Text: Richard Beale Davis, “Analysis of His Genius,” Chivers' Life of Poe 1952, pp. 85-100

[page 85:]

Poe's Art consisted mostly in classical imitation. Not that he exactly aped the finished refinement of Greek Art, but that, possessing the highest poetic sense — a sense made affluent by the most polished education — he essayed not exactly to create a New Epoch, but to teach a servile race of mannerists how to avoid that everlasting platitude which is the besetting sin of the Age.(172) I do not mean, by this, that he did not possess the genius for high things; but that he chose rather to make use of already existing materials [page 86:] than to suffer the intellectual travail necessary to create new. I allude now more especially(173) to the Raven. When I say this I mean to be understood that America never produced a man — nor indeed, any other Country — who possessed a higher sense of the Poeti[c?] Art than he did — not that grotesqueness of abandon, any more than the bizarrerie of fantasqueness, constitutes the true Poetic Art. Had he lived, he would have redeemed the platitude of the Age not only from its wantonness of affection, but also from its insipid sentimentality. One of his greatest faults was, his want of profound meditation — or, what Balzac beautifully calls — La patience Angelique du genie.°

He had the genius to conceive, but not the boldness to execute. His ideal was great, but he had not the audacity to realize it in any creation(174) passionately tangible to the soul. It(175) was the statue of Pygmalion without the immortal soul(176) to animate it.(177) He could conceive of the grandeur, invention and grace which characterized the immortal works of the Carracci family; but he wanted the passion of° Claude to suffuse them with that roseate glow of (178)° vitality necessary to true Beauty. But what distinguished him above every one of his contemporaries, was, his ability to see the imperfections in which they reveled. But one of his unaccountable deficiencies was, his utter inability to see [page 87:] that any work, to be perfect — or even to approach perfection, — must be the result of an equal blending of Art and Passion — that is, the highest Passion united with the most exalted Art — the passion moulding the Art.

His Ideal of Art was(179) Raffaelesque, as his forms were Michaelangelesque; but he wanted the Venetian vitality to give living warmth to his Picture. Like Lodovico Carracci, he possessed the power to mingle in one form all the forms of all the other Artists that had preceeded him, but, being destitute of that very quality which gave him the power to create a New School — namely, Nature, — his work will not remain a Model for all.

His Art was nothing but Art, without a particle of Nature to enliven it — (180) was wanting in the very essentials of true genius — that which makes all Art glorious — (181) the true Shekinah of Inspiration [ — ] namely — fortuitousness. He was deficient in that very power which °Bellari says was the peculiar characteristic of °Domenichino, delinea gli animi, colorisce la vita — for he neither drew the soul, nor coloured the life. He possessed the grace of °Albano, and the delicacy of Guido, without possessing those other vivifying qualities which made their faces look like people from Paradise.

He was rather an Ambrosial Eclecticist than the °Fons ingeniorum, the En-Ador, or Fons Pythonis of his Age — for he lacked the Festina lento necessary to the crystalline revelation of the Divine Idea — that is, the utterable sigh of an unutterable love breathed from the depths of our souls — which is the revelation of true Poesy.(182) [page 88:]

Perhaps I can better describe the nature of his mind by saying that it was feminine and lacked manliness. Nor do I mean by this that the female mind is not perfectly adapted for Poetice [sic] contemplation; but, that, where man's mind partakes of this nature, it argues an inability to achieve great things. This was not only the case with Poe, but he was the most boyish man that [I] ever met. When I say this, I do not mean that a certain kind of naivette is not necessary to Poetical composition, but that Poe did not possess it. But, what I mean by his femininness is, that he was wanting in manly decision. Nothing would have pleased him better than being considered the Hero of Dante's Inferno for he was always, in immagination, at least, making toilsome Pilgrimages through the dim Regions of Pluto.(183)

Never were so passionate energies lying hidden deep down within the secret centre of his soul; no unutterable joys — no inexpressible sorrows thrill through his heart incensing it into tears as the sweetest odors are trampled out of the driest flowers; but when he speaks it is with coldness, or scornful indifference — weeping only in reply to the distress of others, as the Rock did, in a pellucid murmur, in answer to the potent Rod of Moses.

He was not a Voice, but an Echo, from the Land of Melody, where the divine Possessions lie — revealing to us only a satillite-reflection of the eternal Harmonies. [page 89:]

The bounty of his culture far exceeded the regal endowment of his nature — else he would not have made the God-created, freeborn Passion a slave to Art. He was no Ixion. Juno had no charms for him — for he never swooned away with that Pythonic delerium which characterized the Gods when drunk with the white wine of Heaven; but, like Endymion, always retired to Mount Lat-mos, where he held night long vigils with the Moon.

It was the firm belief of the assinine bonhommie, that he delighted in torturing an Author; but nothing is farther from the truth — his whole severity consisting in a clairvoyant intuition into the merits or demerits of his work. The truth is, he was a Critic of the very highest order, become an Artist; and, having to deal with mere blowers of bubbles, it is nothing more than reasonable to suppose that he would meet with much opposition because the antagonism of semibarbarizm.

Think you that it was no task — no trouble — no infinite bor [sic] — for a man of his nobility of nature — his pride of intellect — to pull up deep-rooted stink-weeds out of this or that Fair Paradise? Is it not easier to grup up new-ground stumps or maul rails for a living? Yet, he had to do this, or not [do] justice to his subject. Yet, for doing this — cutting down the foul Upas trees which infested the land with their baleful shadow — he was condemned to die by fire!

He had not only to show the rising generation that the Art of Poetry did not consist in the success with which poetasters could conceal all thought; but he was required to give them the very brains by which [they] could discover the same!

Then, what sympathy have Buzzards for an Eagle? The former feed on carrion the latter takes delight in high-flying — roosting somewhere in the Empyrian about on a line with the Sun. [page 90:]

Presently it grew evening around him, while it was yet morning. Then came down upon him the dark Night of Death! — even on the broad high noon of his Day of Laife! The Buzzards all fly at ease now. Now does King Ass reign in Duncedom! Now, returns again the dark Cloud which overshadows the Splendors of Heaven! Now thunder against our offended ears those once hushed Jackass-brayings which drown to silence the melliffluous spherings off of the infinite Star-melody.

It is through an Avenue of Sphinxes that the soul must go before it can enter into the lofty Temple of Memnon — before whose Majesty the Star-crowned Muses kneel, with bowed heads, listening to the eternal Harmonies. He is the only Oedipus who can solve their Rhythmical Riddle. The building of lofty rhyme is not like that of Babel, but an Orphic upheaval of infinite thought into a milkwhite Temple of Beauty for the indwelling of the divine Muses.

This Temple of Memnon is the Image of the Holy Tabernacle of God. The only High Priest fit to enter in this Temple is the true Poet — the Revelator of the divine Idea — the Worshipper of the bright Spirit of all Beauty — the Melchezideck of an eternal Priesthood, who inters but once into this Holy of Holies, because his term of service is forever.

He was not only a rara avis as signifying a Bird of Para-dise — although his being Edenic did not consist in the prismatic splendor of his plumage — but in the brilliant adornment of his mind — that psychilogical idiosyncracy which contra-distinguished him from almost every other man.

It is said Hayden wept like a child on hearing his sublime strains, for the first time in Westminster Abbey — would Poe have done this? No; but he would have smiled [page 91:] — not exactly with contempt for others, or, a selfish haughti-ness — but like Apollo “where he impregns the clouds — shedding May flowers” — just as he once did to me in reply to something that I had said about the beauty of the Raven — looking out intently at vacancy as if gazing on the image of his own soul reflected back from the crystalline mirror of the opening Heavens — gently curling his upper lip — leaving his ivory teeth all bare — as you may sometimes see a rose the core of its calyx in blowing.

He possessed too much of the art of Verdi — too much of the eloquence of °Clementi — but not enough of the fioriture — the passion of Mozart and Rosini. It is stated, in the Life of Beethoven, that, in his last moments, on receiving a copy of Handel's works, he exclaimed, °“That is the true! I would uncover my head and kneel down on his tomb!”

Would Poe have said, or done this? No soon than Lucifer would have bowed to Gabriel. The truth is, the pride of his nature was eminently Luciferian — not devilish, nor diabolical — but lofty — empyreal — superlatively starry and Archangel-like.

When he(184) read, his voice was a sonorous monotone, and rolled over his lips with an Æolian plaintiveness, like the music of a shell, or the eternal breakings of the billows of the Sea upon its shore.

[All this was written without a particle of belief in its truth. If he did not believe it then he was false to himself in saying so — which is just as bad — for what he has said since, proved that he did not believe it.] (185)

Mr Poe being a man of no passion, and knowing that every body, who knew any thing at all about him, was perfectly [page 92:] well acquainted with this fact, and would find fault with him, as a Poet, because he was wanting in this element, set himself to work to prove that ‘True passion is prosaic — homely.’ This he said in speaking of °Mrs Welby's Poetry — than whom a more passionate woman never existed. He believed, or affected to believe, that we are poetic, in expressing the emotions of grief, precisely in proportion to the manner in which we chasten this grief — that is, we are poetic precisely in proportion as we fail to develope the prirnum mobile of our expression. Was ever such an idea en-(186) [tert] ained before? But this accorded precisely with [his? (187) ideas of passion, because he possessed none to give impulse to his ideas.(188) He dwindles her ‘tone of passion’ down to a ‘melancholy regret,’ and then calls it no passion — therefore, Poetry — whereas, the very essence of her Poetry consists in the ‘tone of passion’ resulting from her ‘melancholy regret’ — that is, passionate love for the beautiful, the beloved, and the early lost. I appeal to the abounding love in the bounding hearts of the millions now living; and to the divine spirits of the multidudinous hosts in Heaven, if what I say is not the fact. People often talk about his egotism, without ever thinking that what they cab his egotism was nothing more or less than a manifestation of his deep-seated self-consciousness of his own merits. It is their envy of his superior abilities which makes them accuse him of egotism. Had they a tithe of his genius, you would never hear one of them even hinting of his egotism.

I recollect now that the Jews killed Christ for saying ‘I and my Father are one.’ It is impossible to please every body for there are some people who would not be pleased if they could. Like the worm in the bud, or the Vulture that fed on the heart of Prometheus for bringing fire down from Heaven — the Canker of envy is forever eating out their hearts.° [page 93:]

This is obvious from what Mr Poe says about Poetry in his Marginalia. He did not believe that the delight which Poetry produces in the mind of every well educated man, consists in the Gothic grandeur of the thought; but in the artistic ingenuity of the writer. What I mean by the Gothic nature of a Poem consists in the intuitive fortuitousness of its creation. The willow is said to weep from two very remarkable circumstances — first, because of the down-hanging of its long pendulous boughs, which resemble the falling of water — secondly, on account of an exudation from its corticle, which, after condensing into drops, falls to the ground. The first is the Gothic, the second the Greek thought. But why is the first the Gothic, the second the Greek thought? Because the first is the common — (giving rise to the Natural Hystory of the tree) — the second, the uncommon, thought giving rise only to some peculiar attribute of it. Thus the Arabian trees are described, by Shakespeare, as weeping their “medicinal gum.”

Now the Gothic is the true — the Natural; the Greek, the artificial, thought.(189)

°Mr Poe asks, Why have we such an affection for the old Poets of the Elizabethan Era? He answers by saying that it is because we do not know what Poetry is. But is this the truth? Let the weeping willow answer — for as the pendulosity of its boughs gives denomination to the tree and not the exudation of its sap; so does the Gothic and not the Greek nature of the Poetry characterize the Poets of that Augustan Age. Their quaint grotesqueness is just precisely that quality which constitutes the Gothic nature of their Poetry — a quality entirely independent of any intention or foregone conclusion — therefore, intuitive — fortuitous — [page 94:] heart-histories — the very opposite of his idea of the Art.

He calls °Tennyson the greatest of Poets precisely because he is the least like the old Elizabethan Gods — for which very reason I deny him any such praise. He contended that Tennyson produces effects by writing an idiosyncratic Paian. The Elizabethan bards produced their effects by writing something otherwise than a Poem. The Elizabethan Bards wrote Gothic Poems; Tennyson, Greek Æidolons. This is the difference between the two. The Elizabethan Bards wrote out of the heart; Tennyson out of the brain. The Ink horn which they wore by their sides, was full of the white wine of Heaven; Tennyson's crystal inkstand contains nothing but cold water from the Pierian Spring. Tenyson's [sic] Œnone is the Ideal indefinite, which is not an element of the true° ποιησς — Mr Poe said that indeffiniteness° is an element of true music. But this were just as much as to say that true music consists in that which does not constitute true music — or, that, any substance whatsoever consists in its own shadow, or that any actual compound is less than its components — a dream greater — more substantial — than a reality.

Poetry consists in Ideality — but it is an Ideality of soul [—] that spirit which infirms the body of the Poem — which must be Gothic — possessed of sinuosity — as well as flexibility of motion — or it will be no Poem at all or will stand in the same relation to a true Poem that the Venus De Medicis does to the Apollo Belvidere.

The Poems of the Elizabethan Poets are Cathedrals of majesty — magnificient in their Gothic grandeur — sublime in Beauty — miniatures of the universe.(190) Images of the creation — living aspirations to reach up to the Infinite — Orphic upheavals of the soul to climb up to the unapproachable [page 95:] white heights of God — into the inmost Penetralia of the skies.

They are the crystalline revelations of the Divine Idea — not of sentiment — but of Passion. L’Abbate Gravina says, °”Vocal music ought to imitate the natural language of human feelings and passions rather than the warblings of Canary birds” — which is a complete answer to Mr Poe.

The book which Mr P. P. Cooke wished him to write, of °”all invention” and “no imagination,” would have been in his estimation, just precisely no book at all.

The °Editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, says, that(191) Mr Poe admired the following lines,

[Poe did so] just precisely because he knew that nobody else would see anything beautiful in them. It was not because he was not able to see at all times what was, and what was not, in a Poem which made him see daylight in the clouds; but because he was at all times, to a greater or less degree, possessed with the “Imp of the Perverse”. The world to him would have appeared more beautiful on the First than on the Fourth day of the creation; and no part of the Cosmogony of Moses pleased him so well as that which teaches that the world “was without form and void, and darkness covered the face of the great deep.” Like Tennyson — which is Tennyson's greatest fault — he was totally destitute of that primum mobil [sic] of the soul of the true Poet — namely passion. [page 96:]

The fact is, his creations are creatures of marble in a world of frozen music. No line that either ever wrote is the language of pure passion — but merely and surely(192) the artistic elaboration of mere sentiment for it was the firm belief of Poe that no true Poem can possess a particle of Passion. Like Tennyson he makes use of all the cold colors in his Paintings, and never of any of the warm ones. His Flora consists of nothing but lilies, without a single rose. He was never truly, in an actual sense,

In speaking of the use which Edgar A. Poe made of the Critical Guillotine, while he was Editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, the present Conductor says, that he “imagines he can hear the shade of the Departed crying out to them in the Epitaph designed for Robespierre,”

Instead of this, methinks that I can hear him say in the Dove-toned voice of the Departed, from that high-uplifted world where he now reigns, to the worthy aspirant panting in the sunshine of toil for the evergreen laurel to shade his sunburnt brow —

This leads me now to ask the often-debated question, — °What is genius? It is the sum total of all those qualities which go to make up true greatness; the power, within the human soul, to do that which constitutes all that we can conceive of the highest intelligences in Heaven; that peculiar characteristic which contradistinguishes one mind from every other; the ability to do what no other man can do; the faculty to reveal, in an unmistakable Synthesis, the Analysis of the divine Loveliness; the capability to bring down Heaven upon earth — to lift earth up into Heaven; the Secret by which one soul can make untold millions [ha]ppy, that Ithuriel Spea[r?], by which all the Legions [of] Hell can be disarmed of their power; the Day that comes [upon?] us in the middle of the night; the Paradise which [b]rings up before us in the Land of Banishment; [an?] Oasis in the Desert; the Soul of all Souls; the [Life] of all lives; the Glory of all glories; the Crown [of] all Crowns; the Bliss of all bliss.

[Did] Poe possess this glory of the world — this divine [gift] (195) of God? He certainly did — in a very high, if [not] in the very highest degree; but he wanted one [ver]y essential quality, [the] manliness to realize his own Ideal — by living [ ]nulous of the Angels. He possessed a higher genius than Plato, — a loftier talent than Pythagoras, but he required just that crowning quality which [w]as the glory of both those great men — the power [to] live above temp-tation — to be a man, yet despise [all] that was not manly — to live in the world yet live above the world — fulfilling the ordination of God in his active wisdom among men, by permitting nothing of his body but the soles of his feet to touch the earth — lifting his head into Heaven. He [page 98:] possessed pride, but it was not that true ge[niu?]s — the power to ride triumphantly on the Eagle wings of Victory(196) over the low valley-lands of mortality into the lower-crowned top of that delectable Mountain where the Divine Possession[s] lie. He had the pride to excell — to triumph over the minds of the world — but not the magnanimity to sustain himself in that Heaven-exalted excellence. In short, he subordinated his mind [to] his body. Having inverted the Pyramid of his greatness which God had placed upon his base, there was nothing left him but to fall.

An °anonymous writer published a long article on “The Genius and Characteristic of Mr Poe, in the February Number of Graham's Magazine for 1854,(197) in which he does him a greater injury, (although evidently written as an Eulogy), than [was] (198) ever done [by](199) his most inveterate maligner. I allude to that portion of it in which he compares him with Professor Longfellow, placing them both on the same plane of Genius; when [in] (200) fact, the gulf between the two is wider than that which seperated Dives in Hell from Lazarus in Abraham's bosom in Heaven.

This he does in defending Professor Longfellow against the charges of plagiarism made by Mr Poe — without showing wherein it was untrue.

That is a very lame Eulogy which will defend Professor Longfellow at the expense of Poe — thereby damning him with faint praise — particularly when the talent [ ] Poe [page 99:]

[ ] [genius?](201) — that of Professor Longfellow merely to [ ]. (202)

To offset this, I will quote the following pass [age](203) taken from an article on Professor Longfellow, published in the New York Tribune in 1845:(204)

°[Editor's Note: Chivers pasted in here two fragments of a clipping of Margaret Fuller's damning yet just review of Longfellow (see Explanatory Notes). Evidently a sheet or two is missing between this and the next material, which returns to the subject of Longfellow vs. Poe. Chivers is referring to Longfellow's remark in a letter to John R. Thompson (see Explanatory Notes) that “The harshness of [Poe's] criticisms, I have never attributed to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature, chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong.”]

. . . °some indeffinite sense of wrong!”(205) This is quite a clever construction to put upon it, indeed; but if Poe were here living in this world now he would call him a “Frogpondian Euphist,” and so to his “indefinite sense of wrong”, again. Methinks that barrenness of intellect and want of genius in the world, chaffed him, rather more than any “indeffinite sense of wrong” — even if a man of his ability could be “chaffed” by such an “indeffinite sense.” His charity is like that which came to Sheridan on his deathbed — it is entirely too late. I am certain that he never used any [page 100:] “harshness” towards this gentleman. As to Poe's “charm of melody,” that will speak for itself, for he wrote a Poem at °fourteen, entitled “Helen,” which Mr Longfellow will never be able to equal, let alone excell. “Chaffed by some indiffinite sense of wrong!” He may as well tell me that the cry of anguish which burst from the parched lips of our Saviour on the Cross, was the Eloi, Eloi Lamma Sabachthani of an “indeffinite sense of wrong”! Now that the cruel Dream is gone — ”Richard's himself again.”

I have often thought, since Mr Poe's death, that it would be well for those little souls who feared, and, through fear, effected to admire him while he lived, to remember while they attempt to “damn with faint praise,” the following adage — ”De mortuis nil nisi bonum.”

I do not know a Man, living or dead, of whom the following might be said with greater propriety than of Edgar A. Poe — Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 85:]

172 Followed by the marked through passages: 1) [on the same page] “Pointing to the Landscapes of Claude, he would say, ‘You see, by the Pictures, that there are elevations on the earth — yonder Ph[mutilated] inviting you where you can not only breathe a purer air, but enjoy a more extensive vision of the surrounding landscape, but you write as though the the whole round world were all one entire dead level.” 2) [on the verso of ms. p. 29a, crossed out, perhaps with no direct connection with the preceding]:

3) MS Page 29b begins with a repetition (2 minor verbal changes) of the preceding two sentences, down through “mannerists how to”. This is followed by the marked out: “Now I do not mean by this that he actually did invent in the truest application of the term to create; but that he possessed, within his soul, an attitude to build up out of other men's inventions [var.: everlasting materials] ‘novel combinations of numbers’.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 86:]

173 Followed in text by an inserted “now”. This whole sentence is on a strip pasted over other material.

174 Followed by the marked-through: “that was”.

175 Written in above the marked-through: “This Ideal.”

176 Followed by the marked-through: “which the compassionate Gods were kind enough to infuse with it in reply to the passionate prayer of its Author. The reason was, because he was destitute of that very passion which drew the lightnings of life down from the bountiful souls of the merciful Gods, which animated it.” [There are two other marked-out versions of the last few words.]

177 “immortal” is written in above “soul” and “to animate it” after “soul.”

178 Indecipherable word blotted out here.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 87:]

179 Followed by the marked-through: “not only.”

180 Followed by the marked-through: “Yet, this very Art.”

181 Followed by the marked-through: “that is.”

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 87, running to the bottom of page 88:]

182 Followed by the marked-through: “Nor can the praise which Du [page 88:] Fresnay bestows on Anabale Carracci, be applied to him:

for the Alembic in which he mixed his metals was transparent He made all his &c Beauty rather to consist in the Beauty of Art, than in the Art of Beauty.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 88:]

183 [MS sheet 31, recto and verso, contains a very slightly different version of earlier material. Actually the earlier version is explained. The principal differences in phraseology consist of such things as “Symphonies” (sheet 38 version) for “Sinfonias,” in three or so cases.]

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 91:]

184 This is the beginning of three paragraphs printed, from a newspaper.

185 This paragraph Chivers crossed out.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 92:]

186 End of first of two clippings pasted on sheeet 33a. Both, parts of same essay.

187 This bracket and that just above denote gaps or torn places in the clipping.

188 The two preceding sentences are crossed through.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 93:]

189 The preceding four sentences are crossed out, and then the cross is marked through. Presumably they were to remain.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 94:]

190 Followed by the marked-through: “They are, therefore”:

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 95:]

191 At this point the present editor has inserted the text of an alternate version of this discussion, a version included in HEH HM 2534. The latter is a four-page MS. having the title “Notes concerning the criticism by Willis (? ) of Tennyson in the ‘Home Journal: “ It is in two hands but clearly all by Chivers, for the second hand is the work of a copyist, designed to fill mutilated or worn places in the MS.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 96:]

192 Or “solely”?

193 Italic line solid. The selection from HEH HM 2534 ends at this point. Several pages follow in original.

194 Spelled properly “Passant” in later version.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 97:]

195 MS. sheets 35 and 36 are badly frayed on both edges. Brackets denote words wholly or partially missing from the borders of the pages.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 98:]

196 Followed by the partially marked-through: “above the world into that beaut — [two or thre words heavily crossed out] Land”.

197 This MS. sheet, 36, is in a different period-hand from the preceding two, and may denote later additions. MS. sheet 35b, however, is probably rewritten for it concludes with a comma some distance from the bottom of the page.

198 Almost entirely marked-through.

199 Torn off margin.

200 Torn off margin.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 99:]

201 Corner torn out of lower-right portion of page, and bottom line worn off these three bracket-spaces.

202 Torn corner.

203 Worn off right margin of MS. sheet 36b.

204 Two pieces of a clipping follow, the clipping crossed through by Chivers. One final paragraph of rapturous rhetoric, not on this or any specific subject except praise of Poe as “one of the sybils of Elysium,” is here omitted.

205 This is the next sheet (MS. p. 37a) in HEH HM 2529.