Digging in the Spoon River
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...