Thoughts of Spoon River

What to make of Emily Sparks? That she was a caring, motherly, school teacher who is able to see aspects of her students others are oblivious to is evident in her epitaph. That she is a woman of faith is just as obvious. The question I ponder is whether her devotion to Reuben Pantier is entirely healthy. That Emily Sparks is a lonely old spinster is plain to see. And she appears not to have any cats! All the natural love and desire for affection of a healthy human being has to find expression one way or another. The longing of her first line - "Where is my boy, my boy - " - implies she lavishes hers upon the idea of Reuben Pantier. As there is no suggestion, either in this epitaph or the previous one, of untoward behaviour, we can accept that Emily Sparks is a morally upstanding woman - with perfectly natural feelings and desires! Her letter to Reuben Pantier, "Of the beautiful love of Christ" is a sublimated expression of her love/attraction to a boy for whom sh...

We have already seen, in the marriage of the McGee’s, that the state of matramony is no heaven-sent blessing. We should not be unduly surprised, then, at the state of play between the Pantiers - that Benjamin has been driven from his own house by a wife who finds him disgusting. The soap opera that is the series of poems dealing with the Pantiers would appear bathetic, coming straight after Kinsey Keene’s inspiring call to arms against all that corrupts the heart of Spoon River, if not for one simple fact. The series of five poems makes clear for us, firstly, that the grossest kinds of corruption lie in the hearts of ordinary men and women, not just the high officials of the town. Yet, they further reveal, there is hope that the most wanton wastrel may be brought to change his ways if only those who believe remain faithful. And, finally, we are shown that it is not the Anthology’s organisation that results in bathos; it is life itself. Benjamin Pantier, then, is guilty of not...

A couple of poems ago, Harry Carey Goodhue looked nothing but pathetic for declaring his various fights with bank and court-house, leading citizens and business men. So, what to make of Kinsey Keene, who, without specifying any particular battle - apart from one in which he did not participate - claims a legendary slogan for his stone? And does it matter that the words were likely never spoken? Certainly they were not spoken as dying words, or even words uttered just prior to battle? Does it matter that Cambronne was not even with the Guard when it died, already having been taken prisoner by Colonel Hugh Halkett? That, in fact, Cambronne died in England as a prisoner of war? (cf. ‘ Cambronne’s Words ’)   Whatever words were or were not spoken, and we can’t really expect Edgar Lee Masters to do anything but accept the legend, the sentiment is obvious - Keene would have us believe that whatever struggles he engaged in are to be likened to the glorious defeat of the Guard ...

And so the final poem in the ‘Chase Henry Trilogy’. Chase Henry accepted his role as "town drunkard" and warned the Protestants, those "prudent and pious souls", of achieving, in a sense, the Devil's own goals for the sake of crossing the Catholics. Harry Carey Goodhue, in like manner to the Protestants, would have his legacy recognised as one thing while, in actual fact, leaving behind something else altogether different. And now we have Judge Somers, the "most erudite of lawyers" and maker of "the greatest speech / The court-house ever heard", lying in an unmarked grave, his life not having produced the rewards he thought it he deserved. Chase Henry recognises that he benefitted from the rivalry that exists between the Protestants and the Catholics but is not into thinking himself other than he really was. He is well aware that he "lived in shame" and his good fortune was not earned. In answer to Judge Somers' question, ...

There is nothing quite so noble as a man willing to put himself on the line for others or for a cause: Socrates willing to die for his beliefs, Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent movement for the independence of India, Dietrich Bonhoeffer consistently outspoken against the Nazis, Martin Luther King’s stand for civil rights. Such men stand as inspiration for the generations who come after them and an admonition to those of us not of their stature. Does Harry Carey Goodhue have a place among this pantheon of nobel men? He tells us that he fought the good fight, standing against the “bank and the courthouse ring” who would pocket the “interest on public funds”, the “leading citizens” who made “the poor the pack-horses of the taxes”, and the “water works” for “stealing streets and raising rates”. Certainly, these are fights in need of fighting! Somehow, though, we are left with the feeling that, despite his struggles, Goodhue fails to earn his place in history. There is just something not ...

I wonder just how we’re supposed to feel about Chase Henry? He was the “town drunkard” and seemingly quite proud of his place in the civic structure of Spoon River. And hugely tickled by his getting one over the “prudent and pious souls” symbolised here by the Catholic Church. How are we to feel about Chase Henry? To a certain extent, at least, we can’t help but feel a little bit tickled right along with him. To admit to a certain guilty pleasure at Chase’s one-upping the Catholic Church is one thing, to draw some deep philosophical meaning out of the circumstances is another. That Chase Henry would wish his burial next to the banker and his wife to have significance is only natural in a man who lived as a wastrel. This being Spoon River, however, we at least need to consider the real lesson to be learned. It could be, of course, as simple as the quartet of poems just encountered, previous to this one - a character lying in the womb of the earth, pointing a bony finger, either at...

If we have read the three previous poems carefully and recognised their unity of purpose, there should be nothing unexpected in this ninth epitaph of Constance Hately - not even the twist of the final two lines. As any good mini-series should, the last three poems have been building to this dramatic climax. Indeed, we can say that this poem gets to the very heart of the whole anthology. Even this early in the anthology, it is good to finally have a confession of sin from a figure of some standing in the Spoon River community; one who was generally praised for her self-sacrifice by her neighbours. It is a timely confession, for we might be in danger of misreading the previous poems without it. It lends support to the voices of Cassius Hueffer, Serepta Morgan and Amanda Barker, letting us know that they are not mere moaners, bewailing their lot from beyond the grave. What these epitaphs have in common is the nature of the community’s consistent misjudgement of what is to be val...

Amanda Barker’s epitaph is the third in a quartet of linked poems. Along with Cassius Hueffer, Serepta Mason and Constance Hately, Amanda Barker accuses the people of Spoon River of being blind to reality - wilfully or otherwise. Amanda addresses her epitaph to the ‘Traveler’, or any stranger who happens along as she likely feels, even in death, unable to speak to those who failed her so tragically in life. And, if they really were so willing to allow her husband’s hatred take the course it did, all for the sake of appearances, would there be any point in Amanda trying to reason with them now? The good people of Spoon River will go to any lengths to live the appearance of an up-standing, virtuous Middle American community, even if lives must be stunted (Serepta Masaon), lies must be told of the dead (Cassius Hueffer), meanness of spirit ignored as necessary (Constance Hately), and lives forfeited for the greater good (Amanda Barker). No wonder that Amanda Barker is reduced to spe...

There is a link between this epitaph and that of Cassius Hueffer, which immediately precedes it. This link is to be found in the use of the word “fool”, used in the same way in both poems. Hueffer accuses the engraver of his tombstone of being a fool, as Mason accuses the the townsfolk generally of being fools for lacking the wisdom to see the “ways of the wind” or perceive the “unseen forces” she claims govern life. It is a feature of Spoon River Anthology that there be short series of poems - sometimes members of a family offering differing perceptions of how things had been in life, sometimes individuals caught up in the same events accusing or defending. Hueffer and Mason are connected only in their bitterness for the townsfolk of Spoon River. But this link is vital to a full understanding of the poems. If each is taken separately, they appear little more than the whinings of the departed attempting one last time to get the living to listen. Together, though, they fo...

“They have chiseled on my stone…” Cassius Hueffer,   who “made warfare on life”, has finally been tamed by those who never managed to impose their idea of control over him while he lived. They have claimed him in death who, in life, went unswayed by their words, for he “could not cope with slanderous tongues”. Only now he is dead are they able to make him submit to their words, in the form of the epitaph “[g]raven by a fool!” Whatever kind of man Cassius Hueffer was, his importance to the community of Spoon River was such that they could not let him simply die and be rid of him. Even as they laid him in his grave, they did not give up on the need to reclaim him as one of their own. This man in whom the “elements were so mixed”, who could never succumb to a gentle life for fear that in so doing he would relinquish the freedom of the fight, had to be rebranded rather than merely discarded because a community in which he lived his life could never be the bastion of small t...

If ‘ Robert Fulton Tanner ’ chooses to begin with a conditional , just as I have as I begin to write in my home today. Robert Fulton Tanner is incapable of seeing a thought through to its end. He begins correctly enough, then wanders off in musings of his own misfortune. Tanner’s epitaph opens with a grand thought, touching on the very nature of human life, which is never seen through to a logical conclusion as the speaker is distracted by smaller, more personal matters. Tanner fancies himself as a man of vast potential, great achievements await in his future, if only “the monstrous ogre Life” would not bring all he does to ruin. Something – or, more likely, someone – has damaged Robert Fulton Tanner, to the extent that he feels unworthy of his own dreams. Unfortunately for Tanner, he might not be quite the man to impact the world in any significant way he appears to think himself. He might dream of marrying a ‘woman with money’, of acquiring ‘[p]restige, place, or power in the wor...

Despite his name, Fletcher McGee is no straight arrow. Whatever kind of man Fletcher might have been before his wife, Ollie McGee , took his “life by hours’, when we encounter him in his epitaph, he is a broken man – the arrow has snapped. Where Hod Putt is the very epitome of his name, Fletcher McGee is a weak man who has allowed life to defeat him. Unfortunately, we know nothing of what other factors may have beaten down this rather pathetic figure, for Edgar Lee Masters gives no back-story, either here or in the previous poem ‘spoken’ by Fletcher’s wife. This dearth of detail serves two purposes – one localized, the other universal – one microscopic, the other macroscopic. Fletcher and Ollie McGee are consumed by their hatred; their whole world has become little more than the causing and suffering of mutual pain. As they lie in their graves, wherein one would imagine they should be beyond the petty cares of life, yet they remain fixated on each other - on who did what, on who ...

The narrators of ‘ Spoon River Anthology ’ are in a unique position – though dead, yet they are given one last opportunity to speak. But even the dead have their own purposes; whether it be the revealing of a murder (as in ‘ Amanda Barker ’), anguish at an injustice (‘ Doctor Meyers ’), or the lasting power of love (‘ William and Emily ’). The dead must have their say. One would imagine that being dead would lend itself to objectivity and truth. What need is there for the dead to lie? Throughout the Anthology, however, Edgar Lee Masters makes it abundantly clear that as in life, so in death. Death doesn’t make us honest. ‘ Ollie McGee ’ is a bitter woman. She would have us believe that her husband, ‘ Fletcher McGee ’ treated her horribly mean while she was alive so that now, in death, she gains some satisfaction from his continued misery. Though lying in her grave, she is able to somehow observe her husband and relish his decline, noting that he too will soon die. This, she says, i...

We cannot but take notice when an Anthology of ‘spoken’ epitaphs opens, after the introductory first poem, with the words, “Here I lie…”. These words must cause us to ponder the veracity of what we are about to ‘hear’. Inevitably, because the poems are spoken from each individual’s point of view, there is bound to be discrepancies, contradictions and, possibly, flat-out-lies. Hod Putt appears to be saying something straightforwardly simple: “Here I am in my grave, next to that of Old Bill Pierol.” As we read the poem, however, we begin to realise the irony implies things are not quite so simple as we first thought. Notice, for instance, that Hod doesn’t actually place himself in a grave. Old Bill Piersol is in a grave and Hod tells us he lies close by. It is evident that Hod is indeed in his grave, though he refuses to be quite so specific about his own location. It is easier for Hod to acknowledge Old Bill Piersol’s situation than his own. Despite his matter-of-fact relating of ...

Even a quick perusal of the titles of the 243 epitaphs of ‘ Spoon River Anthology ’ reveals a staggering male bias. Just from the titles alone, without reading the underlying poems, there are a whopping 187 poems readily identifiable as ‘male’. This, in contrast to just 54 poems recognisably ‘female’ and, of these, ten of the women have no given name, being referred to only in relation to their marital status. Even in death, it seems, the womenfolk lacked a voice. If we take Masters at his word when he says he would “draw the macrocosm by portraying the microcosm”, we can read this dearth of female voices as reflective of the time and place rather than a sign of misogyny on the poet’s part. That there are so many women who lack a given name of their own – Mrs. Benjamin Pantier , Mrs. Charles Bliss and Mrs. George Reece among others – is not a sign that Edgar Lee Masters had a policy of ‘ disappearing ’ women from the register of life so much as a reflection of the reality...

Edgar Lee Masters ‘Spoon River Anthology’ (1915) In the opening poem of ‘ Spoon River Anthology ’, Edgar Lee Masters mentions a female character by the name of Sevigne Houghton. This is the only mention of this particular character as she, like many mentioned in ‘ The Hill ’, has no epitaph of her own. Nevertheless, she should not pass unnoticed. ‘Sevigne’ is not, it seems, a given name. It’s most well-known usage is as part of the title of a revered French writer of letters from the 17 th Century – Marie de Rabutin-Chantel, marquise de Sévigné . The Sévigné of which she is the marquise is an area of Northwestern France – Cesson-Sévigné, a residential area for the middle-class. But, apparently, even in France, it is not used as a given name. The closest variant that is so used is the Lithuanian ‘ Svajonė ’, which means ‘dream’. Given that Sevigne Houghton, along with all the other characters mentioned in this poem, is ‘sleeping on the hill’, it may not be accidental that Mas...