Text: Anonymous, “Plagiarist or ‘Precursor’?,” The Dial (Chicago, IL), vol. 27, no. 322, November 16, 1899, p. 367, cols. 1-2

[page 322, column 1, continued:]

Mr. Joel Benton's “In the Poe Circle” (Mansfield and Wessels) is an attractively illustrated book made up of five essays which have appeared before in the magazines. It is a non-committal sort of book. The name does not commit the author to any especial content, nor does the content commit him to any definite opinion. This point is rather noteworthy, because the book is chiefly a discussion of the relation of Poe's poetry to that of Dr. T. H. Chivers. Concerning Dr. Chivers, Mr. Benton has found and put together a good deal of interesting information, but he does not seem to have formed any definite opinion as to whether Poe or Chivers was the original of an element common to the work of both. This we rather regret. We think the following lines in “The Vigil of Aiden” very like some in “The Raven”:

In fact, they are so like that it seems clear to us [column 2:] that one of the poets copied from the other. “The Raven” was published in 1845; the volume by Chivers containing these lines was published in 1851. Why present such a case, why speak of Chivers as a “precursor” of Poe, unless some additional matters can be alleged? It will hardly be believed that Mr. Benton has nothing more to offer on this point. He has not: he merely quotes from the volume of Chivers, published in 1851 after Poe's death, and contents himself with suggesting vaguely that the poems may have been published previously in magazines, and that Poe may have seen them and so been inspired by Chivers. We note one passage only, although the case is much the same with many more. But on the facts presented by Mr. Benton, the inference is that in this one case Chivers copied Poe, and thus was a plagiarist, not a “precursor.” And if he copied here, it adds to the probability (in the absence ef direct evidence) that he did so in more doubtful cases. Mr. Benton, then, suggests that Poe was a plagiarist on grounds which show (unless something more be adduced ) that he was plagiarized from. This is not a good thing to do. We might not care to hold a brief for Poe, but we do believe that to accuse him or anyone else of plagiarism, even by insinuation, on such absurd grounds as we have here, is, to say the least, unfortunate. If the charge is to be made, it should be definite and have at least some basis in fact: mere possibilities and vague suggestions should not be hurried into the magazines and then put between covers. Besides his view of Poe's relation to Chivers, Mr. Benton has an idea on Baudelaire's relation to Poe, of which some conception may be gained from his notion that in “Les Fleurs du Mal” Baudelaire “claimed to show that evil was not wholly without its better side, and that good is in some mysterious manner related to the whole scheme of things.” Such was not our idea of the work in question, and we turned to it to see how the matter stood. But we have not been here won over to Mr. Benton's view, any more than in the case of Chivers.