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EDGAR A. POE AND THE POEM OF “THE RAVEN.”
[We have selected the following articles from several which have reached us, on the subject of the recent correspondence respecting the originality of Edgar A. Poe's well-known poem of “THE RAVEN.” We feel bound to add, that we have not at present seen the slightest evidence to shake our faith in that originality. We think many of our readers will be glad to see “The Fire Fiend” reproduced in the columns of “N. & Q.”]
A very singular correspondence has taken place in one of the morning papers, calling in question the originality of this — as belonging to its reputed author, Edgar Poe. The correspondence is much too lengthy to be reproduced in your columns, but I will give you the substance. Some three weeks ago, a writer in the Morning Star, stated that the poem was to be found in the Persian, and that Edgar Poe, who had an intimate knowledge of the Oriental languages, had merely translated it, and had preserved the metre with astonishing exactitude and felicity. Several replies have been made to this statement, and affecting Persian scholars, for a corroboration or otherwise of this attempt to deprive Poe of the poem upon which his fame mainly rests. On Thursday, Sept. 1, there appears in the same paper a letter from M. M’Cready (I take this to be the tragédienne of that name), in which she contends for the authorship as belonging to E, A. Poe. I think the letter of that lady may be worth a place in “N. & Q.,” and that the inquiry suggested by the correspondence, to which it is an answer, is worthy of further pursuit. Honour compels us to do justice to a man who had-little but his genius to recommend him; and it is certain that the first suspicion thrown will go into many a quarter where the answer will not follow. As a matter of literary curiosity — feeling that your pages will be referred to as an authority in many matters of this kind — I send you the letter, and also the poem referred to in it. Probably you will think the latter too lengthy for re-publication, but it is of interest, and I do not remember that it has been published in this country before.
”To the Editor of the Morning Star.
“SIR, — I have noticed with interest and astonishment the remarks made in different issues of your paper respecting Edgar A. Poe's ‘Raven,’ and I think the following fantastic poem (a copy of which I enclose), written by the poet whilst experimenting towards the production of that wonderful and beautiful piece of mechanism, may possibly interest your numerous readers. ‘The Fire Fiend’ (the title of the poem I enclose) Mr. Poe considered incomplete, and threw it aside in disgust. Some months afterwards, finding it amongst his papers, he sent it in a letter to a friend labelled facetiously, ‘To be read by firelight at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum.’ I was intimately acquainted with the mother-in-law of Poe, and have frequently conversed with her respecting ‘The Raven,’ and she assured me that [page 224:] he had the idea in his mind for some years, and used frequently to repeat verses of it to her, and ask her opinion of them, frequently making alterations and improvements, according to the mood he chanced to be in at the time. Mrs. Clem, knowing the great study I had given to ‘The Raven,’ and the reputation I had gained by its recital throughout America, took much interest in giving me all the information in her power, and the life and writings of Edgar A. Poe have been the topic of our conversation for hours. — Respectfully,
”M. M'CREADY.
“London, August 31.”
THE FIRE FIEND.
A NIGHTMARE.
I.
“In the deepest dearth of midnight, while the sad and solemn swell
Still was floating, faintly echoed from the forest chapel bell —
Faintly, falteringly floating o’er the sable waves of air
That were thro’ the midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling —
In my chamber I lay dreaming by the firelight's fitful gleaming,
And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart foredoomed to care.
II.
“As the last long lingering echo of the midnight's mystic chime,
Lifting thro’ the sable billows to the thither shore of time —
Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace —
For a quivering sigh departed; from my couch in fear I started —
Started to my feet in terror, for my dream's phantasmal error
Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming face!
III.
“On “red hearth's reddest centre, from a blazing knot of oak,
Seemed to gibe and grin this phantom, when in terror I awoke;
And my slumberous eyelids straining, as I staggered to the floor; ‘
Still in that dread vision seeming, turned my gaze toward the gleaming
Hearth, and there! O God! I saw it! and from out its flaming jaw it
Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore!
IV.
“Speechless, struck with stony silence, frozen to the floor I stood,
Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling blood —
Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lambent lips —
Till the demon seem’d to name me; then a wondrous calm o’ercame me,
And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death-damp stiff and gluey,
And I fell back on my pillow in apparent soul-eclipse.
V.
“Then, as in Death's seeming shadow, in the icy fall of Fear,
I lay, stricken, came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear — [column 2:]
Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their sleep,
Muttering, ‘ Higher! higher! higher! I am Demon of the Fire!
I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire, and each blazing roof's my pyre,
And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my victims weep.
VI.
“How I revel on the prairie! how I roar among the pines!
How I laugh when from the village o’er the snow the red flame shines,
And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a life in every breath!
How I scream with lambent laughter, as I hurl each crackling rafter
Down the fell abyss of fire, until higher, higher, higher
Leap the high priests of my altar in their merry dance of death.
VIL.
“‘I am Monarch of the Fire; I am vassal King of Death,
World-encircling, with the shadow of its doom upon my breath,
With the symbol of hereafter flaming from my fatal face,
I command the Eternal Fire! Higher, higher, higher, higher
Leap my ministering demons, like phantasmagoric lemans,
Hugging universal Nature in their hideous embrace.’
VIII.
“When a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouded sleep,
And I slambere d like an infant in the ‘cradle of the deep,’
Till the belfry in the forest quivered with the matin stroke,
And the martens, from the edges of its lichen-lidded ledges,
Skimmered thro’ the russet arches where the light in torn files marches,
Like a routed army, struggling thro’ the serried ranks of oak.
IX.
“Thro’ my ivy-fretted casements filtered in a tremulous note,
From the tall and stately linden where a robin swell’d his throat —
Querulous, quaker-breasted robin, calling quaintly for his mate!
Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber, night-mare-ridden,
With the memory of that fire-demon in my central fire,
On my eye's interior mirror, like the shadow of a fate!
X.
Ah! the fiendish fire had smouldered to a white and and formless heap,
And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep;
But around its very centre, where the demon face had shone,
Forked shadows seem’d to linger, pointing spectral finger
To a Bible, massive, golden, olden —
And I bowed, and said, ‘ All power is of God, of God alone.’ ”
T. B. [page 225:]
I think I was never more startled than when I, a few days ago, saw in one of the papers a statement, with all the appearance of truth, to the effect that Edgar Allan Poe's “Raven” — “the greatest single poem America has ever produced” — is a translation from the Persian. I should be much obliged if any of your correspondents who have opportunity would look into the matter, and see if the statement be really true. There seem so many arguments against it, and one cannot without a pang see the chef d’œuvre of a favourite poet thrown from its pedestal. One argument against “The Raven's” being a forgery is its great similarity in style and diction to its companion poems, and that peculiar and weird melancholy which pervades it equally with Poe's other compositions. Another argument [ base upon a quotation from his Philosophy of Composition, an essay on the genius of this very poem. He says: —
“Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest.”
To me it seems scarcely credible that a high-souled man like Edgar Poe could have written the above, and moreover the whole story of its composition, about any poem which he knew to be a plagiarism. It is said that the poem is a literal translation from the Persian. Is a Persian, I ask, — at all events before Henry Martyn's time, — likely to have asked “Is there balm in Gilead?” Do the Persians deal in Greek mythology — “Pallas” and “the Night's Plutonian shore”? Why do they in “The Raven” “wheel cushioned chairs” instead of sitting on their heels on a carpet as is their usual custom? Again, while in this attempt to cast down Poe from his high rank as a poet, it is said — “His sole accomplishment was a minute and accurate acquaintance with Oriental languages.” Hannay, on the other hand, in his preface to Poe's works, speaking of his Essays, &c., remarks: “They show a man of large and various literary attainments (he always passed for one of the best scholars of America.”) Of course, if we let “The Raven” go, we must be prepared to sacrifice all Edgar Poe's other pieces to this marvellous but mythical Persian. “The Raven” is not the only poem which laments “Lenore;” “The Raven” is not the only poem which displays such wondrous power of words, and harmony of rhymes. If this be really a translation from the Persian, I can only say let us have more of them, and by as competent men as Edgar Poe. But why should not the Persian poem be a translation from Poe? Until solid proof is brought forward that this wonderful composition is a forgery, I cannot bring myself to believe it; and if it be proved to be one, which I hope it will not, it certainly will take rank as one of the most remarkable impostures that have ever been discovered. Edgar Poe was once compared to Chatterton — quod dii avertant.
K. R. C.
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Notes:
The identity of K. R. C. is not known. Although he was a regular correspondent of Notes and Queries, he is always signed with just his initials. The last name is probably Cook or Cooke, and he attended Rugby School at some point.
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[S:0 - NQ, 1864] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Edgar A. Poe and the Poem of The Raven (K. R. C., 1864)