noon
The Greek anthology had suggested to him something which was , he said , `` if less than verse , yet more than prose '' ; and he went , with the step of genius , beyond any `` formal resuscitation of the Greek epigrams , ironical and tender , satirical and sympathetic , as casual experiments in unrelated themes , '' to an `` epic rendition of modern life '' which suggests the novel in its largest aspects . An admirable scheme occurred to him : he would imagine a graveyard such as every American village has and would equip it with epitaphs of a ruthless veracity such as no village ever saw put into words . The effect was as if all the few honest epitaphs in the world had suddenly come together in one place and sent up a shout of revelation . Conventional readers had the thrill of being shocked and of finding an opportunity to defend the customary reticences ; ironical readers had the delight of coming upon a host of witnesses to the contrast which irony perpetually observes between appearance and reality ; readers militant for the `` truth '' discovered an occasion to demand that pious fictions should be done away with and the naked facts exposed to the sanative glare of noon . And all these readers , most of them unconsciously no doubt , shared the fearful joy of sitting down at an almost incomparably abundant feast of scandal . Where now were the mild decencies of Tiverton , of Old Chester , of Friendship Village ? The roofs and walls of Spoon River were gone and the passers-by saw into every bedroom ; the closets were open and all the skeletons rattled undenied ; brains and breasts had unlocked themselves and set their most private treasures out for the most public gaze .