Text: Stanley Schell, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Werner's Magazine (New York, NY), vol. XXV, no. 2, April 1900, pp. 151-166

[page 151, unnumbered:]

No. 5. — EDGAR ALLAN POE.

POE'S PLACE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE:

In October of last year the Zolnay bust of Edgar Allan Poe was unveiled at the University of Virginia, just fifty years after the death of this celebrated poet and prose writer. To a large number of admirers, who had met at the poet's alma mater to do him justice and honor, Hamilton W. Mabie, the speaker for the day, said:

Few writers of any age or country have been the victim of more misstatements than Poe. Although he lived in our very midst, and his career closed only fifty years ago, every action of his life, every circumstance, every date connected with it, has been disputed. The bitterest and meanest of his enemies edited his works and prepared the first sketch of his life, which began the long chapter of accusation. One writer after another repeated the aspersions, until the general conception of Poe made him a monster of evil. Against the report of his idle and dissipated life the poet's admirers bring forward documents of the University of Virginia to prove that the year he spent there — from February to December, 1826 — was one of quiet and creditable study, and that he won the good opinion of his instructors by careful class work and unsolicited exercises.

The greater part of the poet's short working life was passed in intense and unremitting toil, and no poems or romances were ever produced at greater expense of brain and spirit than were his. Four volumes of poems, tales, essays and criticisms, contain his contributions to American literature.

About two years ago some members of the university, feeling that “ its most illustrious alumnus” should be fitly commemorated, organized the Poe [page 152:] Memorial Association, and through the efforts of this society the Poe collection in the beautiful new library building will bear eloquent and appropriate witness to his fame.

THE POET ANALYTICALLY STUDIED:

Poe's first claim to recognition is historical; this arising from his position among the earliest distinguished writers of American literature. His second claim must rest mainly upon narrower ground; namely, the strange beauty of some of his verses.

Edgar Poe was not a poet by profession. He became one only when some shadow had crossed his soul, when suffering and sorrow had been his visitors. Possessed of a poetic mind, and having written poems only on such events and feelings in his own life as stung him to the quick, his work could not fail to reach the deepest recesses of the human heart.

His poems are comparatively few in number, and yet he has won a wider fame than any other well-known American poet. His poems are all rich in color, and deeply tinged with beauty. They are manly, strong in outline, and strong even in the beautiful, delicate details. There is nothing superfluous in them. Poe believed that, for the best display of its own powers, the highest poetic genius could be most advantageously employed in a short poem (“a poem that could be read within an hour”), and he has shown us, beyond a doubt, that he himself was able to write poems of the very highest order within such limits. Wherever the English language is spoken, he is known as the author of “The Raven,” “ The Bells,” and “ Annabel Lee,” — all short poems.

“The Raven” (see page 154) has taken its place in English literature as one of those unique gems which shine in a special glory of their own, unlike anything that has ever been written before, or that is likely to be written hereafter. In this respect it may be compared with Coleridge's “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It is, beyond all question, Poe's master poem. Within a few months after its appearance it was read, recited, and parodied, all over the English-speaking world. Mrs. Macready, by her exquisite rendering of this poem alone, made a great reputation and did much to awaken a general interest in the genius of Poe.

This poem treats of the irretrievable loss of a beautiful, idealized woman. What strikes one, even at the first reading, is the tremendous reality of the [page 153:] picture presented. Brooding over it is a dull, heavy melancholy which brings tears to the eyes. This melancholy is not affected; it is real, and it falls upon us with a steadying sombreness. So rich is it in poetic beauty that we never tire of it. We always see something fresh in it. Like a deep-toned symphony, we never listen to it but to experience new enjoyment. No other American has as yet produced so great a poem. It reaches the very soul.

Edmund Clarence Stedman, speaking of “The Raven” (as illustrated by Doré), says: “All its stage effect of situation, light, color, sound, is purely romantic and even melodramatic, but of a poetic quality that melodrama rarely exhibits and thoroughly reflective of the poet's eternal passion, eternal pain. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in a letter written soon after the republication of “The Raven” in England, says: This vivid writing — this power which is felt — has produced a sensation here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by the music. I hear of persons who are haunted by the ‘Nevermore,’ and an acquaintance of mine, who has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas, can not bear to look at it in the twilight.”

Poe's poem, “The Bells,” not only shows the great mastery the poet had over words, but also exhibits great power of imagination. It is a fine illustration of complete harmony between the idea and its expression. Read the first stanza, beginning “How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.” Did you ever hear sleigh bells ring so merrily before? What wonderful, melodious verse is here! The metallic ring and resonance, — the vibration and reverberation of the rhythm — is such that we can never read it without pausing after every verse to let the peals of sound die away “on the bosom of the palpitating air,” that we may commence the succeeding stanza in silence. A certain English orator was astonished one night, while watching a conflagration, and repeating, amid the clash and clang of the alarm bells, the third stanza of the poem, to find how marvellously the movement of the verse timed with the peals of sound, and “how truly the poem reproduced the sense of danger which the sound of the bells, and the glare and mad ascension of the flames, and the pallor of the moonlight, conveyed. All the poetry of a conflagration is in that stanza, both in sound and sense.”

The little poem, “Annabel Lee,” is full of the most profound pathos. It tells in brief Poe's sorrow at the loss of his gentle wife.

Other poems especially worthy of note are “Ulalume,” “To Helen,” “The Haunted Palace,” “To My Mother,” “To One in Paradise,” “For Annie,” Israfel” and “Tamerlane.”

“Ulalume,” perhaps the most original and weirdly suggestive of all his poems, resembles at first sight one of Turner's landscapes, being apparently “without form and void, and having darkness on the face of it.” It is, nevertheless, in its basis, although not in the precise correspondence of time, simply historical. It relates the poet's own experience. A writer in the London Critic, after quoting the opening stanzas of “Ulalume,” says, “These, to many, will appear only words, but what wondrous words! What a spell they wield! What a withered unity there is in them! The instant they are uttered a misty picture with a tarn, dark as a murderer's eye, below, and the thin yellow leaves of October fluttering above, exponents of a misery which scorns the name of sorrow, is hung up in the chambers of your soul forever.”

“To Helen,” written when Poe was but fourteen years of age, is an exquisite address to his first love. James Russell Lowell says: “It seems simple, like a Greek column, because of its perfection.”

“The Haunted Palace” is an exquisite expression of sorrow for his own lapsings. [page 154:]

“To My Mother” is a gem in the form of a sonnet. A pure soul breathes through it. The title is misleading, Mrs. Clemm, his mother-in-law, being the person addressed, but to Poe she was a mother. As he put it:

“To One in Paradise” is still more exquisite. The opening and concluding of the four verses surpass, for their very richness of exquisite poetry and lyrical beauty, anything he ever wrote.

“For Annie” is a thank-offering for his recovery from the “fever called ‘living.’”

“Israfel” is an ambitious attempt to deal with a supernatural being. The poetry of the language is very beautiful.

“Tamerlane” is a psychological study. In it we have the virgin feelings of love, the strong feelings of a first-born passion written in the natural heat of youth, and written by one with a poetic gift.

Music runs throughout Poe's poetry. It is the first thing that strikes the ear. Louis E. Van Norman, in a recent address on Poe and His Poetics,” said: “It is not surprising that this is so, for he believed the musical element to be the very soul of verse. It is to be regretted that American musicians have overlooked Poe in their lyric and operatic compositions. The poems of Poe are a field of fresh, untrodden lyrical beauty. Euphony, forcible diction, rhythmic flow, intelligibility, the lyric and dramatic spirit — all the qualities necessary for descriptive music are present in their perfection. What a grand, weird, soul-stirring opera or oratorio could be built up around ‘The Raven’ as a central theme, if there were only some American Wagner to call forth the music!” Leigh Irvine, in a recent number of The Coming Age, echoes the same idea when he speaks of Poe's “alliterative melodies.” Says Mr. Irvine: “Poe viewed poetry through the eye of art. He studied effects and attained them. He wrote with elocution in view, as the actor studies his art. He wrote for the heart. He was an actor, in the role of the poet, and had an intense nature born to realize the dramatic.”

POE'S BEST KNOWN POEMS.

[[here are quoted in full “The Raven,” “To Helen [thy beauty is to me],” “The Bells,” and “Annabel Lee” running from the bottom of page 155 to the top of page 158:]]

[page 158, continued:]

THE STORY TELLER:

As a prose writer Poe reigns supreme in the “regions of the strangely terrible, remotely phantastic and ghastly.” For clearness of style, aptness of illustration and subtlety of thought, he distances in this field all his predecessors, except Balzac, who is his only master in the mental dissecting-room.

Poe's prose works may be divided into tales and stories, essays and criticisms. His tales and stories bear the mark of forced work, and very many of them lack that richness of detail and of thought, that spontaneity, that leisure alone can give. His three tales, “Bernice [[Berenice]],” “Ligeia,” and “Morella,” are the most exquisite, choice and beautiful of his prose writings. They are poems. They give us an insight into the constitution of the man, his belongings, his past joys, and his day-dreams. They all refer to one person, the ever memorable “Ligeia,” who was more to him than woman is to an ordinary mortal. In [page 159:] them we have an idea of the great strength of his love, how it filled and absorbed. his entire being. Poe's tales are full of the waters of a pent-up devotion and a long-lost love; every page contains lines of pure heart music. There is no plot in them, no attempt at analysis, no endeavor to be terrible. Poe only relieves his mind of the visions which lodge in it day and night. In point of human interest these tales are above and beyond everything he wrote.

Poe's most hideous tales are “Thou Art the Man,” “The Black Cat,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” These, however, are redeemed by their literary merits and their reference, under the form of grotesque circumstances, to the dominant fears and passions of mankind. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Domain of Arnheim,” “William Wilson,” and “Ligeia,” a more purely poetic or deeply psychological element is added to the horror. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” “The Purloined Letter” and “The Gold Bug,” Poe is on the borderland between romance and reality, and seems to prove himself the prince of all detectives. The lightest of his tales is “[[The]] Spectacles,” but even this depends upon the incidents of the story for its lightness, and not on the manner in which Poe told it. In “The Gold Bug” the interest is concentrated on the translation of a cipher, which is supposed to contain precise information as to the place of deposit of the pirate Kidd's treasures. In “Maelzel's Chess Player” the sole object is to harmonize the apparent impossibility of effectually concealing a person within a very small compartment with the free exposure of every portion of it to hundreds of acute observers.

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget” both turn on the interest excited by the investigation of circumstantial evidence. The scenes of these tales are professedly laid in Paris. Through these fabrications, and the “Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (the most remarkable example in literature of a fiction which has all the semblance of plain, unvarnished truth, and which has been translated into almost all languages of Europe), Poe's name became familiar to the savants, the courts of law, and the periodical press of Paris, two of the Parisian journals having translated and published the tales.

“Eureka,” is perhaps the most interesting of all Poe's prose writings, not only on account of the intrinsic attraction of the subject, which is the cosmogony of the universe, but because it is the only one of which we have any external evidence that Poe believed in it himself.

“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” Poe's chief fictitious work, is the history of some sailors who were becalmed on a wreck in the South Pacific until they were obliged to eat one another. The execution of the work is exceedingly plain and careless — perhaps it is purposely so, as it purports to be the log-book of a common sailor. But the concluding pages are made up of the most remarkable and characteristic passages in all his writings. [page 160:]

“The Descent into the Maelström” is most marvelous and idiosyncratic, and is worthy of careful study.

“[[sic]] In “Ligeia,” Poe's favorite tale, the sad and stately symmetry of the sentences, “their rhythmical cadence, the Moresque sumptuousness of the imagery with which the story is invested, and the weird metempsychosis which it records, produce an effect on the reader altogether peculiar in character, and quite inexplicable without a reference to the supernatural inspiration which seems to pervade them. In the moods of mind and phases of passion which this story represents we have no labored artistic effects; we look into the haunted chambers of the poet's own mind and see, as through a veil, the strange experience of his inner life; while, in the dusky magnificence of its imagery, we have the true heraldic blazonry of an imagination royally dowered and descended.”

THE ESSAYIST AND CRITIC:

Poe wrote many essays. One of the most remarkable is that on Philosophy of Composition.” In it he attempts to show that any man may build up a perfect poem or novel by purely “artificial means,” without any of the sudden impulses of natural inspiration; and, in illustration of his theory, he tells us — or at least tries to persuade us — that his own masterpiece, “The Raven,” was put together in this manner.

The composition of “The Raven” proceeded, step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. In building up the poem Poe first considered about its extent, and decided that it should be limited to about a hundred lines. His next consideration was what effect he wished to be conveyed, and he decided that Beauty must be its province. His next thought was the tone of its highest manifestation — and, as all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness, and that beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears,” he decided that “melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetical tone.”

“The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the poem — some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects — or more properly points, in the theatrical sense — I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. . . .

“I determined to produce continuously novel effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain-the refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried.

“These points settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of the application in any sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence, would, of course, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain.

“The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary: the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt: and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with ras the most producible consonant.

“The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word Nevermore.’ In fact, it was the very first which presented itself.

“The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word ‘nevermore.’ [page 161:] In observing the difficulty which I at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being — I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven, as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.

“I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven — the bird of ill omen — monotonously repeating the one word, ‘nevermore,’ at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myself of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death — was the obvious reply. ‘And when,’ I said, is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?’ From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious — ‘ when it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world — and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover.

“I had now to combine the two ideas, of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word ‘nevermore.’ I had to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying, at every turn, the application of the word repeated; but the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending that is to say, the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could make the first query propounded by the lover-the first query to which the Raven should reply ‘Nevermore ‘ — that I could make this first query a commonplace one — the second less so the third still less, and so on — until at length the lover, startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself — by its frequent repetition — and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it is at length excited to superstition, and wildly propounds queries of a far different character — queries whose solution he has passionately at heart-propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture — propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which, reason assures him, is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote), but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modeling his questions as to receive from the expected ‘Nevermore’ the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me — or, more strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction — I first established in mind the climax, or concluding query — that query to which ‘Nevermore’ should be in the last place an answer-that query in reply to which this word ‘Nevermore’ should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair.

“Here, then, the poem may be said to have its beginning — at the end, where all works of art should begin — for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I first put my pen to paper.”

The plan of the substance having been completed, it now remained for the poet to decide upon the mechanical form.

In regard to the rhythm, Poe decided that it must be trochaic; while the meter should be octameter acatalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse, and terminating with tetrameter catalectic. In simple language the trochees, or feet, employed throughout the poem consist of a long syllable followed by a short: the first line of a stanza consisting of eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half (in effect two-thirds), the third of eight, the fourth of seven and a half, the fifth the same, the sixth of three and a half. Now, each of these lines, taken individually, has been employed before, and what originality “The Raven” has is in their combination into stanza. The effect of this originality of combination is aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhythm and alliteration.

The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover and the Raven. Poe determined to place the lover in his chamber — the room made sacred to him by the memories of her who had frequented it, and to represent the room as richly furnished, thus bringing out his idea of Beauty. [page 162:] Next came the bird — his method of introduction — Poe decided the only way was through the window. His idea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter, is a tapping” at the door, originated in a desire to increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity, and also for the sake of the accidental effect arising from the lover's throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the half-fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked. He made the night tempestuous, first, to account for the Raven's seeking admission, and, secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical) serenity within the chamber. He made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage — the bust of Pallas being chosen, first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and, second, for the sonorousness of the word Pallas itself.

With the dénouement proper — the Raven's reply, “Nevermore,” to the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world — the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may be said to have its completion. So far, everything is within the limits of the accountable — of the real. “But when subjects are thus confined there is always a certain hardness or nakedness which repels the artistical eye. To remove this some complexity and some suggestiveness is needed.” Poe, realizing this, added the concluding two stanzas of the poem — their suggestiveness being made to pervade all the narrative which had preceded them. The undercurrent of meaning is first rendered apparent in the last two lines of stanza 17:

The words “from out my heart” involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer Nevermore,” dispose the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously narrated. The reader will now regard the Raven as emblematical, but it is not until the very last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance” is permitted to be seen distinctly:

Poe's criticisms contain many fine thoughts and ideas, especially the short paragraphs which he styles “Marginalia.” As an analyst, he was a master, and could readily reduce a literary performance into its literary elements, but he did not discern its animating principles. He was a close logician, and could assume the guise of a subtle reasoner; he had a thorough acquaintance with the resources and capabilities of language, and the niceties of grammatical construction, and a keen perception of the harmonies and proprieties of diction. He had a microscopic eye for the faulty arrangement of a theme, and an equally nice ear for a false quantity in rhythm. But in his determination to be precise and to avoid generalizations, he frequently failed to grasp the spirit and the total effect of a work, while diligently engaged in hunting to the death some awkward expression, or carping at some ill-chosen word. He saw all the faults a writer had and many he had not. His influence on criticism may almost be said to have died with him, so far as the direction of the public taste is concerned.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.

The family of Edgar Allan Poe was one of the oldest and most reputable in Baltimore. His father, David Poe, Jr., was for several years a law student in that city, but, becoming enamored of Elizabeth Arnold, an English actress, [column 2:] he eloped with her, and soon became an actor himself. His parents refused to countenance the marriage, but relented with the birth of the first child, Edgar Allan, who was born in Boston, January 10, 1809. The young [page 164:] couple continued six or seven years in the theaters of the principal cities, and finally died, within a few weeks of each other, of consumption, at Richmond, Va., leaving three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie, in utter destitution.

Although only six years old at this time, Edgar Poe was noted for his precocity and beauty, and had already gained the admiration of his godfather, Mr. Allan, a wealthy and intimate friend of his deceased father, who decided to adopt him.

When seven years old he was taken to Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, England, to be educated. There he remained for five years. In 1821 he returned to America, and was placed by Mr. Allan in an academy at Richmond, Va. In 1826, he was sent to the University of Virginia, remaining there until the termination of the next session.

In 1827, aroused by the efforts of the Greeks to emancipate themselves from the Turkish yoke, he and a friend determined to start for Greece and offer their aid to the insurgents. Poe, however, did not go to Greece, but he disappeared, and, for about two years, his whereabouts were, and still are, unknown.

In 1829, he returned to America. His adopted father did not give him a cordial welcome, but obtained his nomination to a scholarship in the West Point Academy. Military life and discipline, however, was unsuited to Poe's disposition, and he soon tired of the place and his companions. It was at this time that his first literary effort, a little volume of poems, entitled “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Poems,” appeared.

In 1831, appeared “Poems,” a collection of all his earlier verses. Shortly after this Poe became engaged to a Miss Royster, but Mr. Allan caused the engagement to be broken off, a violent quarrel ensued, and Poe and Mr. Allan parted.

In 1833, The Saturday Visitor [[Visiter]], of Baltimore, offered prizes for the best prose story and the best poem. Poe sent [column 2:] in “Tales of the Folio Club” and his poem “The Coliseum,” and won both prizes. The next year The Southern Literary Messenger was projected, and to this magazine Poe sent his story Berenice.” It was published with flattering comment. This gave Poe great popularity, which finally made him editor of The Messenger, he himself writing for it tales, poems, and reviews in profusion.

About this time he fell in love with and married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a delicate girl of consumptive tendencies. A more suitable mate, despite her delicate health, could scarcely have been found for him, while marriage had the further advantage of bringing him under the motherly care of his aunt, Mrs. Clemm.

In 1837, Poe resigned his position on The Messenger and accepted a more remunerative one on The New York Quarterly Review. During this year appeared his “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” The next year he removed to Philadelphia, and there wrote for The Gentleman's Magazine, so successfully that he was soon appointed to the editorial management of the magazine.

In the fall of 1839, he made a collection of his best stories, and published them in two volumes under the title Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque.” This collection included “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a story containing perhaps his most characteristic poem, “The Haunted Palace,” and his own favorite tale, Ligeia.”

In 1841, appeared “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” This story brought Poe before the French public, as it appeared in two journals in France, and, later, Baudelaire translated all Poe's writings, with such force and success that the prose tales now form a part of the standard French classics. The poet's fame spread also to Spain and Germany.

At this time Poe contributed a prospective notice to The Saturday Evening Post, of Philadelphia, of the newly commenced story, “Barnaby Rudge.” [page 164:] In this notice, with mathematical precision he explained and foretold the exact plot of the, as yet, unpublished story. Dickens was delighted and wrote him an admiring letter of acknowledgment.

In 1843, Poe removed to New York, and became sub-editor and critic of The Mirror, a daily paper belonging to N. P. Willis and General George Morris.

In 1845, appeared his most remarkable productions, chief among which was The Raven.” During this year The Broadway Journal was started and Poe became editor. Later he bought it out entirely. But poverty, ill-health, lack of business knowledge, and a sick and dying wife, all combined to frustrate his efforts. In January, 1846, he gave up publishing his magazine. He at once, however, began to write for Godey's Lady's Book, a series of critiques on “The Literati of New York.” These essays were immensely successful.

In January, 1847, his wife died. [column 2:] Her death threw Poe into a melancholy stupor which lasted for several weeks. During the whole year he lived a secluded life and planned what was to be the crowning work of his life, “Eureka.” Toward the close of the year also he wrote his weird monody, “Ulalume.”

In December, 1848, he became engaged to the poet, Sarah Whitman, but the engagement was broken off shortly after. The next year he re-visited Richmond, and there delivered his two famous lectures on The Poetic Principle.” While there also he became engaged to Mrs. Shelton, formerly Miss Royster. On October 4, he left Richmond with the intention of going to Fordham, N. Y., to see Mrs. Clemm. He left the cars at Baltimore, and, several hours later, was discovered in the streets insensible, and in a dying state. Being unknown, he was taken to the Washington University Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, of inflammation of the brain. [full page:]

CRITICISMS.

THE MAN.

“Everything about him distinguished him as a man of mark; his countenance, person, and gait were alike characteristic. His features were regular, and decidedly handsome. His complexion was clear and dark; the color of his fine eyes seemingly a dark gray, but, on closer inspection, they were seen to be of that neutral, violet tint which is so difficult to define. His forehead was, without exception, the finest, in proportion and expression, that we have ever seen. The perceptive organs were not deficient, but seemed pressed out of the way by causality, comparison, and constructiveness. Close to these rose the proud arches of ideality. The coronal region was very imperfect, wanting in reverence and conscientiousness, and presenting a key to many of his literary characteristics. The ideas [column 2:] of right and wrong are as feeble in his chains of thought as in the literature of ancient Greece. . . .

“Wanting in that supreme central force or faculty of the mind, whose function is God-conscious and God-adoring faith, Edgar Poe sought earnestly and conscientiously for such solution of the great problems of thought as were alone attainable to an intellect hurled from its balance by the abnormal preponderance of the analytical and imaginative faculties. It was to this very disproportion that we are indebted for some of those marvelous intellectual creations.” — Sarah Helen Whitman.

“Poe was pre-eminently a gentleman. This was apparent in everything about him, even to the least detail. He dressed always in black, and with faultless taste and simplicity. An indescribable refinement pervaded [page 165:] all that he said and did. His general bearing in society, especially toward strangers, was quiet, dignified and somewhat reserved, even at times unconsciously approaching hauteur. He rarely smiled and never laughed. When pleased, nothing could exceed the charm of his manner, — to his own sex cordial, to ladies marked by a sort of chivalrous, respectful courtesy. He was invariably cheerful and frequently in a playful mood. He seemed quietly amused by the light-hearted chat of the young people about him, and often joined them in humorous repartee, sometimes tinged with a playful sarcasm. Yet he preferred to sit quietly, and listen and observe. Nothing escaped his keen observation.” — Susan Archer Talley Weiss, in “Scribner's Magazine.”

HIS COMMAND OF LANGUAGE.

“It is not to be questioned that Poe was a consummate master of language — that he had sounded all the secrets of rhythm — that he understood and availed himself of all its resources; the balance and poise of syllables the alternations of emphasis and cadence of vowel-sounds and consonants — and all the metrical sweetness of ‘phrase and metaphrase.’ Yet this consummate art was in him united with a rare simplicity. He was the most genuine of enthusiasts. His genius would follow no leadings but those of his own imperial intellect. With all his vast mental resources he could never write an occasional poem, or adapt himself to the taste of a popular audience. His graver narratives and fantasies are often related with an earnest simplicity, solemnity, and apparent fidelity, attributable not so much to a deliberate artistic purpose, as to that power of vivid and intense conception that made his dreams realities, and his life a dream.” — Sarah Helen Whitman.

TONE AND COLOR.

“Of all the American poets of his day, Poe alone fades not. The rest have lost color. They worked in daguerreotype; he painted in oil; and fifty years hence — in a kingdom or a republic —— will ‘rule as his demesne’ a ‘wider expanse’ than the one he now dominates.” —— John B. Tabb. [column 2:]

“Poe's ‘Lenore,’ ‘Ligeia,’ and ‘Morella,’ are the creations of a poet — ideal and natural as the Venus of Milo is ideal and natural, but in no sense realistic, and having no relation to the photography and literal portraits of women such as we find in modern novels. It is for them that Poe has drawn upon his poetical nature; they are the issue of his sense of beauty.” — Eugene Benson.

HIS RELIGION.

“His religion was a worship of the beautiful. He recognizes the elements of poetic emotion — the emotion of the beautiful — ‘in all noble thoughts, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous, and self- sacrificing deeds.’ His esthetic religion.’ which has been so strangely misapprehended, was simply a recognition of the divine and inseparable harmonies of the supremely Beautiful and the supremely Good.” — Sarah Helen Whitman.

GENERAL SURVEY.

“That Poe had genius of a high order, both analytic and creative, no one thor- oughly acquainted with his writings will deny. But he had also, to its fullest extent, and in its most virulent form, the cant of genius; we mean that disposition exhibited by many of the erratic stars of literature to claim exemption, on account of their pe- culiarly fine temperament, from the ordi- nary rules of morality, ever begging the indulgence and tender judgment of their fellows on the very score of superiority.

“The impression which is made by Poe's writings, as a whole, is decidedly painful, the contrast is forced so perpetually upon us what he was, and how he used his talents, with what he might have been, and might have accomplished, had he applied his energies to any one noble purpose. We find in him great mental power, but no mental health.” North American Review.

“For a long while, and until lately, I had a distaste for Poe's writings. I wanted, and still want for poetry, the clear sun shining. and fresh air blowing-the strength and power of health, not of delirium, even amid the stormiest passions with always the background of the eternal moralities. Noncomplying [page 166:] with these requirements, Poe's genius has yet conquered a special recognition for itself, and I, too, have come to fully admit it, and appreciate it and him. Even my own objections draw me to him at last, and those very points, with his sad fate, will doubtless always make him dearer to young and fervid minds.” — Walt Whitman, in “The Critic.”

“The classic finish of the best of his verses is unsurpassed, and his musical cadences give a charm even to those which are comparatively meaningless. ‘The Raven’ is, at the worst, a marvelous piece of mechanism, and the same delicacy of touch is everywhere visible in the rushing lines of ‘Annie,’ ‘Eulalie,’ ‘Ulalume,’ ‘Lenore,’ and the ‘City by the Sea.’” — North American Review.

“It is because of the beauty that Poe created, because of his knowledge of its harmonious conditions, because of his admirable style, the pure and strange elements of his nature, his general and minute method, rather than because of his puzzles or curious intellectual inventions, that he is a type of exquisite and brilliant genius. The interest [column 2:] of his inventions would be exhausted at the first reading, if they were not contained in a beautiful literary form — if they were not set before us with a fine literary art, that charms even while it is the medium of the exceptional and often of the repugnant!” — Eugene Benson.

“Poe's poems display a sombre and weird imagination, and a taste almost faultless in the apprehension of that sort of beauty which was most agreeable to his temper. But they evince little genuine feeling, and less of that spontaneous ecstasy which gives its freedom, smoothness and naturalness to immortal verse. His own account of the composition of ‘The Raven’ discloses his methods the absence of all impulse, and the absolute control of calculation and mechanism. He was not remarkably original in invention. Indeed, some of his plagiarisms are scarcely paralleled for their audacity in all literary history.” — Rufus Wilmot Griswold.

[[Quotations]]

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 151:]

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.” — The Philosophy of Composition.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 152:]

“Once, in discussing ‘The Raven,’ Poe observed that he had never heard it correctly delivered by even the best readers that is, not as he desired that it should be read. That evening, a number of visitors being present, he was requested to recite the poem, and he complied. His impressive delivery held the company spell-bound, but, in the midst of it, I, happening to glance toward an open window above the level roof of the green-house, beheld a group of sable faces the whites of whose eyes shone in strong relief against the surrounding darkness. As the speaker became more impassioned and excited, more conspicuous grew the circle of white eyes, until, when at length he turned suddenly toward the window, and, extending his arm, cried, with awful vehemence:

there was a sudden disappearance of the sable visages, a scuttling of feet, and the gallery audience was gone. Ludicrous as was the incident, the final touch was given when, at that moment, Miss Poe, who was an extraordinary character in her way, sleepily entered the room, and with a dull and drowsy deliberation seated herself on her brother's knee. He had subsided from his excitement into gloomy despair, and now, fixing his eyes upon his sister, he concluded:

“The effect was irresistible, and, as the final ‘Nevermore’ was solemnly uttered, the half-suppressed titter of two young persons in a corner was responded to by a general laugh. Poe quietly remarked that on his next delivery of a public lecture,’ he would take Rose along, to act the part of the raven, in which she seemed born to excel.”

— Susan Archer Talley Weiss, in Scribner's Magazine.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 153:]

[The following quotation apperas at the bottom of page 158:]

“The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.” — Marginalia.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 159:]

“A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of carpet must be a genius.” — Philosopher [[Philosophy]] of Furniture.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 160:]

“To converse well, we need the cool tact of talent to talk well, the glowing abandon of genius.” — Marginalia.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 161:]

“To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.” — Marginalia.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 163:]

“In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others exclusively with our own.” — Marginalia.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 164:]

“That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.” — Marginalia.

[The following quotation appears at the bottom of page 165:]

“The ingenious are always fanciful, the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.” — The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 166:]

The portrait of Edgar Allan Poe and the view of his Fordham cottage, which appear in connection with this article, have been courteously loaned by A. C. Armstrong & Son, of New York, who publish several handsomely illustrated editions of the poet's complete works.