his business as president, In some cases, Masters barely changed their names. Henry Phipps was really banker Henry Phelps. Harry Wilmans was Henry Wilmans. In a few instances, he used real names, such as William H. Meant to be read as a novel, the reader is required to piece together narratives from single lines and fragments contained in individual poems.
Minerva Jones tells us she was raped by Butch Weldy and died during an abortion. The book was a literary sensation and huge commercial success.
Such a writer and book are realized here. Ready to say what he has to say, and shut up when he [has] said it. Back in Lewistown, however, the villagers were not so enthusiastic.
Although the book was not available in the area, some found a way to obtain a secret copy, which they talked about only in whispers. He was admitted to the bar in and left Lewistown to build a law practice in Chicago. In his off time, he wrote poetry and plays with little success. With the success of Spoon River Anthology , Masters left his law practice to write full time and moved to New York in Although he would write more than 50 books, including novels, plays, poetry, and biographies of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln, he never equaled the success he had with Spoon River Anthology.
The wounds have healed in Lewistown as successive generations joined their family and friends on The Hill. Masters and Spoon River Anthology are now celebrated throughout the year in Lewistown.
0コメント