Tag: Spoon River Anthology

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Doc Hill”

Doc Hill was spurned by his wife and apparently also by his lackluster son.  The sad physician turned to healing the sick to find an outlet for his love and affection.

Introduction and Text of “Doc Hill”

The 13-line epitaph “Doc Hill” from Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, Spoon River Anthology features the pathetic character of a town doctor who basically lived his life through the people he cared for in his medical practice.  Like many of the other graveyard complaining epitaphs, Doc Hill’s is full of pathos and self-pity.  

But while apparently erasing from memory his own family, the physician does hold special regard for the many mourners who attended his funeral.  He especially entertained deep sorrow, however, for one Spoon River resident, Em Stanton. 

Although the doc does not elaborate upon his relationship with Em Stanton, his reticence allows his audience to imagine the extent that would cause him such sorrow at seeing her standing alone grieving.

Doc Hill 

I went up and down the streets
Here and there by day and night,
Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.
Do you know why?  
My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.
And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.
Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral,  
And hear them murmur their love and sorrow.
But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able
To hold to the railing of the new life
When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree
At the grave,
Hiding herself, and her grief!

Commentary on “Doc Hill”

Doc Hill confesses that his attention to his medical practice was only in part to assist the needy; it also assisted him by infusing into his life the love and affection that he failed to find in his own family life.

The dejected Doc Hill harbors a secret that will remain a mystery. Readers are left to imagine the meaning of the implied relationship between the physician and Em Stanton, a woman who secretly visits the gravesite as the doctor’s body is being interred.

First Movement:  The Wages of Altruism?

I went up and down the streets
Here and there by day and night,
Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.

The doc begins by reporting that he spent most of his time with his patients, most of whom were poor as well as sick.   Doc Hill made his way along the streets of the town during both daylight hours and during the nighttime.  His reason for spending that time away from home was in order to care for sick people, who needed and appreciated him.  

As the doc’s life centered on his profession, he seemingly behaved as a rather altruistic individual.  However, readers become more and more skeptical of the scads of information given out by these Spoon River grave reporters.  

Most of epitaphs include in their reporting complaints offered solely for the purpose of rehabilitating their reputations.  Instead of accepting any fault on their part, they are quick to lay all blame on others for their pathetic lots.  

While Doc Hill has some blame to lay on his wife and his reprobate son, his main issue is that while he was seemingly abandoned and/or mistreated by his own family, the many sick and poor people of the town came to love him for his medical service to them.

Yet, the physician seems to leave open the possibility that his motives were perhaps not as selfless and altruistic as they may seem.  Thus he finds it important to explain his reasoning for giving so much attention to others outside of his home life.

Second Movement:  No Love at Home

Do you know why?  
My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.
And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.

Lest one think the doctor was an entirely altruistic workaholic or simply obsessed with his medical practice, he wants to explain that such was not the case.  The doc begins by proffering the question as to why he spent so much time with his ill patients.  

He then reveals “why”:  His wife detested him, and his son felt no better toward his father.  Thus the doc had no family life.  He offers no details about his wife and son, other than that they abandoned him emotionally.

The doctor had to find consolation somewhere so he turned to his profession that involved other people, particularly sick folks, who became appreciative of his services.  However, the doc does not seem to assert that he was merely looking for love for himself. 

Part of his personality seems genuinely caring, although it also offers him an excuse for remaining absent from his home, marriage, and fatherhood.  Likely the doc’s explanation makes him sound more altruistic than one who is expecting attention in return: he was looking for people to whom he could give his love and caring. 

The doc’s medical profession afforded him the opportunity, or perhaps excuse, to spend all of his time away from his own family while attending to others.  Less pathetic  and crass than many of the Spoon River crowd, he, nevertheless, remains one of the forlorn characters as he spins his yarn of sorrow.

Third Movement:   The Return of Love

Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral,  
And hear them murmur their love and sorrow.

Interestingly, the day’s events of his funeral allow him to revel in the return of the love he had bestowed, for he hears sweet murmurings emanating from the many folks attending the event as they offer their little tributes to the man who tended to their health needs.  Thus in death, he has achieved what he was never able to achieve in life with his own family.  

The summation of caring and affection that showed itself on the day of his funeral seems to make up for the familial affection he had not experienced.   And that lack seems to extend into death, for he mentions the presence of neither his wife nor his son at his funeral.  Readers then may assume that they were not present, or that the doc cared so little for them that he fails to bother to account for their reactions to his death.

Fourth Movement:  A Grieving Paramour?

But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able
To hold to the railing of the new life
When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree
At the grave,
Hiding herself, and her grief!

However, the doc does reveal a rather mysterious implication about himself when he describes a woman, Em Stanton, whom he observes as she appears to hide “behind the oak tree,” pathetically watching the events at the grave-site.  Em Stanton appears to be assuaging her grief as she hides from the other mourners.  

The observation of Em standing behind a tree apparently grief-stricken shakes the doc so badly that he can hardly hold his soul power together as he tries to “hold to the railing of the new life.”  This extreme reaction does seem to indicate that his relationship with Em Stanton likely indicates a close and deep emotional tie.

The doc’s showering of affection on the townsfolk possibly included a romantic relationship with the woman behind the tree, Em Stanton, a woman who is now left to grieve in hiding.  By extension, readers might wonder if there may be other “Em-Stantons,” who simply failed to appear and mourn as his own family failed to appear.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Conrad Siever”

Conrad Siever contrasts his feelings for two distinctive segments of his land: the part with the cemetery he finds “wasted”; but he loved the acres that held his apple tree and lovingly nurtured that tree in life and continues to do so even after death. 

Introduction and Text of “Conrad Siever”

The speaker of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Conrad Siever” from Spoon River Anthology is contrasting his feelings for the acres of his property where a cemetery is located with those acres that hold his prized apple tree.    

Siever’s property is mentioned in two other Spoon River poems; in “Hare Drummer,” Hare asks if the young folk “still go to Siever’s / For cider, after school.”  Also in the epitaph,”Amelia Garrick,” Amelia refers to Siever’s woods, “Where the thickets from Siever’s woods / Have crept over.”  Thus, the reader infers that Conrad Siever owned many acres of land.

The structure of this poem presents two movements that basically offer the theme of “not there, but here.” The first movement dramatizes the speaker’s negative or “not there” rubric; he did not love the part of his property that tendered certain features.  

The second movement dramatizes the “but here” or positive part of the construction, which is the section of his land that he loved and attended to in life and seemingly continues to do so in death.

Conrad Siever

Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!

Commentary on “Conrad Siever”

Conrad Siever loved his apple tree and lovingly nurtured it in life and death.  

First Movement:   Fruitless Evergreens

Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—

Despite his owning considerable property, Siever begins with a negative assertion that he did not take his essential being in “that wasted garden,” where despite the continued interest of other people, there is no food for “flocks” and where fruitless evergreens abide. 

He points out that that wasted garden strikes him as rather useless, where “vain sighs are heard,” and he adds that even “vainer dreams are dreamed.”  He is revealing that the part of  his property that includes a cemetery is where those vain dreamers come to attempt “close communion with departed souls.”

Siever first concentrates on the part of his land that he finds least useful and therefore least important.  By beginning with a sort of condemnation of uselessness, he thereby emphasizes his interest in productive endeavors, which he finds important, much more significant than the land that merely hold the bodies of dead folks.

Second Movement:  Not There, but Here

But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!

Siever has remarked that it is not to those useless parts of his property that he was attached but instead to “here under the apple tree.”  It was in this place that the speaker  afforded his affection for his property; he worked on his apple tree, pruning and tending to its needs, even as his hands became “gnarled,” likely causing pain during his hard labor.  Obviously, Siever’s real love and occupation was for his apple tree; thus, he tended it with great care and affection.

Now Siever is buried under his beloved “northern-spy,” specifically and more importantly, “under the roots.” And he attests that he is still attending to his former occupation.  His spirit is now able to “move in the chemic change and circle of life.” That spirit circulates “into the soil and into the flesh of the tree.”  

Siever dramatically and triumphantly announces that just as when alive he strove to produce better apples, his spirit is now accomplishing the same goal as it pushes itself “into the living epitaphs / Of redder apples!”

Siever has shown that he bestowed his love and attention upon the fertile, apple-growing segment of his land.  Instead of “epitaphs” of dead people, he continues to grow living reports of useful fruit as he continues to pursue “redder apples.”  

He is demonstrating that his loving interest was in useful, productive activity, rather than dreaming and sighing and eternal waiting.  Even in death, his strong spirit continues his dedication to caring for his apple producing tree.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Hare Drummer”

”Hare Drummer” portrays beautiful memories of pastoral scenery.

Introduction and Text of “Hare Drummer” 

Hare Drummer asks a series of questions, seeking to learn how things have continued on after his death.  That question format is reminiscent of A. E. Housman’s “Is my team ploughing,”  in which a dead man asks for a report about how things are going now that he has died.

Hare Drummer

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s  
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets  
On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin?
For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the road and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool,  
Stopping to club the walnut tree  
Standing leafless against a flaming west.
Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,
And the dropping acorns,
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.
They question me:  
Where are those laughing comrades?
How many are with me, how many
In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s,  
And in the woods that overlook  
The quiet water?

Interpretive Reading 

Commentary on “Hare Drummer”

Hare Drummer poses a series of questions about what life has been like for those who have lived on after he died. 

First Movement:  Does Life Go On After? 

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s  
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets  
On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin?

Hare begins by asking if the young folk “still go to Siever’s / For cider, after school, in late September?”  He continues with his second question, asking if they still “gather hazel nuts among the thickets” on the farm owned by Aaron Hatfield “when the frost begins.”

Hare’s purpose in questioning seems quite innocent, as if he is merely curious about the continuation of life as he had seen it.  And his questions and comments simply paint a portrait of simple, pastoral life including farms, hills, trees, cold weather, and “quiet water.”

Second Movement:  Down Memory Lane

For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the road and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool,  
Stopping to club the walnut tree  
Standing leafless against a flaming west.

Hare then offers the explanation that he had accompanied “the laughing girls and boys” as they all “played [ ] along the road and over the hills.”  He remembers how they would knock down walnuts from the tree which stood “leafless against the flaming west.”

Third Movement:  The Smell of Autumn Smoke

Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,
And the dropping acorns,
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.

Intimating that he now smells “autumn smoke” and acorns drop on his grave, he dramatizes how “echoes about the vales / Bring dreams of life.”  His  memory abounds with sights and sounds that he experienced when he was alive.  These dreams and experiences “hover over me,” he asserts.

Fourth Movement:  Questioned by Phantoms

They question me:  
Where are those laughing comrades?
How many are with me, how many
In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s,  
And in the woods that overlook  
The quiet water? 

And just as Hare questions some phantom audience, he is questioned by the same phantoms.  They want to know how many of his former playmates are with him and how many are still making their way through “the old orchards along the way to Siever’s.”  And he also wonders how many still visit “the woods that overlook / The quiet water.”

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Frank Drummer”

“Frank Drummer” had high aspirations for himself but died young at age twenty-five.

Introduction and Text of “Frank Drummer”

The epitaph”Frank Drummer” from Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic Spoon River Anthology features a character study of a milder personality than most of the other Spoon River collection o f speakers.

Frank Drummer

Out of a cell into this darkened space—
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,  
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul  
Which drove me on trying to memorize  
The Encyclopedia Britannica!

Commentary on “Frank Drummer”

Although the reader never learns to what specific goals he aspired, Frank reveals that he at least thought himself capable of achieving great things.  He demonstrates an intense emotional make-up that was likely responsible for his landing in jail.

First Movement:  Died in Jail

Out of a cell into this darkened space—
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,  
And the village thought me a fool.

Frank reports that he died in jail and was immediately introduced to the grave, “this darkened space”—and at the young age of twenty-five.  His emotion was so strong that he could not even speak, and thus the town “thought me a fool.”  Frank, of course, sees himself as one destined for high achievement, but instead he committed some crime that brought him low.

Second Movement:  Bright Mind Turned Dark

Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul  
Which drove me on trying to memorize  
The Encyclopedia Britannica!

However, early on in this life, his mind was bright and his soul possessed “[a] high and urgent purpose.”  That high purpose motivated him to try to “memorize / The Encyclopedia Britannica!”

Frank’s evaluation of his own capabilities show that he was not tethered to reality.  He thinks that memorizing a set of encyclopedia was enough to support his contention that he was clear-minded and had “high purpose.”

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Lydia Puckett”

Lydia Puckett spews forth a very different view of Knowlt Hoheimer.  Although he has asserted that he ran off and joined the army simply because he stole some livestock and would have landed in jail over it, Lydia believes Knowlt went to the army because she told him to buzz off.

Introduction and Text of “Lydia Puckett”

The character “Lydia Puckett” offers a little drama showcasing her thoughts on the topic of  Knowlt’s joining the army.

Lydia Puckett

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war
The day before Curl Trenary
Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett
For stealing hogs.  
But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier.
He caught me running with Lucius Atherton.  
We quarreled and I told him never again  
To cross my path.
Then he stole the hogs and went to the war—
Back of every soldier is a woman.

Commentary on “Lydia Puckett”

Lydia Puckett spews forth a very different view of Knowlt Hoheimer.  Although he has asserted that he ran off and joined the army simply because he stole some livestock and would have landed in jail over it, Lydia believes Knowlt went to the army because she told him to buzz off.

First Movement:  It Wasn’t the Hog-Stealing

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war
The day before Curl Trenary
Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett
For stealing hogs.  
But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier.

Lydia begins her epitaph by reporting some specifics not revealed by Knowlt.  Justice Arnett had sworn out a warrant for Knowlt to be arrested, after Curl Trenary, owner of the livestock stolen by Knowlt, had pressed charges against the thief.   

Thus, Knowlt claims to have joined the army to avoid incarceration, but Lydia now insists that Knowlt did not got to war for that reason.

Second Movement:  She Told Him to Buzz Off

He caught me running with Lucius Atherton.  
We quarreled and I told him never again  
To cross my path.
Then he stole the hogs and went to the war—
Back of every soldier is a woman.

Lydia and Knowlt had been sweethearts.  Then Lydia started seeing “Lucius Atherton” while still involved with Knowlt.  After Knowlt discovered Lydia’s cheating, the two quarreled.  Then Lydia ended her relationship with Knowlt.

Knowlt, after the quarrel and break up of his relationship with Lydia, then committed the theft of Curl Trenary’s hogs.  He subsequently went off to war and was killed.  Lydia waxes philosophical about Knowlt’s having died as a soldier; she reasons, egomaniacally, “Back of every soldier is a woman.”

Of course, Lydia may be exaggerating to hoist her own self-esteem.  One is wise to take much of the self-aggrandizement in these epitaphs with a huge grain of salt.  Same goes for Knowlt, although he is likely more truthful than Lydia, but certainty about either is far from certain.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “‘Indignation’ Jones”

In the second poem/epigraph of the “Minerva” series, the poetess’ father, “Indignation” Jones, fulminates against Spoon River society.

Introduction with Text of “‘Indignation’ Jones”

Edgar Lee Masters’ “‘Indignation’ Jones” from Spoon River Anthology gives voice to the father of “Minerva Jones,” the village “poetess.  This father and daughter share two common character flaws:  their arrogance of a mightily, unearned self-worth and their vice of laying the blame for their own erroneous behavior on others. “Indignation” Jones’ blast of a full-throated denouncement of Spoon River society rings as hollow as Minerva’s, even as it is, perhaps, louder.

“Indignation” Jones 

You would not believe, would you,
That I came from good Welsh stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders  
And Virginians of Spoon River?
You would not believe that I had been to school  
And read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man,
With matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.
Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer
From being bruised and continually bruised,  
And swells into a purplish mass,
Like growths on stalks of corn.
Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,  
With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,
Whom you tormented and drove to death.
So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days  
Of my life.
No more you hear my footsteps in the morning,  
Resounding on the hollow sidewalk,
Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal  
And a nickel’s worth of bacon.

Interpretive Reading: 

Commentary on “Indignation” Jones

In the second poem of the “Minerva” series, the poetess’ father, “Indignation” Jones, offers his indignant rant against Spoon River society.

First Movement:  An Indignant Man

You would not believe, would you,
That I came from good Welsh stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders  
And Virginians of Spoon River?

“Indignation” Jones was apparently so bombastic as to carry the moniker “Indignation.”   Clearly, he deems himself superior to the other Spoon River residents as he fashions his claims in question form that reveal that he came from “good Welsh stock” and that his blood was pure—not like the “white trash” in Spoon River.

Additionally, he pronounces himself and his stock’s lineage “more direct” than those from New England and Virginia that now reside in Spoon River. Jones is unlike the riffraff of the town; he asserts that his bloodline is untainted by southern Europeans or other races.

Second Movement:  Unrecognized Erudition

You would not believe that I had been to school  
And read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man,
With matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.

Jones then claims that he has schooling and has book-learning; it was observed in his daughter’s epitaph that she too had some book-learning. But Jones is now taunting the town of Spoon River by accusing it of not believing that he had such erudition.

Jones accuses the town of judging him by his outward appearance; all they saw was a disheveled man with unkempt “hair and beard,” wearing tattered clothing. Apparently, no one ever engaged in conversation with Jones, if his report can be given credence.

Third Movement:  Unmasking Self-Pity

Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer
From being bruised and continually bruised,  
And swells into a purplish mass,
Like growths on stalks of corn.

Philosophically, Jones surmises that sometimes men’s lives become ill-fated and diseased, as bad as “a cancer.”  Some men become bruised and continue to experience being bruised.  Because of the bruising, those lives turn into a swollen “purplish mass.”  They appear as nasty as the cancerous growths on cornstalks.

Likening his life to a swollen, purplish mass on a corn stalk reveals Indignation’s own penchant for poetry.  And clearly it unmasks his own self-pity that along with the poetry he has passed on to his daughter Minerva, the village poetess.

Fourth Movement:   A Carpenter, and  Yet

Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,  
With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,
Whom you tormented and drove to death.
So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days

The irony of “Indignation” Jones’ situation is enhanced as he reveals that he had been “a carpenter” by trade. But he has nothing more to say about his profession and moves quickly on to asserting his desperation at being mired down in a swamp-like condition his whole life-long.

Jones had innocently entered this swamp, mistaking it for a lovely pasture.  He never tells his audience why he started out so optimistically, or exactly how or when he changed into the grump he now clearly is. He laments that his wife turned out to be “a slattern,” and his “poor Minerva” was “tormented and [driven] to death” by this unfeeling town.  

Jones offers no clear reason for any down turn of luck:  was he a successful carpenter?  why did he marry a slattern in the first place?  was he aware that Minerva underwent an abortion, which, in fact, caused her death?

Answers to these questions obviously would reveal that Jones is the actual cause of his own suffering, and like many of the talking dead here, who constantly place the blame on others for this bad luck, Jones is doing the same.

Fifth Movement:    Depressed and Dejected

So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days  
Of my life.
No more you hear my footsteps in the morning,  
Resounding on the hollow sidewalk,
Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal  
And a nickel’s worth of bacon.

Living depressed and dejected, mired in a nasty swamp-like existence, Jones moved “like a snail” through his days. Being stuck in a swamp and having a miserable existence accounts for his life seeming to move so slowly.

But now he can announce that the riffraff can no longer hear his traipsing to the store in the morning to buy what little he could afford, only a “little corn meal” and a few cents’ worth of “bacon.  Consumed by an arrogant self-pity, “Indignation” Jones does not realize the vacuousness of his protestations of poverty.

The Minerva Jones Sequence

1. Minerva Jones  The “Minerva Jones” epitaph features one of the most depraved characters of the Spoon River talking dead. She is self-absorbed and haughty, lacking empathy and self-awareness, causing her to remain ignorant of her own discordant thoughts. 
2. “Indignation” Jones  In the second epitaph of the “Minerva” series, the poetess’ father, “Indignation” Jones, fulminates against Spoon River society.
3. Doctor Meyers The third epitaph in the Minerva Jones series features “Doctor Meyers,” who performed the abortion that led to the death of the unfortunate poetess.
4. Mrs. Meyers  In the fourth epitaph in this series,”Mrs. Meyers,” Dr. Meyers’ wife testifies that her husband, whom she calls “poor soul,” reaped what he sowed for his actions in life. The religious woman offers advice for a pleasant and peaceful life, reminding humanity to “Love God and keep his commandments.”
5. “Butch” Weldy  The fifth and final epitaph “‘Butch’ Weldy” concludes the “Minerva Jones” series. Butch declaims about his ordeal after a work related accident—with nary a nod to Minerva.