Text: John H. Ingram, “Edgar Poe and Some Commentators,” Academy (Covent Garden, London, UK), vol. LXIX, whole no. 1750, November 18, 1905, p. 1205, col. 2

[page 1205:]

EDGAR POE AND SOME COMMENTATORS

To the Editor of THE ACADEMY

SIR, — In an article on lyrical poetry, appearing in your number for the 4th instant, Mr. Coventry accuses Edgar Poe of not being up to his trade as a poet. He is alleged to betray his “barrenness of invention,” because he resorts to the arts of poetry: “use of the refrain,” and “originality of metre.” The employment of these “only Poe's rare faculty of imagination” saves from rendering his productions mere nonsense. The accusation reminds one of Wordsworth's absurd boast that he “could write like Shakespeare, if he had a mind to,” and Lamb's rejoinder, “that was all he needed.” Poe might have been as dull as some critics, but for his “rare faculty of imagination.”

Probably, neither Mr. Coventry, nor his copyist, Mr. J. B. Wallis, in the Academy of the 11th instant, is aware that Poe, when he published the remark on which they frame their indictments, “I have no faith in him” (Wordsworth), was only twenty-two, Let them read and ponder over the words which follow the remarks on Wordsworth: “He had in youth the feelings of a poet, I believe — for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in his writings — (and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom, his El Dorado) — but they have the appearance of a better day recollected. ... He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end of poetising in his manhood.”

Mr. Wallis's paradoxical assertion that merely “a minority, happy only when miserable,” are Poe's sole admirers, is quite wide of the truth. His poems are read, translated and admired, in every civilised nation, whilst Wordsworth's name, much less his writings, is known only to his own countrymen: his works are more bought than read even by them. To those reviewers who will resort to Poe's juvenile letter on poetry may be quoted the following words from it:

“It has been said, that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself. This ... I feel to be false; the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique, and the converse.”

JOHN H. INGRAM.

November 13.