Text: David Lee Maulsby, “The Renascence of Poe,” The Dial (Chicago, IL), March 1, 1895, pp. 138-141

[page 138:]

The appearance of a handsome illustrated edition of Poe's complete works, carefully edited, opening with a memoir by Professor G. E. Woodberry and a special introduction to the tales by Mr. E. C. Stedman, is an event of considerable importance in the history of Poe's fame among his countrymen. For Poe has had the singular fortune to be praised with distinction in some quarters abroad, while receiving generally but a qualified welcome at home. Baudelaire hastened to translate the author's complete works, with appreciative commentary, — an act typical of the popular approbation bestowed upon Poe in France to-day. Some of the tales have been rendered into Spanish and some into German. Ulissi Ortensi, finding the example of Baudelaire more potent than his warning precept, dared to turn all of the poems into musical Italian prose. Among Englishmen, James Hannay of the preceding generation, and Professor Ernest Rhys of the present, have been intimate and favorable critics. Ingram's life of Poe, though discriminating, is friendly and full. In illustration of Poe's proposition that it takes a poet to catch a poet, Robert Browning presented to Mrs. Benzon a copy of the poems, — dedicated, as were all the English editions, to Miss Barrett, — and wrote on the fly-leaf that the book was given “partly on account of the poetry, partly on that of the dedication.” Mr. Edmund Gosse, after critical discussion of the more prominent makers of verse in this country, decided that, if America has produced a great poet, Poe has the best claim to that sacred title. And Mr. Andrew Lang, in his “Letters to Dead Authors,” addresses the shade of Poe as that of “ the greatest poet, perhaps the greatest literary genius,” of his country.

On the contrary, excluding the list of the poet's personal friends, where, hitherto, could we look among his own countrymen for an estimate of his genius in which stinted praise should not be outweighed by abundant blame? His biographers, from the notorious perversion of Griswold to the accurate documentary life by Professor Woodberry, have seldom been sympathetic. Emerson's ear, insensible to [column 2:] music, found nothing in Poe's verse but nursery jingles. Lowell, while allowing “three-fifths of him” to be “genius,” precipitated a sharp rejoinder from his former friend by pronouncing the remainder fraction “sheer fudge.” Nowadays, Professor Barrett Wendell, although naming Poe as one of the three distinctive American writers, condemns his work as “ fantastic and meretricious throughout.” He is approached by Mr. Greenough White, with alliterative compassion, as “poor Poe,” “pessimistic Poe,” — and “The Fall of the House of Usher” is preposterously discovered to be an allegory, shadowing autobiographically “the burial of conscience, and the ruin resulting therefrom.”

The present edition of Poe, with its commentaries, makes some amends for past ill-treatment. Mr. Stedman had already shown in his “Poets of America” that he could appreciate Poe's verse with discrimination, and without patronage or pity. His estimate of the tales is judicious, weighing defects candidly, and meaning to make full recognition of Poe's intellectual genius. Occasionally a word seemed misapplied, as when the sumptuous but incongruous furnishings of “The Assignation” are said to be “lauded “ by the author and thus to evince his untutored taste. It seems gratuitous, too, to call “William Wilson” a “confession,” and then urge that the author was not really so hardened in conscience as in this fiction he pretended to be. But the introduction to the tales, showing as it does a scholarly attempt to trace Poe's conceptions to sources in contemporary continental writers, must be accounted the work of an experienced and just-minded critic. The casual descriptive phrase, “a misfitted American,” aptly expresses the sense of strangeness with which Poe has so long been regarded in the United States. The memoir, by Professor Woodberry, is excellent in its restraint. The story of the poet's life is told without comment, and the facts are left to make their own impression. How many authors, one asks, have to endure the printing of such intimate and unbraced correspondence as that here given (pp. 52, 53), describing Poe's arrival in New York, almost penniless, with his consumptive wife, and his search for lodgings? In this case the partial friend, who considerately edits his subject's correspondence, is absent. Every squalid and trivial detail is laid bare.

The new edition is beautiful in paper and typography, and the illustrations by Mr. Sterner are a distinct addition. Of course in all illustrations [page 139:] rations the artist's* conception is to be expected — not the writer's; for no draughtsman ever yet succeeded in exactly apprehending the writer's idea, except the illustrator of “Trilby.” But Mr. Sterner shows great sympathy with the weirdness and beauty that give tone to the tales. The three volumes already published include an unfamiliar sketch, “The Elk,” their contents being subdivided ingeniously into romances of death, old-world romance, tales of conscience, of natural beauty, of pseudo-science, of ratiocination, and of illusion. But perhaps the whole of Poe's work — besides a dozen humorous and satirical sketches, in which the laughter is not genial but cool and sardonic — may be said to fall into three groups: the imaginative, the ratiocinative, and the critical, the first division including his verse and most of his tales. In his poetry Poe strove for novel stauzaic and melodic effects, in the conviction that the resources of English versification in this direction were not indicated by the few traditional forms. Believing also that the musical element in verse is of great importance, he sought for sweet sounds, and used fully the devices of alliteration and the refrain. The melodious quality of his poetry is generally acknowledged, although difference of opinion exists concerning the relative value of sound in poetry. Those who delight in music for its own sake, however, will be slow to condemn his verse as too exclusively addressed to the ear. A more striking divergence of view is revealed on asking whether the poems are the outcome of personal feeling. Professor Woodberry, making Poe mainly a skilful artist, denies, in the “ Life,” that he ever experienced passion. So Mr. Stoddard: “ There is a simulation of emotion in it [the poetry], but the emotion is as imaginary as the method by which it is sought to be conveyed is artificial.” But Mr. Stedman, one is glad to note, takes the opposite view. The anecdote is well-known of Poe's quivering gratitude for unwonted kindness received at the hands of Mrs. Stanard, who inspired the exquisite lyric “ To Helen,” and over whose grave the unforgetting boy used to brood by night. Many of Poe's published letters are written at so white a heat that the cold comma and period utterly fail to indicate the broken thought. He addressed his “ Eureka “ ”to those who feel rather than to those who think,” and this without the capacity himself to feel! He declared in the preface to his poems that poetry had been with him “not a purpose, but a passion,” and some would doubtless [column 2:] explain this as the trick of a passionless man! How can one receive the mournful cadences of “Ulalume,” — that dirge to a dead wife out of a mood rejecting the possibility of a newer love, — and deny the poet's volcanic passion? Even Mr. Woodberry, in his memoir, bears testimony to Poe's “ardent temperament,” calls him “impetuous, self-willed, defiant,” and quotes Mrs. Whitman concerning “his turbulent and passionate youth.” In the words of his youthful poem, “Romance”:

In his tales, Poe's imagination found wider expression than in his poems. True, the compass of his imaginative writing was restricted in the main to sombre and ghastly themes. Several causes were at work. Some account must be made of his pitiful struggles for subsistence in that America where, fifty years before the successful Mr. Howells gestured young men away from literature as a means of livelihood, the pen was indeed a feeble staff to lean one's whole weight upon. Poe knew “ America, where, more than in any other region upon the face of the globe, to be poor is to be despised “ (memoir, p. 57). An idealist, chained to hackwork for his daily bread, must in some way manifest the intrusion of penury into his dreams. The drink habit is the popular explanation of his wild creations, and it is not uncommon to adduce a finished tale, involving arduous artistic application, as the result of a night's debauch. But the principal cause of his “unearthliness” lay in the temperament which Poe had inherited from his forefathers. For good or bad, he was endowed with a mind that hovered by affinity over the grave, and dared to guess what might be immediately beyond the phenomenon men call death. As related in “Silence — A Fable,” he could not laugh with the Demon in the shadow of the tomb. But, restricted in scope as are the tales, their spell is undeniable. The writer has personal acquaintance with at least one boy who again and again found himself caught away by these marvellous romances to a land of enchantment, from which the descent to earth was abrupt and dull. The boyish admiration has endured, now mingled with sober valuation of the consummate art that produces such results. The reader was not, so far as he is aware, at all morally unstrung, or even haunted with goblin [page 140:] visions, by reason of what has been termed Poe's morbid fiction. And, while not discovering a self-drawn portrait of the author in every murderer and maniac that crosses the page, he does find that most important ingredient of sustained literary renown — the distilled essence of life.

It has been truly said that Poe's tales display the conceptions of an idealist, conveyed through the method of a realist. Nothing could be in greater contrast with the commonplace narratives of the modern school than the gorgeous finishings, the impossible incidents, the unparalleled characters of Poe's dreamy romances. Yet the calculating accumulation of detail, each particular being easily credible because so exactly stated, leads the reader step by step to cross the boundary of the actual, and to tabernacle for a time in a land of shadows. It is only at the close, awakening from his illusion, that he can perceive the constructive art which admits no useless circumstance, fully prepares for the conclusion, yet conceals the denouement until it flashes out like a lightning-stroke.

Few men of imagination are gifted in commensurate degree with the power of analytical reasoning. Poe exemplified his dictum that to reason well one must share the nature of both poet and mathematician. His ratiocinative power is shown in the five tales grouped in the present edition. It has been objected, and by Poe himself, that little credit is due for unravelling a web of one's own tangling; but the point at issue is whether the fictitious situation is illustrative of actual affairs. “The Purloined Letter,” for example, is a case under the observed law that the most obvious fact is frequently the fact perceived with the greatest difficulty. It will be remembered, too, that Poe proved his faculty of analysis when the answer to the problem was not predetermined by himself in solving numerous difficult ciphers, in fathoming the mystery surrounding the murder of Mary Rogers, in guessing from the first chapters the development of “ Barnaby Rudge.” Moreover, Poe possessed not merely analytical insight, but the ability to express in clear language the steps of his mental process. Doubtless other spectators guessed the secret of Maelzel's mechanical chess-player, but nobody else gave so logical and convincing an account of his reasoning. One is almost ready, before the clearness of his philosophical exposition, to say with him that no thought is beyond the reach of expression in language.

The most remarkable outcome of his combined [column 2:] imaginative and ratiocinative power is the so-called prose poem “Eureka.” Not in effect, say astronomers, what it purports to be — an explanation of the material universe. “Nonsense!” ejaculates the scientist, as he turns from the prefatory note: “I offer this book of Truths, not in its character of TruthTeller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true.” Yet the work remains the expression of a gigantic effort to go behind the most general laws of science, to account for the attraction of gravitation, to enter into the thought of God at the moment of creation, to reduce to a single impulse of the Divine Will the multitudinous phenomena of created things. The author requests that his work be judged after his death, as a poem only; but nobody seems willing to oblige him. From the purely intellectual point of view, it will be granted that this attempt to furnish a foundation for Kepler and Laplace is at least ingenious and bold. If judged as a “ prose poem,” it takes rank among the striking products of the creative imagination.

To Poe as critic, a few contemptuous words have commonly been thrown. He is said to have been unguided by principles, prejudiced, ferocious. It will be acknowledged that, with a fine native appreciation for good writing, he lacked the judicial temperament. He was liable to be swayed by his personal likes and dislikes. According to the editor of the once popular “Graham's Magazine,” — “No man with more readiness would soften a harsh expression at the request of a friend.” But that Poe had reflected upon the principles of composition, his several well-known essays on the subject abundantly prove. His definition of poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty, having its effect in elevating excitement of the soul, stands side by side with a score of other similar though partial statements, which must serve us while we await the perfect definition. Poe tested poetry by reading it aloud. He ascribed the varied musical effects of verse to the principle of equality. He opposed allegory and humor in poetry, thought the Greek drama manifestly the outgrowth of a cruder age, and the older English poetry over-praised because of its antiquity. He corrected Coleridge's distinction between fancy and imagination, showing that neither faculty truly creates. Among the qualities that he was accustomed to praise, in critical consideration of poetry, were truth or naturalness, imagination, rhythmic effect, melody, force, grace, abandon, and what he called keeping, [page 141:] or propriety of treatment. In fiction, as in verse, originality was the quality placed highest, then constructive ability, imagination, and “ the minor merits of style,” meaning rhetorical and grammatical accuracy.

In the application of his criticism, Poe praised Bulwer, Dickens, Scott, Moore, Coleridge, Tennyson. He placed Longfellow at the head of American poets, and Bryant second in rank. Hawthorne was warmly welcomed, long before the populace had discovered his merits. Lowell, before his witty characterization of Poe in the “Fable for Critics,” was defended against an attack of Blackwood as “one of the noblest of our poets.” Bayard Taylor, Margaret Fuller, and Mrs. Osgood are hailed as accessions to letters. But Emerson, Carlyle, and the transcendentalists generally, were beyond the romancer's sympathetic reach. In reading the long list of good, bad, and indifferent authors treated, one's chief wonder is not that the critic was ferocious, as he occasionally was, but that he found so much to commend in what time has adjudged a wilderness of mediocrity. To the women poets of America, in particular, he was uniformly kind, not blind. He was so far influenced by the “Edinburgh Review” as to hold that the merits of a literary work might be left to speak for themselves, but that the cause of good writing would be best sustained by a rigorous exposure of defects, with little regard to the feelings of the author. No fairminded man, reading the whole of Poe's criticism, can doubt that he had at heart the dignity and permanence of American letters. His defects were defects of temperament.

The most prominent attack made by Poe as critic was upon Longfellow, whom he indirectly accused of plagiarism. With his worship of originality, he had a mania for exposing what he deemed imitation; and it must be allowed that, although his parallels are not always convincing, he rarely makes a charge without adducing his evidence. In the case of Longfellow, the discussion was lengthened through a well-meant defence by one of the friends of the gentle Cambridge poet. Poe really admired Longfellow's genius, praised his artistic skill and ideality, and ranked him, as has been said, at the head of American poets. In his article on the drama, Poe say: “Throughout ‘The Spanish Student,’ as well as throughout the other compositions of its author, there runs a very obvious vein of imitation. We are perpetually reminded of something we have seen before — some old acquaintance [column 2:] in manner or matter; and even when the similarity cannot be said to amount to plagiarism, it is still injurious to the poet in the good opinion of him who reads.” If we turn to the delicate and sympathetic estimate of Mr. Stedman, we shall find him saying, before claiming for Longfellow the credit of a distinctive tone, or manner of treatment: “ Reviewing our summary of his work, I observe that each of his best known efforts has led to the mention of prose or verse by some other hand which it resembles. In view of the possible inference, we may now ask, Was Longfellow, then, with his great reputation and indisputable hold upon our affections, not an original poet? It must be acknowledged at the outset that few poets of his standing have profited more openly by examples that suited their tastes and purposes. The evidence of this is seen not merely in three or four, but in a great number, of his productions.” To quote once more from Mr. Gosse: “Originality and greatness are precisely the qualities Longfellow lacks.” It appears from this collation of passages that the three critics, differing as they do in emphasis, have in mind one and the same fact.

What are the grounds on which this unique writer, now enjoying a renascence of his fame, may rest a claim to genius? We recognize with him that “perseverence is one thing, genius quite another.” But to define genius is a desperate task. Still, among its trusty marks may be named intensity, a junction at some point with the infinite, and permanence of power. These three qualities are revealed in the work of Poe. Into his best writing he poured the whole of his life, containing springs of feebleness as well as of might, which rose from sources beyond his contriving. Such as it was, his inmost and hottest soul was concentrated upon the work of his hand. His thought joined too with the infinite and the immortal. Although pausing long at the brink of the grave, and noting too carefully the repulsive details of worm and shroud, it welcomed the life that is in death — the restful escape from “the fever called ‘Living.’” The present publication is testimony that Poe's hold upon men is unweakened. Wrapped within those imaginative legends lies the touch that still moves, if but to shudder. Here is a man whose swelling ambition strove to do infinite things upon a finite stage. Let us accept him as a child of genius, and enshrine him forever as an eminent figure in the literature of our nation.

D. L. MAULSBY.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 138, column 1:]

* THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Newly collected and edited, with memoir, introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry. In ten volumes, illustrated. Chicago: Stone & Kimball