Text: Elmer J. Bailey, “Edgar Allan Poe,” in Religious Thought in the Greatest American Poets, Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1922, pp. 32-46

[page 32:]

It is popular opinion that the most minute research into the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe will not meet with any discovery that can be called even remotely religious — much less Christian. It is readily admitted, of course, that Poe makes frequent mention of cherubim and seraphim, of angels and demons, of soul and spirit, of heaven and hell; yet it is quite likely to be added without delay that these terms are hardly more than mere words in a poet's unusually musical vocabulary, and must therefore be looked upon as not so much as even hinting at any article of faith. To one who attempts to assert that there is any positive religious teaching whatever in the poetry of Poe, it will be pointed out that the poet makes quite as ready use of names drawn from paganism and Islam as from Judaism and Christianity, that he gives no preference to the Eden of the Hebrews over the Aidenn of the Arabians, and that he speaks of the works of Eblis as no less certainly evil than those of Satan. Beyond a doubt, angels and ghouls, fairies and elves, naiads and dryads, are all equally real to Poe. With him Edis, the Tartar divinity presiding over virtuous love takes the place of the Greek Aphrodite; the Phoenician [page 33:] Astarte and the Latin Diana, each the goddess of birth, are presented side by side; and Azrael of the Talmud, the angel who awaits the separation of the soul from the body at the moment of death, is not inferior to Israfel of the Koran, that melo- dious spirit “whose heart-strings are a lute,” and who, possessed of the sweetest voice of all God's creatures, stands ready to sound the trumpet of the resurrection.

The contention of those who maintain that no religious thought is discoverable in Poe might perhaps be allowed to stand, were it not that the instances which they almost always adduce in support of their assertions, prove too much. Failing to find anything in Poe that is strongly Christian, they cite his frequent use of non-Christian terms to show that he is not religious at all. It ought not to be necessary to point out that before one speaks in criticism of any work of literature, one should take pains to become acquainted with the author's point of view and method of expression. All the beings whose names are recorded in the poetry of Poe — whether they are Hebrew or Christian, pagan or Moslem — had, to Poe's mind, a very real place in that strange land created by his delicate yet vivid imagination. Insufficiently material to be of the earth, earthy; insufficiently ‘spiritual to be of the heaven, heavenly, they were to the man who created them, as they are still to his appreciative readers, true shadows, albeit inhabiting a world which is hardly more than a shadow. They constitute, indeed, what Poe in another [page 34:] connection has himself denominated a dream within a dream.

The vagueness of the realm created by Poe may be safely regarded as the outcome of his theory of just what poetry is. Early in life Poe, writing to a friend, asserted that in his opinion, “A poem is opposed to romance by having for its object, an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception.” With this point of view in mind, one readily perceives the reason on one hand of the tenuous, the evanescent character of Poe's world of fancy; and on the other of his ready acceptance of proper names which make the inhabitants of his spiritual world an assemblage hardly less mixed — hardly less cosmopolitan, if the word will be allowed — than was, let us say, Milton's once happy throng of angels before a part of them were lost and changed through pride. The undeviating use of terms which fall quite readily from the lips of western theologians in discussing their exceedingly accurate ideas of heaven must almost certainly have ended, to Poe's way of thinking, in an image altogether too definite. It is not beyond thought, indeed, that even Saint John's minutely circumstantial description of the heavenly Jerusalem was to Poe most veritable prose. On the other hand, the mythology of the Greeks or the Romans, and the religious [page 35:] conceptions of Mahomet contained for him many names of peculiar value. When they are used, their denotation in the minds of nearly all readers is so slight as to leave but an indefinite impression — nevertheless they are rich in connotation, in suggestiveness. Still further their mere sound is often exceedingly beautiful — frequently all but music itself. To the attuned ear, for an instance, there is an unusual pleasure in such a word as Israfel and its doublet Israfeli. Thus it came about that Poe sought the elements of his spiritual world where he would, and seized upon them wherever he found them.

In that vague, indefinite world of Poe's, pictured to the reader through the use of musical words borrowed from many far-separated sources, the personality of God, although seldom mentioned and almost as rarely referred to, is given a peculiar, perhaps a quite convincing, vividness. This impression does not arise from the poet's asserting that his God has or has not lent him “respite and nepenthe from his memories of Lenore,” or from his writing in The Sleeper,

Such passages have their value, no doubt, but two others may be cited to prove the existence in Poe of that state of mind which attends the rare experience of every believer when he feels that he stands in the immediate presence of God Himself. The first of these constitutes the great part of the poem [page 36:] entitled Silence. Read attentively, it is seen to be the expression of that surpassing sense of trust which arises in the soul of man when the heart is all- confounded beneath the Overpowering Mystery.

The very strength of this passage lies in its vagueness. No man but has some time had the experience here set down; yet no man, — try as he may, — can give that experience greater definiteness.

The second passage is found in the early unnamed poem beginning,

The reader soon discovers that the poet is conscious of an unseen, yet personal Presence, half doubted, yet not wholly dismissible.

Here again is the indefinite, the vague; yet the poet's conclusion is illuminating. His answer to his own question is, —

Philosophically considered, this experience, one critic tells us, is the unblinding of the poet to the Spirit of Beauty; poetically considered, it is, according to Byron, whom Poe himself quotes, the intense reply of Nature's intelligence to ours; religiously considered, it is, to the mind of the believer, a manifestation of God.

To complete our understanding of Poe's conception of God — at least in so far as he saw fit to reveal it in his verse — we must bring another poem under levy. In Al Aaraaf, the angel Nesace is vouchsafed an answer to her prayer; yet this record of an exhibition of divine grace is of far less importance to us than the assertion that of all the spheres which whirl in the heavens, ours is “ the favored one of God.” Still, though thus favored, it is found wanting in the balance. We hear a tone of regret when

a tone of regret that our world, “ linked to a little system and one sun,” is a world [page 38:]

Meagre as are the passages thus far laid under contribution, we may conclude from them that to Poe's mind the Supreme Being is a personal God to whom men and angels may address their prayers with an expectation of reply. If He must be regarded as a Being beyond the comprehension of man, He none the less gives to the human soul a sense of nearness, especially in hours of terror and dread, and, sometimes, a not incomprehensible message to the heart. Still further Poe gives indication of believing that, though God holds the heavens as a very little thing in the hollow of His hand, He not the less bends above our earth in special solicitation and ceases not to care for the children of men. Expressing the idea in the terms of the theologian, one is safe in saying that Poe's conception of God is theistic. Despite his men- tion of heathen deities and his attribution of personality to them, he apparently held to a belief in the existence of one God transcending the universe in His personality, yet immanent in it in His knowledge and action.

Whatever Poe's attitude towards God may have been, no trace of the idea of the Trinity can anywhere be discovered in his poetry. The Holy Spirit is never mentioned or His existence even most remotely implied. To the Son, it is true, there is an occasional reference; but the expression, “ For the Holy Jesus’ sake,” and the address to the Virgin [page 39:] as the Mother of God, hardly leads one to think that Poe's mind had dwelt upon the great doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement. True, in the dramatic monologue of Tamerlane, the dying conqueror speaks to a monk, but he tells his story only after he has assured his listener that no power of earth can shrive his dying soul of the sin his unearthly pride has revelled in. Again, in the drama Politian, a priest enters, and some use is made of a crucifix; still, there is nothing to show that Poe himself reacted upon the great central fact of Christianity. Rather may we assume that his real attitude towards Jesus of Nazareth is to be found in certain lines of The Coliseum. There the poet exclaims as he gazes upon what he calls “the rich reliquary of lofty contemplation left to Time,” —

All things considered, therefore, it must be admitted that although Poe's conception of God is theistic, it is not in the strict sense, — perhaps not in any sense, — Christian.

In passing, attention may properly be called to Poe's occasional use of the Scriptures. In Politian [page 40:] the sorrowful Lalage asks for a copy of the Holy Evangelists since, —

It is of some little interest perhaps to observe that the expression “balm in Gilead,” taken from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, occurs also in The Raven; and that the passage which makes mention of the dew of Hermon, drawn from the one hundred and thirty-third Psalm, reappears almost word for word in the lines which bear the title To —————————— . Again the words, “Let there be light,” are so used in the poem, To M. L. S. that beyond a doubt they must have been quoted from the first chapter of Genesis; and of course the opening words of the threnody, Lenore, “Ah! broken is the golden bowl” is a reminiscence of the well-known passage in the book of Ecclesiastes. Finally, Poe in the notes appended to Al Aaraaf twice makes quotations from the Bible, first that beautiful expression from the Revelation of Saint John, “and golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints” and later those tender words from the one hundred and twenty-first Psalm, “The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night.” The very attractiveness of all these quotations, however, and the uses to which they are put, show plainly that they appeal to Poe primarily through their harmonious diction. His incorporation of [page 41:] them into his work, therefore, proves but little, certainly it gives no more accurate insight into the state of his mind and belief than does his adaptation of a passage of the Koran to stand at the head of his poem Israfel.

Turning now to Poe's thoughts upon the question of life beyond the grave, we find that they range all the way from a dull conception of death as a sleep to a full certainty of a conscious, — possibly an active immortality. Never quite descending to the depth of thinking that death ends all, he not the less quietly — perhaps gladly — utters in Al Aaraaf the words,

This longing for sleep is evidently not a condition in which the mind is inactive. Indeed, the dead man who speaks the lines entitled For Annie fully apprehends his state and quite contentedly accepts his lot.

Yet mere quiet, satisfying sleep is not the only gain from death. The tantalized spirit lies wholly at peace, bathing in many a dream of the truth, recalling the beauty of Annie, remembering with joy that moment of death when, the lover says,

Poe, however, was not always in a mood to be satisfied with what ma*y perhaps be called passive immortality. At times he rose to a full conviction that the soul passes to another plane of existence. In Lenore, he exclaimed,

There, in the presence of that King, Poe implied, one may hope for the conscious reunion of souls. Says the speaker in The Raven, eagerly adjuring his visitor, [page 43:]

Although the answer to this appeal was a disheartening “Nevermore,” we need not interpret the reply as an expression of disbelief in the possibility of immortality, — rather was it the word of final judgment upon a soul which had in some way made itself unworthy of such happiness as it longed for. In striking contrast stands another lover created by the fancy of Poe. He asks no question, would brook, we may be sure, no condemnation, no refusal. Sure of himself, his love, and his fate, he cries out with that passionate conviction which is nothing less than truth,

Approaching the question of immortality from still another point of view, we discover that Poe in one place addresses a poem to a soul in Paradise as though that soul could hear the words that fall from mortal lips; that in Dreamland he mentions

and that in Spirits of the Dead, a poem in which he speaks of death as inevitable, he urges a noble and [page 44:] fearless adjustment of the soul to that great hour of change.

These lines, despite the strength, the resignation which their author perhaps hoped they would impart, bring us face to face with that horror of death which nearly two hundred years of Christian faith and hope have failed appreciably to eradicate from the heart of man. For Poe this horror always had a peculiar fascination. It drew him so insistently, in fact, that, look where he would, all things seemed to partake of its ominous nature. In its own character it is the fundamental thought of The City in the Sea; somewhat softened indeed, yet none the less repellent, it becomes the horror of insanity in The Haunted Palace; still sinister, it is the horror of nightmare in Dreamland; and finally strident, discordant, soul-wracking, it is the horror of life in The Conqueror Worm.

All things taken into consideration, the poetry [page 45:] of Poe offers little to the soul which questions or doubts, — far less to the heart which seeks help or comfort. Undoubtedly Poe believed in God, a Being who, because He hears and perhaps answers prayer, must be deemed personal; yet so vaguely does the poet define that personality that one is not lifted even momentarily into a state of certainty, confidence, or trust. Almost as certainly, Poe also believed that the soul persists after the death of the body; but in his expression of this faith, he was often not less vague than he was when he spoke of his belief in God. Not seldom, it has to be added, his ideas are dangerously near being repulsive, and often they are an expression, not so much of hope, as of despair. Beyond these tenets of God and immortality — tenets which, as he phrases them, are far more pagan than Christian in character — the religion of Poe did not reach. In other words, the spiritual belief of the most musical of American poets, say the best that we can, was poverty-stricken.

It is quite useless to inquire, had Poe's belief been richer, would his life have been happier? or had his life been happier, would his belief have been richer? The most cursory acquaintance with the life of Edgar Allan Poe shows that, like the speaker in The Raven, he was one

bore —

No poet ever deserved our pity more — neither Byron, nor Shelley, nor Keats. The slender pipe on which he blew gave forth but few tones — “most musical, most melancholy.” From his poetry one cannot gain religiously either the higher uplift or the broader outlook; yet one whose belief has become settled, whose faith is at poise, lays down the poetry of Poe in no spirit of harsh criticism. Poe, like Shelley, was a radiant spirit who “vainly beat his luminous wings in a void.” Only pity, — gentle, kindly pity, — can be felt for the man who without becoming unmanly, laid his inmost heart bare in the sorrowful words of A Dream within a Dream,