The Spoon River Anthology - Charly Taylor

Interactive Website/Portraiture/Sound & Music
Six pages on the website can be explored for any given length of time the user chooses

Welcome to Spoon River - where spirits walk the graveyards and long to tell you their tales. This interactive website experience will immerse you in the gothic noir world of Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology.

Website walkthrough

In 1915 Edgar Lee Masters frequented a cemetery outside of his boyhood home in Lewiston, Illinois. For each tombstone he came across, Masters created a free verse poem that centered around that individual, that was told in a first-person narrative from beyond the grave. The collection shocked audiences at the time of their release, for the subject matters he covered were wildly taboo for the time. The pieces ranged from lighthearted tales of individuals speaking of their lives in fond repose and reminding us not to take life too seriously, to pieces speaking of adultery, abuse and murder. Masters entitled this collection after the river that ran alongside both his boyhood home, and the cemetery alike: The Spoon River Anthology.

For this capstone project, Charly Taylor has created an immersive web-based experience, combining video, portraits, drawings, sound and more to fully submerge you in the gothic realm of Spoon River.

Note:works best when visited on Google Chrome

Background moving video of walking through a graveyard. Video of Graphic Drawing illustrating poem story playing on page. Black and White picture of Tombstones.

The sound of footsteps first fills the space, followed by the gothic acapella singing voice of a woman dramatically singing about a man who has passed. When her song turns into a melodic humming, the audio track of the introductory poem of The Spoon River Anthology “The Hill” overlays the track.

Background static image of a rosary.
Background video of a river flowing in slow motion.

Artist talk