Text: William Mentzel Forrest, “Preface,” Biblical Allusions in Poe, 1928, pp. 5-6 (This material may be protected by copyright)

[page 5:]

This study of Poe began as far back as 1909 when the one hundredth anniversary of his birth was celebrated at his alma mater, the University of Virginia. Intermittently it has been zealously pursued for months, or laid aside for years as other matters have dictated.

Meanwhile, public interest in Poe as the most universally renowned of American authors, has grown. Also the literary study of the Bible as the greatest of English classics has increased amazingly. To bring the two together in these pages may well quicken the study of both.

The Bible in Shakespeare and Browning and Tennyson seems an almost obvious result of the scriptural permeation of English literature in general. Long ago it was treated in various books. But Poe has never before been so studied, perhaps because of a popular conviction that he was the last literary man in the world we should expect to find among the prophets. The extent of his familiarity with the Bible, and of his reflection of religion, may not induce the reader to follow Poe's gifted French critic and translator who wrote in his journal, “I swear myself henceforth to pray every morning to Poe.”(1) Yet [page 6:] it is likely to astonish many both by reason of the type of his writings and of his reputation.

The study has been prosecuted mainly for the purpose of increasing knowledge of the Bible. Hence Poe's writings have been used as a sort of foil to bring into high relief the literary features of Scripture. Yet the student of Poe will find that the method here followed has in no wise failed to exhibit his versatility and technical skill, as well as his biblical knowledge.

References to Poe's writings are so made that it should be possible to find them in any standard edition. But it was necessary to give volume, page and line in many references, and that meant the use of an edition fairly late and complete. Unless otherwise indicated, all references are to James A. Harrison's Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 17 volumes, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1902. Citation of the Whitman letters is to Harrison's edition of The Last Letters of Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman, Putnam's Sons, New York, 1909.

W. M. FORREST.

University of Virginia

October, 1927

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 5:]

1Charles Baudelaire,