Does the author, Edgar Lee Masters display any meters, diction, tone, poetic devices, symbolism, literal interpretations, or themes in the Spoon River Anthology?

Although Masters' word selection in the Anthology is determined principally by the character of the person speaking, there are a few common themes regarding his style of language usage. The language of the Anthology feels very poetical and born of turn-of-the-twentieth-century small town America. The Town Marshal provides a fine example: "The Prohibitionists made me town marshal/ When the saloons were voted out,/ Because when I was a drinking man,/ Before joined the church, I killed a Swede/ at the saw-mill near maple grove" (p. 64). Talk of "prohibitionists," and "saloons," and places like "the saw-mill near maple grove," give the reader a sense of a kind of iconic provincial America, and the rolling, rhythmic build of, "When the saloons . . . I killed a Swede," adds a distinctly poetical flare that elevates the speech's content. Masters employs the preceding throughout the work, and adapts it to develop the nuances of individual characters. In "Butch" Weldy, Master's iconic American poetical language is modified to fit into the mouth of an uneducated, rough-edged working man and rapist: "After I got religion and steadied down/ They gave me a job in the canning works,/ And every morning I had to fill/ The tank in the yard with gasoline,/ . . . And down I came with both legs broken,/ And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs/ For someone left the blow-fire going,/ And something sucked the flame into the tank" (p. 48) The language maintains the same feel it has elsewhere, but phrases like "After I got religion," and "burned crisp as a couple of eggs," give the reader a sense of the character's uneducated, lower-class status. Masters' language can also become simple, elegant and highly spiritual, as in the case of Judson Stoddard: "On a mountain top above the clouds/ That streamed like a sea below me/ I said that peak is the thought of Buddha,/ And that one is the prayer of Jesus,/ And this one is the dream of Plato,/ . . . And I said "What does God do with mountains/ That rise almost to heaven?"" (p. 272) Almost startling in its simplicity this passage is arguably one of the most beautiful in the whole Anthology. It is straightforward and earnest in a way that makes it feel at one with the rest of the language in the work, but its exceptionally lofty focus and pristine clarity make it unique and quite spiritually compelling as well.