Text: Killis Campbell, “Poe, Stevenson, and Béranger,” The Dial (Chicago, IL), November 16, 1909, pp. 374-375

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In his essay “On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places,” Robert Louis Stevenson tells us that while sojourning at some time in his youth on a certain bare and rock-bound coast in the North country, he was for some inexplicable reason continually haunted by two lines from Béranger:

Professor William Lyon Phelps, in commenting on these lines in his excellent little volume of Stevenson's Essays, makes the suggestion that Stevenson probably found the lines “not in the original, but in reading the tales of Poe.” For, as he points out, the same lines are used at the beginning of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Professor Phelps, however, goes on to say that in the first of these lines as quoted by Poe “the third and yet the first person is used — ,” that is, the line reads, “Son cœur est un luth suspendu.” In this he is correct; but he is in error when he implies that Stevenson tampered with his text. For by referring to the poem of Béranger's in which the lines occur — his “Le Refus,” of which Professor Phelps makes no mention — it will be seen that the two lines occur there just as Stevenson quoted them, which pretty well establishes that Stevenson got them, not from Poe, who, as is well known, was often inaccurate in his quotations, but from Béranger himself.

But the lines are interesting in another connection. The keynote of Poe's magic lyric of the angel Israfel is struck in the second line of that poem, “Whose heartstrings are a lute,” words that were ultimately incorporated also in the motto of the poem and with the rest erroneously accredited to the Koran. Now, comparison of Poe's line with the first of the lines from Béranger brings out a striking resemblance between the two. Indeed, Poe's line “ Whose heartstrings are a lute,” is not a bad translation of Béranger's line as Poe subsequently misquoted it, “Son cur est un luth suspendu.” ‘The resemblance has been noticed by at least two of Poe's editors, Professor James A. Harrison in his life of Poe (p. 156), and Professor A. G. Newcomer in his book entitled “Poe: Poems and Tales” (p. 300). But neither of these gentlemen has ventured to assert that there is any actual connection between the two. Nevertheless I make bold to suggest that Poe's line — end with it the ground-idea of “Israfel” — was ultimately derived from Béranger's line. The fact that Poe used Béranger's lines as the motto of his “ House of Usher,” first published nearly ten years after “Israfel” appeared, can hardly be held to militate against this view. The only difficulty in the way — and it is possibly an insuperable one — is that of dates.

Poe first published “Israfel” in 1831, in the volume of poems brought out soon after his dismissal from West Point. Béranger's lines were also published in 1831, if those of his editors who mention any date are to be relied on; besides, the poem in which they appeared has to do with an incident that occurred late in 1830 or early in 1831: Béranger's refusal of a pension offered to him by his friend, General Sébastiani, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Poe's 1831 volume of poems appeared, as I have said, soon after his dismissal from [page 375:] West Point — therefore after March 6, 1831: perhaps very soon after, perhaps (as Ingram holds) several months after. My theory is that “Le Refus” was first published in January, 1831, in some Paris newspaper — perhaps Le Figaro — in which during the month of January, according to the bibliographer of Béranger, M. Jules Brivois, the lines “A mes amis devenus ministres” (which deal with a closely related subject) were first published; and that Poe became acquainted with it toward the end of that month, or in the following month, in the library of the Military Academy or through some fellow cadet who subscribed for the Paris newspapers, and that he wrote his “Israfel”’ under the inspiration it afforded. That the West Point cadets were interested in current happenings in France in 1830 and 1831 is established by a letter from them to General Lafayette congratulating him on the victory of July, 1830, which was published in Le Moniteur Universel for January 8, 1831; and that Poe shared in this interest in happenings on the continent is shown by a letter of his, of March 10, 1831, to General Thayer, Superintendent of the Academy, in which he expresses an eagerness to proceed to Paris in the hope of securing through Lafayette, who had been a friend of his paternal grandfather's, an appointment in the Polish army. Further examination of the Paris papers of the time, only a few of which have been accessible to me, would perhaps suffice to clear up the question of dates here. The question of conscious indebtedness is, in the nature of the case, one that we can hardly hope to settle with any absoluteness.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

The University of Texas, Austin, Texas,

November 10, 1909