Selections from Poe

This explanation is necessary, because the stock criticism of Poe's poetry condemns it as vague, indefinite, and devoid of thought or ethical content. These are precisely its limitations, but hardly its faults, since the poet attained with marvelous art the very effects he desired. The themes of nearly all the poems are death, ruin, regret, or failure; the verse is original in form, and among the most musical in the language, full of a haunting, almost magical melody. Mystery, symbolism, shadowy suggestion, fugitive thought, elusive beauty, beings that are mere insubstantial abstractions – these are the characteristics, but designedly so, of Poe's poetry. A poem to him was simply a crystallized mood, and it is futile for his readers to apply any other test. Yet the influence of this verse has been wide and important, extending to most lyric poets of the last half-century, including such masters as Rossetti and Swinburne.

"To Helen," a poem of three brief stanzas, is Poe's first really notable production; it is an exquisite tribute of his reverent devotion to his boyhood friend, Mrs. Stannard, portraying her as a classic embodiment of beauty. "Israfel" is a lyric of aspiration of rare power and rapture, worthy of Shelley, and is withal the most spontaneous, simple, and genuinely human poem Poe ever wrote. "The Haunted Palace," one of the finest of his poems, is an unequaled allegory of the wreck and ruin of sovereign reason, which to be fully appreciated should be read in its somber setting, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Less attractive is "The Conqueror Worm," with its repulsive imagery, but this "tragedy 'Man,'" with the universe as a theater, moving to the "music of the spheres," and "horror the soul of the plot," is undeniably powerful and intensely terrible.

"The Raven," published in 1845, attained immediately a world-wide celebrity, and rivals in fame and popularity any lyric ever written. It is the most elaborate treatment of Poe's favorite theme, the death of a beautiful woman. The reveries of a bereaved lover, alone in his library at midnight in "the bleak December," vainly seeking to forget his sorrow for the "lost Lenore," are interrupted by a tapping, as of some one desirous to enter. After a time, he admits a "stately raven" and seeks to beguile his sad fancy by putting questions to the bird, whose one reply is "Nevermore," and this constitutes the refrain of the poem. Impelled by an instinct of self-torture, the lover asks whether he shall have "respite" from the painful memories of "Lenore," here or hereafter, and finally whether in the "distant Aidenn" he and his love shall be reunited; to all of which the raven returns his one answer. Driven to frenzy, the lover implores the bird, "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door," only to learn that the shadow will be lifted "nevermore." The raven is, in the poet's own words, "emblematical of Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance."

"Ulalume" has been commonly (though not always) regarded as a mere experiment in verbal ingenuity, meaningless melody, or "the insanity of versification," as a distinguished American critic has called it. Such a judgment is a mark of inability to understand Poe's most characteristic work, for in truth "Ulalume" is the extreme expression at once of his critical theory and of his peculiar genius as a poet. It was published in December of the same year in which Virginia died in January. The poet's condition has already been described; "Ulalume" is a marvelous expression of his mood at this time. It depicts a soul worn out by long suffering, groping for courage and hope, only to return again to "the door of a legended tomb." It is true the movement is slow, impeded by the frequent repetitions, but so the wearied mind, after nervous exhaustion, is "palsied and sere." There is no appeal to the intellect, but this is characteristic of Poe and appropriate to a mind numbed by protracted suffering. It is this mood of wearied, benumbed, discouraged, hopeless hope, feebly seeking for the "Lethean peace of the skies" only to find the mind inevitably reverting to the "lost Ulalume," that finds expression. There is no definite thought, because only the communication of feeling is intended; there is no distinct setting, because the whole action is spiritual; "the dim lake" and "dark tarn of Auber," "the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir," "the alley Titanic of cypress," are the grief-stricken and fear-haunted places of the poet's own darkened mind, while the ashen skies of "the lonesome October" are significant enough of this "most immemorial year." The poem is a monody of nerveless, exhausted grief. As such it must be read to be appreciated, as such it must be judged, and so appreciated and so judged it is absolutely unique and incomparable.

About a year later came "The Bells," wonderful for the music of its verse, and the finest onomatopoetic poem in the language. Two days after Poe's death appeared "Annabel Lee," a simple, sincere, and beautiful ballad, a tribute to his dead wife. Last of all was printed the brief "Eldorado," a fitting death-song for Poe, in which a gallant knight sets out, "singing a song," "in search of Eldorado," only to learn when youth and strength are gone that he must seek his goal "down the Valley of the Shadow."

The tales, like the poems, are a real contribution to the world's literature, but more strikingly so, since the type itself is original. Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving are distinctly the pioneers in the production of the modern short story, and neither has been surpassed on his own ground; but Poe has been vastly the greater influence in foreign countries, especially in France. Poe formed a new conception of the short story, one which Professor Brander Matthews4 has treated formally and explicitly as a distinct literary form, different from the story that is merely short. Without calling it a distinct form, Poe implied the idea in a review of Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales":

The ordinary novel is objectionable from its length… As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the immense force derivable from totality… In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the fulness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of perusal, the soul of the reader is at the writer's control…

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with deliberate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents – he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preëstablished design.

This idea of a short story should be kept in mind in reading Poe's works, for he applied his theory perfectly.

The stories are of greater variety than the poems. There are romances of death whose themes are fear, horror, madness, catalepsy, premature burial, torture, mesmerism, and revengeful cruelty; tales of weird beauty; allegories of conscience; narratives of pseudo-science; stories of analytical reasoning; descriptions of beautiful landscapes; and what are usually termed "prose poems." He also wrote tales grotesque, humorous, and satirical, most of which are failures. The earlier tales are predominantly imaginative and emotional; most of the later ones are predominantly intellectual. None of the tales touches ordinary, healthy life; there is scarcely a suggestion of local color; the humor is nearly always mechanical; there is little conversation and the characters are never normal human beings. Although the stories are strongly romantic in subject, plot, and setting, there is an extraordinary realism in treatment, a minuteness and accuracy of detail equaling the work of Defoe. This is one secret of the magical art that not only transports us to the world of dream and vision where the author's own soul roamed, but for the time makes it all real to us.

Poe's finest tale, as a work of art, is "The Fall of the House of Usher," which is as nearly perfect in its craftsmanship as human work may be. It is a romance of death with a setting of profound gloom, and is wrought out as a highly imaginative study in fear – a symphony in which every touch blends into a perfect unity of effect. "Ligeia," perhaps standing next, incorporating "The Conqueror Worm" as its keynote, portrays the terrific struggle of a woman's will against death. "The Masque of the Red Death," a tale of the Spirit of Pestilence and of Death victorious over human selfishness and power, is a splendid study in somber color. "The Assignation," a romance of Venice, is also splendid in coloring and rich in decorative effects, presenting a luxury of sorrow culminating in romantic suicide. "William Wilson" is an allegory of conscience personified in a double, the forerunner of Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Other conscience stories are "The Man of the Crowd"; "The Tell-Tale Heart," also depicting insanity; and "The Black Cat," of which the atmosphere is horror. "The Adventures of One Hans Pfaal" and "The Balloon Hoax" are examples of the pseudo-scientific tales, which attain their verisimilitude by diverting attention from the improbability or impossibility of the general incidents to the accuracy and naturalness of details. In "The Descent into the Maëlstrom," scientific reasoning is skillfully blended with imaginative strength, poetic description, and stirring adventure. This type of story is clearly enough the original of those of Jules Verne and similar writers. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter" are the pioneer detective stories, Dupin the original Sherlock Holmes, and they remain the best of their kind, unsurpassed in originality, ingenuity, and plausibility. Another type of the story of analytical reasoning is "The Gold-Bug," built around the solution of a cryptogram, but also introducing an element of adventure. Poe's analytical power was real, not a trick. If he made Legrand solve the cryptogram and boast his ability to solve others more difficult, Poe himself solved scores sent him in response to a public magazine challenge; if Dupin solved mysteries that Poe invented for him, Poe himself wrote in "Marie Roget," from newspaper accounts, the solution of a real murder mystery, and astounded Dickens by outlining the entire plot of "Barnaby Rudge" when only a few of the first chapters had been published; if he wrote imaginatively of science, he in fact demonstrated in "Maelzel's Chess Player" that a pretended automaton was operated by a man. "Hop Frog" and "The Cask of Amontillado" are old-world stories of revenge. "The Island of the Fay" and "The Domain of Arnheim" are landscape studies, the one of calm loveliness, the other of Oriental profusion and coloring. "Shadow" and "Silence" are commonly classed as "prose poems," the former being one of Poe's most effective productions. "Eleonora," besides having a story to tell, is both a prose poem and a landscape study, and withal one of Poe's most exquisite writings.

Although Poe was not a great critic, his critical work is by no means valueless. He applied for the first time in America a thoroughgoing scrutiny and able, fearless criticism to contemporary literature, undoubtedly with good effect. His attacks on didacticism were especially valuable. His strength as a critic lay in his artistic temperament and in the incisive intellect that enabled him to analyze the effects produced in his own creations and in those of others. His weaknesses were extravagance; a mania for harping on plagiarism; lack of spiritual insight, broad sympathies, and profound scholarship; and, in general, the narrow range of his genius, which has already been made sufficiently clear. His severity has been exaggerated, as he often praised highly, probably erring more frequently by undue laudation than by extreme severity. Though personal prejudice sometimes crept into his work, especially in favor of women, yet on the whole he was as fair and fearless as he claimed to be. Much of the hasty, journalistic hack work is valueless, as might be expected, but he wrote very suggestively of his art, and nearly all his judgments have been sustained. Moreover, he met one supreme test of a critic in recognizing unknown genius: Dickens he was among the first to appraise as a great novelist; Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett (Browning) he ranked among the great poets without hesitation; and at home he early expressed a due appreciation of Hawthorne, Lowell, Longfellow, and Bryant.

Poe's place, both in prose and poetry, is assured. His recognition abroad has been clear and emphatic from the first, especially in France, and to-day foreigners generally regard him as the greatest writer we have produced, an opinion in which a number of our own critics and readers concur. One's judgment in the matter will depend upon the point of view and the standards adopted; it is too large a subject to consider here, but if artistic craftsmanship be the standard, certainly Hawthorne would be his only rival, and Hawthorne was not also a poet. The question of exact relative rank, however, it is neither possible nor important to settle. It is sufficient to say, in the words of Professor Woodberry, "On the roll of our literature Poe's name is inscribed among the few foremost, and in the world at large his genius is established as valid among all men."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The year after Poe's death there appeared "The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe," with a Memoir, in two volumes, edited by R. W. Griswold and published by J. S. Redfield, New York. The same editor and publisher brought out a four-volume edition in 1856. Griswold had suffered from Poe's sharp criticisms and had quarreled with him, though later there was a reconciliation, and Poe himself selected Griswold to edit his works. The biographer painted the dead author very black indeed, and his account is now generally considered unfair.

In 1874-1875 "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe," with Memoir, edited by John H. Ingram, were published in four volumes, in Edinburgh, and in 1876 in New York. Ingram represents the other extreme from Griswold, attempting to defend practically everything that Poe was and did.

In 1884 A. C. Armstrong & Son, New York, brought out "The Works of

Edgar Allan Poe" in six volumes, with an Introduction and Memoir by

Richard Henry Stoddard. Stoddard is far from doing justice to Poe either as man or as author.

Although Griswold's editing was poor, subsequent editions followed his until 1895, when Professor George E. Woodberry and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman published a new edition in ten volumes through Stone & Kimball, Chicago (now published by Duffield & Company, New York). This edition is incomparably superior to all its predecessors, going to the original sources, and establishing an authentic text, corrected slightly in quotations and punctuation. Professor Woodberry contributed a Memoir, and Mr. Stedman admirable critical articles on the poems and the tales. Scholarly notes, an extensive bibliography, a number of portraits, and variorum readings of the poems, are included.

In 1902 T.Y. Crowell & Company, New York, issued "The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe" in seventeen volumes, edited by Professor James A. Harrison, including a biography and a volume of letters. This edition contains much of Poe's criticism not published in previous editions, and follows Poe's latest text exactly; complete variorum readings are included.

In 1902 there also appeared "The Booklover's Arnheim" edition in ten volumes, edited by Professor Charles F. Richardson and published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. This is mechanically the finest edition of Poe's works.

The one-volume collections of poems and of tales are almost innumerable, but nearly all are devoid of merit and poorly edited in selection, text, and notes. (This does not refer to the small collections for study in schools.) The best are the following: "Tales of Mystery," Unit Book Publishing Company, New York (72 cents); "The Best Tales of Edgar Allan Poe," edited with critical studies by Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Company, Chicago ($1.00); "The Best Poems and Essays of E. A. Poe," edited with biographical and critical introduction by Sherwin Cody, McClurg ($1.00); "Poems of E. A. Poe," complete, edited and annotated by Charles W. Kent, The Macmillan Company, New York (25 cents).

Professor George E. Woodberry contributed in 1885 a volume on Poe to the American Men of Letters Series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston), which is the ablest yet written. In scholarship and critical appreciation it is all that could be desired, but unfortunately it is unsympathetic. Mr. Woodberry assumed a coldly judicial attitude, in which mood he is occasionally a little less than just to Poe's character. Professor Harrison's biography, written for the Virginia edition, is published separately by T.Y. Crowell & Company. It is very full, and valuable for the mass of material supplied, but is not discriminating in criticism or estimate of Poe's character.

Numerous magazine articles may be found by consulting the periodical indexes. A number of suggestive short studies are to be found in the text-books of American literature, such as those of Messrs. Trent, Abernethy, Newcomer, and Wendell; and in the larger books of Professors Richardson, Trent, and Wendell. One may also find acute and valuable comment in such works as Professor Bliss Perry's "A Study of Prose Fiction," and Professor Brander Matthews's "Philosophy of the Short-Story" (published separately, and in "Pen and Ink").

Many of Poe's tales and poems have been translated into practically all the important languages of modern Europe, including Greek. An important French study of Poe, recently published, is mentioned in the Preface.

POEMS

SONG

I saw thee on thy bridal day,  When a burning blush came o'er thee,Though happiness around thee lay,  The world all love before thee;And in thine eye a kindling light  (Whatever it might be)Was all on Earth my aching sight  Of loveliness could see.That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame:  As such it well may pass,Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame  In the breast of him, alas!Who saw thee on that bridal day,  When that deep blush would come o'er thee,Though happiness around thee lay,  The world all love before thee.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD

Thy soul shall find itself alone'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone;Not one, of all the crowd, to pryInto thine hour of secrecy.Be silent in that solitude,  Which is not loneliness – for thenThe spirits of the dead, who stood  In life before thee, are againIn death around thee, and their willShall overshadow thee; be still.The night, though clear, shall frown,And the stars shall look not downFrom their high thrones in the HeavenWith light like hope to mortals given,But their red orbs, without beam,To thy weariness shall seemAs a burning and a feverWhich would cling to thee forever.Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,Now are visions ne'er to vanish;From thy spirit shall they passNo more, like dewdrops from the grass.The breeze, the breath of God, is still,And the mist upon the hillShadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,Is a symbol and a token.How it hangs upon the trees,A mystery of mysteries!

TO —

I heed not that my earthly lot  Hath little of Earth in it,That years of love have been forgot  In the hatred of a minute:I mourn not that the desolate  Are happier, sweet, than I,But that you sorrow for my fate  Who am a passer-by.

ROMANCE

Romance, who loves to nod and singWith drowsy head and folded wingAmong the green leaves as they shakeFar down within some shadowy lake,To me a painted paroquetHath been – a most familiar bird —Taught me my alphabet to say,To lisp my very earliest wordWhile in the wild-wood I did lie,A child – with a most knowing eye.Of late, eternal condor yearsSo shake the very heaven on highWith tumult as they thunder by,I have no time for idle caresThrough gazing on the unquiet sky;And when an hour with calmer wingsIts down upon my spirit flings,That little time with lyre and rhymeTo while away – forbidden things —My heart would feel to be a crimeUnless it trembled with the strings.

TO THE RIVER

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow  Of crystal, wandering water,Thou art an emblem of the glow    Of beauty – the unhidden heart,    The playful maziness of art  In old Alberto's daughter;But when within thy wave she looks,  Which glistens then, and trembles,Why, then, the prettiest of brooks  Her worshipper resembles;For in his heart, as in thy stream,  Her image deeply lies —His heart which trembles at the beam  Of her soul-searching eyes.

TO SCIENCE

A PROLOGUE TO "AL AARAAF"Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art,  Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,  Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,  Who wouldst not leave him in his wanderingTo seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,  Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,  And driven the Hamadryad from the woodTo seek a shelter in some happier star?  Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,The Elfin from the green grass, and from meThe summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree?

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me  Like those Nicæan barks of yore,That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,  The weary, wayworn wanderer bore  To his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,  Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home  To the glory that was Greece  And the grandeur that was Rome.Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche  How statue-like I see thee stand,  The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions which  Are Holy Land!

ISRAFEL

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. – KORANIn Heaven a spirit doth dwell  Whose heart-strings are a lute;None sing so wildly wellAs the angel Israfel,And the giddy stars (so legends tell),Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell  Of his voice, all mute.Tottering above  In her highest noon,  The enamoured moonBlushes with love,  While, to listen, the red levin  (With the rapid Pleiads, even,  Which were seven)  Pauses in Heaven.And they say (the starry choir  And the other listening things)That Israfeli's fireIs owing to that lyre  By which he sits and sings,The trembling living wire  Of those unusual strings.But the skies that angel trod,  Where deep thoughts are a duty,Where Love's a grown-up God,  Where the Houri glances areImbued with all the beauty  Which we worship in a star.Therefore thou art not wrong,  Israfeli, who despisestAn unimpassioned song;To thee the laurels belong,  Best bard, because the wisest:Merrily live, and long!The ecstasies above  With thy burning measures suit:Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,  With the fervor of thy lute:  Well may the stars be mute!Yes, Heaven is thine; but this  Is a world of sweets and sours;  Our flowers are merely – flowers,And the shadow of thy perfect bliss  Is the sunshine of ours.If I could dwellWhere Israfel  Hath dwelt, and he where I,He might not sing so wildly well  A mortal melody,While a bolder note than this might swell 50  From my lyre within the sky.

THE CITY IN THE SEA

Lo! Death has reared himself a throneIn a strange city lying aloneFar down within the dim West,Where the good and the bad and the worst and the bestHave gone to their eternal rest.There shrines and palaces and towers(Time-eaten towers that tremble not)Resemble nothing that is ours.Around, by lifting winds forgot,Resignedly beneath the skyThe melancholy waters lie.No rays from the holy heaven come downOn the long night-time of that town;But light from out the lurid seaStreams up the turrets silently,Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,Up shadowy long-forgotten bowersOf sculptured ivy and stone flowers,Up many and many a marvellous shrineWhose wreathed friezes intertwineThe viol, the violet, and the vine.Resignedly beneath the skyThe melancholy waters lie.So blend the turrets and shadows thereThat all seem pendulous in air,While from a proud tower in the townDeath looks gigantically down.There open fanes and gaping gravesYawn level with the luminous waves;But not the riches there that lieIn each idol's diamond eye, —Not the gaily-jewelled dead,Tempt the waters from their bed;For no ripples curl, alas,Along that wilderness of glass;No swellings tell that winds may beUpon some far-off happier sea;No heavings hint that winds have beenOn seas less hideously serene!But lo, a stir is in the air!The wave – there is a movement there!As if the towers had thrust aside,In slightly sinking, the dull tide;As if their tops had feebly givenA void within the filmy Heaven!The waves have now a redder glow,The hours are breathing faint and low;And when, amid no earthly moans,Down, down that town shall settle hence,Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,Shall do it reverence.