Text: Argus, “New Light on Poe,” Critic (New York, NY), November 7, 1891, p. 254, col. 1

[page 254, column 1:]

New Light on Poe

TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC: —

Possibly there are other readers of The Critic who, like myself, keep an eager lookout for anything and everything touching a late unlamented unmonumented American literary artist named Edgar Allan Poe. I have just made a notable find, and in the spirit of this sunny Lord's day morning I am moved to share my gladness with my benighted brethren who sit in the outer darkness from which a lucky chance has delivered me. A Poe article in the current American Catholic Quarterly Review, filling sixteen tall pages, was a sufficiently toothsome bait, apart from the quasi-guarantee of semi-inspiration that seems to flit between the lines on the back cover. These impressively declare of the A. C. Q. Review that ‘it employs the highest order of literary talent available in this country’; and it proudly appends, in Latin and English, the special Apostolic Benediction mailed am its staff by His Holiness Leo XIII. Was ever a poor poet's apologist so generously dowered as the lucky William O'Leary Curtis, the author of this unique masterpiece? To presume to criticise a scripture thus vouchsafed would sheer sacrilege, so I devoutly retail a few of its teachings without presumptuous note or comment.

Poe, first lesson of all, ‘was certainly of Irish descent.’ He was a schoolboy in ‘Stoke Newington, England.’ The vulgate version's picture of his early dissipation and expulsion from college is beautifully revised, — ‘now all this is not by any means true.’ Yet, ‘he was fond of entertaining his companions and we dare say they did not object to drinking champagne (!) at his expense.’ The wine is mysteriously changed into ‘brandy’ a few lines lower down. The average typesetter will rejoice at the sanction now given to his perverse mis-spelling of the poet's second name, ‘things now look bad for Poe; Mrs. Allan was dead, Mr. Allen had married again.’ And then comes a glorious revelation in punctuation, thus: — ‘Can we wonder that a scene ensued? That the poet left the house in in [[sic]] a rage? That Mrs. Allan complained to her husband of Poe's insolence? with the result that he was forbidden the house.’ The Saturday Visiter in which Poe wrote now becomes Visitor. ‘He could not shake off the thraldom of the Drink Fiend,’ — which perhaps accounts for such muddling sentences as this : — ‘ Its proprietor regretted Azm, for on starting a new magazine he offered him its editorship, which he [not him] accepted.’ Willis, be it known, was ‘a distinguished poet,’ while ‘Mr. Stoddard’ is only a person who ‘remarks.’ But the article consists entirely of second-hand facts re-habited in diaphanous fancies. Now we shall see with new eyes. James Whitcomb Riley's vagrom verses, long ago uttered as sterling coin from the Poe mint, entitled ‘Leonainie,’ are pronounced, ex cathedra, genuine. ‘This beautiful poem is not to be found in any of the editions of Poe's works, and Our Opinion is that no edition should claim completeness without it. It has all the characteristics of Poe at his very best, and we do not believe any other American poet could have written it.’ But for that awkward ‘other’ I would humbly say Amen to the last clause. Poe wrote these words, ‘whom the angels call Lenore.’ The opening line of the thing here given in full runs thus: — ‘Leonainie, angels named her,’ but the crowning proof of its Poe-try comes in the soulful sigh over ‘her eyes of bloomy moonshine.’ The superiority of this to the hack-work of the genuine Poe is seen by contrast with the lame line that disfigures the opening of the verses ‘To Helen,’ which are also given in full: —

Nevertheless, ‘the last two lines of the second stanza have always been especial favorites of ours.’ Henceforth let the heathen rave over the new-discovered couplet : —

Mark well the ‘was’ in the last line. Strange, but true, ‘its author was never near Rome at any time’! The Roman conversion of an un-Romish poet's name is from Shelley to ‘Shelly’ — which some crusty-acean critics will think rather a scaly trick. Poe wrote ‘a requiem for his dead wife ‘ — a daring breach of the custom which reserves requiems for the living, and it is to be known for evermore by its new name ‘Malume. On another page it is actually profaned into ‘Ulalume.’

Of the poet's brain-progeny a pair of oddlings are decreed to go as twins, these, or it, are, or is, known as ‘For Annie and Lenore.’ And of his ‘beautifully-written tales’ the one which he christened ‘Ligeia’ is for the future transmogrified into ‘Lisica.’ Here I must cease, profoundly grateful that the Papal sanction absolves one's rebellious cogitations from the perils of mortal sin.

ARGUS.

25 Oct., 1891.