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LITERARY NOTICES.
EVERY one acquainted with the literature of the day knows that we are abundantly supplied, it not in danger of being utterly overwhelmed, with a mass of writing, the characteristic of which it mere brilliancy of expression — a charming style. Examine it and you find no thought. You will find sparkling wit and an exquisite music of words, and this is all. These are the facts, we don't intend to philosophize and so shall not seek for the causes. It may be the plentiful lack of genius in the present race of writers, the great mass of whom are mere penny-a-liners who have adopted writing as a mechanical trade, or it may be the general superficiality of the present race of readers which has induced this effect.
Our attention was attracted to this subject by an article of Edgar A. Poe, which lies among the mass on the table before us, headed “The Imp of the Perverse.” The author is an excellent illustration of the remarks we have just made. It asked to what species of the genus humbug this article properly attaches itself, we should reply to the humbug philosophical. We have not time to analyze, but would say that the author introduces himself as in pursuit of an idea; this he chases from the wilderness of phrenology into that of transcendentalism, then into that of metaphysics generally; then through many weary pages into the open field of inductive philosophy, where he at last corners the poor thing, and then most unmercifully pokes it to death with a long stick. This idea he calls the “Perverse.”
Byron somewhere says,
“—— there's a courage which grows out of fear
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
The worst to know it: when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o’er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawn — you can’t gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it.”
If Mr. Poe had been content with this and the following stanza he might have saved himself his chase, and his readers the trouble of elucidating his philosophic nonsense.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - NM, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Comment on Poe's Imp of the Perverse (Anonymous, 1845)