Monday, March 9 Spoon River Anthology

Oak Hill Cemetery and the surrounding community served as a basis for Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. The cemetery is the resting place of many citizens of Spoon River Country.

We have finished with Bret Harte's short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"

Today is your last opportunity to turn in the graphic organizer that was in-class work on Thursday and Friday. 

Also, several students were absent Friday for the vocabulary quiz. Please make arrangements to make this up outside of class.

This is week 6 of the 10 week marking period.

MOVING ON       

Learning Targets: I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.

I can demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics. 

I can write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

In class: vocabulary review "Outcasts" for a quiz this Friday, March 13. class handout / copy below.
 Collecting Edgar Lee Masters "Spoon River Anthology"
 Introduction to the collection and initial poem read as a class.
In your notebook:
MLA heading
reread the poem, copying out the anaphoras; include the line numbers. I'll collect the notebooks at the end of class.

Spoon River Anthology is a series of poems in free verse (poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter). In most of the poems, a deceased native of the fictional town of Spoon River delivers a monologue about his or her life or a specific incident in his or her life. These monologues are, in effect, epitaphs. 

Background

.......Dead men tell no tales. So says an ancient proverb. But inSpoon River Anthology dead men—and women—do tell tales. Speaking from the grave, more than two hundred forty deceased residents of a fictional Midwestern town, Spoon River, each present short monologues about their lives. They reveal their heartaches, disappointments, failures, and unfulfilled dreams. Sometimes they tell of the moral trespasses of themselves or of others. Occasionally, they tell of an incident that reveals the good or bad qualities of another person. 

The Introductory Poem

The Hill

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,
The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?
All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One passed in a fever,
One was burned in a mine,
One was killed in a brawl,
One died in a jail,
One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife-
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,
The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?--
All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth,
One of a thwarted love,
One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,
One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire;
One after life in far-away London and Paris
Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag--
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily,
And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton,
And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution?--
All, all are sleeping on the hill.

They brought them dead sons from the war,
And daughters whom life had crushed,
And their children fatherless, crying--
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.
Where is Old Fiddler Jones
Who played with life all his ninety years,
Braving the sleet with bared breast,
Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin,
Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven?
Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,
Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove,
Of what Abe Lincoln said
One time at Springfield.

 Format: Free Verse.......Besides introducing characters in Spoon River Anthology, "The Hill" introduces the format, free verse. Free verse is poetry that ignores standard rules of meter in favor of the rhythms of ordinary conversation. In effect, free verse liberates poetry from conformity to rigid metrical rules that dictate stress patterns and the number of syllables per line.
Conversational Language

.......Except for a poem entitled "The Spooniad," the language in Spoon River Anthology is simple, conversational, and realistic, with plenty of local color and regional references—like the reference in "The Hill" to "the horse races long ago at Clary's Hill" (line 32). Many of the poems contain a figure of speech called anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or sentences. 

Quiz Friday, March 13  from  Bret Harte’s “The Outcasts of Poker  Flat”  Vocabulary

1. conjecture (noun)- a guess

2. anathema (noun) - a curse

3. prescience (noun)- forethought

4. bellicose (adjective)- loud

5. remonstrances- (noun)- protest

6 .maudlin (adjective)-  weepingly sentimental

7. guileless (adjective)- innocent

8. malevolent (adjective)- evil

9. propriety (noun)- decorum

10. vituperative (adjective)- abusive