Text: Rebecca C. Tansil, “Conclusion,” French Language and French Influence in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1827), pp. 82-83

[page 82:]

Chapters II and III give in detail the amount of French used in Poe's works. Sixty-five tales have been examined and thirty-six of these contain French. The tabulation has included French words, phrases and references. The essays and criticisms contain more French references than do the tales. The French used ranges from single short words to entire phrases and sentences.

After this concrete evidence of Poe's French the question that naturally arises is, why did Poe use French? The writer believes that Poe used French for two purposes. The first is for the same reason that many writers employ foreign words, that is, for the romantic appeal and the foreign atmosphere that foreign phrases lend a composition. The unusual or uncommon word always appears to the reader and is fascinating even though the meaning is not always clear. French was fashionable in Poe's day and the use of this language gave an aristocratic atmosphere to the writings. [page 83:]

Poe's second reason for using French is that the foreign word frequently imparted its special meaning to the passage. This use can be justified only after the study made in Chapter I has revealed that Poe was a French student. A person who is familiar with more than one language realizes that certain ideas can be expressed better in one language than in another. When attempting to express something clearly the foreign word often comes to mind instead of the word in his native tongue. While Walt Whitman used foreign words to lend vagueness and indefinitiveness to his writings Poe usually used these words for the added meaning they gave a composition. Poe evidently felt that there were certain ideas and emotional effects that he could more clearly express in French than in English. Poe was conscious of this use of French and knowing that he would be criticized for this frequent use of foreign words he seeks to offer excuses and at the same time justify this use. At one place in the “Rue Morgue” Poe uses the French expression “Je les menageais” and parenthetically makes this comment [page 84:] “for this phrase there is no English equivalent.” Another time in the same story he speaks of the “frightful affair”, using English instead of the French word “affaire”. He then adds in parentheses, “The word ‘affaire’ has not yet, in French, that levity of import which it conveys with us.” In the story “The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Equire.” Poe uses the phrase “coup-de-grâce” and adds “as they say in France.” Again he says, “The words used seemed to be deficient in force: they were not sufficiently ‘pronouncée” (as they have it in France.” Other similar examples could be quoted but these are sufficient to show that Poe himself was conscious of his use of French words and phrases and attempted to justify this use.

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Since making this study the writer has read a recent article on “Poe's Use of French,” written for the “American Speech”. March 1927, by Miss Edith Phillips, of Goucher College. Miss Phillips confirms this idea of Poe's use of French and insists that Poe did use French discriminately. She says of Poe's French ——— “French is not used by Poe with the careless inconsequence of one who can find a stereotyped foreign phrase more quickly than the exact word in his own language. There seems to be a definite purpose in Poe's choice of French words — In the Tales of Ratiocination French phrases are very common and are used to give what Poe himself would call a “rechereche air” to the story. But the volumes in which we find Poe's French in all its eclat and naivete are those of Literary Criticisms.” [page 85:]

A further study could be made concerning Poe's French by translating the French used and comparing with the meanings Poe gave them.

In Chapter IV is given a list of the French references used by Poe. This list shows that Poe quoted from forty-three French writers whose dates range from Balzac [[Rabelais]], 1495, to Hugo, a contemporary of Poe. The classical age of French literature seems to be represented more than any other period. This subject of influences of French writers on Poe's ideas and methods has scarcely been touched but there is evidence enough to call for further research.