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group tłiat included both artists and patrons of the arts. encouraged literary activity. The Dial magazine, established in 1880. grew to be a respected literary organ. Henry Blake Fuller and Robert Herrick. who belonged to tlie genteel tradition, wrote several novels tliat foreshadowed the later Realistic novels of Dreiser and Anderson. Hamlin Gariand. already famous for novels on the bleakness of Middle Western raral life, was associated briefly willi the Litde Room.

The appearance of Theodone Dreiser's Naturalistic novel Sister Carrie (published 1900; suppressed until 1912). Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919), Edgar Lee Masters’ collection of poetie epitaplis, Spoon River Anthology (1915), and Carl Sandbuigs Chicago Poems (1916) marked the height of the Chicago renaissance. Two Cliicago literary magazines—Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, founded 1912 by Harriet Monroe and tlie Little Review (1914-29), founded by Margaret Anderson— published exciting new verse by such local poets as Yachel Lindsay. Edgar Lee Masters. and Carl Sandburg. Flovd Dell, a journalist associated willi tlie Friday Literary Review (1908). the weekly literary supplement to the Clucago Evening Post, was tlie centre of a vital literary circle chat included Dreiser. Sherwood Andereon. Marga ret Anderson, and Monroe. After World War 1 tlie writers began to disperse. and by the Great Depression of tlie 1930s the Chicago literary renaissance had ended.

Can be seen as a continuation of Whitmanian tradition. had well-developed class consciousness

Shared egalitarian concept of poetry (based on. or holding, the belief tliat everyone is equal and should have the same rights and opportunities)

Forms for common people, the use of common Ig - Whitman’s legacy - signifies the departure from romanticism and appeals to eveiyone

DD

EDGAR LEE MASTERS (1868-1950) was an Amerkaii poei. biograplier. and dramatist. In all. Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry. six novels and six biographies, including diose of Abraham Lincoln. Mark Twain. and Walt Whitman. He expresses a modem sense.

Spoon River Anthology (1915), by Edgar Lee Masters. is a collection of short free-fonn poems tliat collectively describe the life of tlie fictional smali town of Spoon River. named after the real Spoon River tliat ran near Masters' home town Tlie collection inciudes two hundred and twelve separate characters, all providing two-hundred forty-four accounts of tlieir lives and losses.

Included in “Volume in Question”

A collection of over 200 poems; all are monologues delivened by people who live in a smali town called “Spoon River”; people have one feanire in common - they are dead - can be interpreted as epitaph

Are self-composed by the dead

Could be frank, sincere; they don’t care what others would tliink about tliem

- Talk about other people but they also talk about themselves. their own misfortunes. failures - very bleak futurę

Demythologises American smali town whicli has produced local colour fiction