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The Works of the late Edgar Allan Poe, with a Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, and Notes of his Life and Genius, by N. P. Willis and J. R. Lowell. In four vols. IV. — Arthur Gordon Pym, &c. New York: Redfield. 1856.
This is the fourth volume of Redfield's neat edition of Poe's works, and contains, besides “Arthur Gordon Pym,” several reviews, and some miscellanies — the most noticeable of which latter is the excellent paper on Maelzel's Chess-player. The exactness of statement, and the clearness with which every point is reasoned out, very justly made this paper remarkable, and we are glad to see it thus preserved. Some other of the miscellanies bring Poe before us as a humorist — a character in which he was certainly never happy; yet, if the object were to produce a perfect figure of his whole literary character, perhaps better selections could not have been made. The “System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” is a graceful trifle; yet, though the idea is highly humorous, and the subject susceptible of a most exquisite treatment in that way, we never laugh, but rather leave all else to admire the art with which every thing is fitted to its proper place, and finish with the reflection that clumsy fellows are the funniest.
The “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” is a strange performance. It was written with the intention of having it pass for a true narrative of a sailor's suffering and wonderful adventures, and was, to some extent, successful. So far, the author's point was gained; but whether he was himself satisfied with the work, we much doubt. In one view, keeping some chapters from the end, it is as good as truth: it might have happened. Indeed, with the limitation aforesaid, every thing in it has happened. Boys have gone to sea — hidden between decks; mutinies have taken place, and murders, shipwreck and suffering have been sufficiently common, and strange lands have been discovered. All these things have, perhaps, happened to different persons; but we are not prepared to quarrel with the author who so admirably condenses, as to put a hundred heroes into one. In this respect, it is better than truth. But the wonder is, the skill with which all is conducted — the close attention to minute detail; and this quite enables us to appreciate Ariosto's travelling around the world, without leaving home. We can [column 3:] call to mind but one instance in which the author lapses from this exactness, and that instance causes us1 to qualify what we have said — it could not have happened. It is not possible that Pym could have forgotten the axe that he placed in the forecastle, through all the frantic endeavors to get into the store-room. We are not nautical, and perhaps we are not particularly sharp; but we thought of that axe the first thing, and many were the invectives we heaped upon the head of stupid Arthur Gordon Pym, for half drowning himself, starving the others, coming to the awful point of killing one to save the rest — and yet never thinking of that axe, till after all this, — and thinking of it then. We were as angry at him for thinking of it when he did, as for not thinking of it before — for he deserved to die. Though few men were more thoroughly versed than Poe in all descriptions of mania or mental phenomena, we shall never believe that that could have happened Toward the conclusion, the “narrative” becomes powerful in working out that strange effect of mystery and wonder, of which its author seems always to have been so fond.
We extract the abrupt close, where the boat is hurled into the chasm at the pole: —
March 21. — A sullen darkness now hovered above us — but from out the milky depths of the ocean a luminous glare arose, and stole up along the bulwarks of the boat. We were nearly overwhelmed by the white ashy shower which settled upon us and upon the canoe, but melted into the water as it fell. The summit of the cataract was utterly lost in the dimness and the distance. Yet we were evidently approaching it with a hideous velocity. At intervals there were visible in it wide, yawning, but momentary rents, and from out these rents, within which was a chaos of flitting and indistinct images, there came rushing and mighty, but soundless winds, tearing up the enkindled ocean in their course.
March 22. — The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but, upon touching him, we found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.
The critical articles which fill out the volume. are in Poe's own style. A new book from Poe, to-day, would be an event in the literary world, and this is virtually such. The articles upon Magazine Writing, the Quacks of Helicon, Astoria, and the “ Letter to B.,” are as fresh as if written yesterday. From the “Quacks “ we quote a passage, not so much for its excellence literarily (though it has a vigor not frequently found), as to note its truth: —
Surely there can be few things more ridiculous than the general character and assumptions of the ordinary critical notices of new books! An editor, sometimes without the shadow of the commonest attainment — often without brains, always without time — does not scruple to give the world to understand that he is in the daily habit of critically reading and deciding upon a flood of publications, one-tenth of whose title-pages he may possibly have turned over, three fourths of whose con tents would be Hebrew to his most desperate efforts at comprehension, and whose entire mass and amount, as might be mathematically demonstrated, would be sufficient to occupy, in the most cursory perusal, the attention of some ten or twenty readers for a month! What he wants in plausibility, however, he makes up in obsequiousness; what he lacks in time, he supplies in temper. He is the most easily pleased man in the world. He admires every thing, from the big dictionary of Noah Webster, to the last diamond edition of Tom Thumb. Indeed, his sole difficulty is in finding tongue to express his delight. Every pamphlet is a miracle — every book in boards is an epoch in letters. His phrases, therefore, get bigger and bigger every day, and, if it were not for talking Cockney, we might call him a “regular swell.”
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But we feel angry with ourselves for the jesting tone of our observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust. ts truckling, yet dogmatical character — its bold, unsustained, yet self-sufficient and whole sale laudation — is becoming, more and more, an insult to the common sense of the community.
And this is worse to-day than eve
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - CASL, 1856] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Review of The Works of Edgar A. Poe (Anonymous, 1856)