Text: Richard George Temple Coventry, “Edgar Allan Poe and His Commentators,” Academy (Covent Garden, London, UK), vol. LXIX, whole no. 1752, December 9, 1905, p. 1291, cols. 1-2

[page 1291, column 1, continued:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE AND HIS COMMENTATORS

To the Editor of THE ACADEMY

SIR, — Mr. Ingram seems determined to pick a quarrel. I spoke of his admiration for Poe as being praiseworthy, because it has led him to champion a man who has been reviled beyond his due. Such a championship may be praiseworthy and at the same time indiscriminate. Does Mr. Ingram really take Poe's “Philosophy of Composition” seriously, and does he recommend it as a guide to be followed by the budding poet? If so, he would flood the world with refrains, and poetry must degenerate into “the butter and eggs and a pound of cheese” style of verse so ridiculed by Calverley. What are the “glorious productions” of Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Rossetti and Swinburne which make use of the refrain? Such trash as “The May Queen,” “The Romaunt of Margret,” “Sister Helen,” “Faustine”? His selection of names is as “infortuitous” as my arraignment of Mr. Swinburne's judgments on poets and poetry. That this poet's decisions on such matters are comprehensive I readily admit; that they are final or convincing is open to question. As to a poet needing no art, I said “a poet must be a man first and a poet afterwards if he is to make a bid for immortality.” Art is not art unless it is true to nature, and the poet who is truest to nature is the finest artist. One need go no further than Shakespeare in support of this argument. Mr. Ingram's assertion “that the better poet a man is the better judge he is of poetry” convicts Poe of being an exceedingly bad poet if we are to [column 2:] take his criticism of Wordsworth as a criterion of his poetical insight. Mr. Ingram excuses this critique of Poe's as being the words of a youth of twenty-two, but, as Mr. Wallis pointed out, Poe never retracted them. If only a poet is qualified to pass judgment on poetry, I think Mr. Ingram is, as he so politely says of Mr. Wallis, hors de combat. He speaks with an air of finality that is amusing in the face of his own theory. As to his contention that the poet and critic are indissoluble, that is his own concern; it was none of mine. The context of my remark, “ready dressed in all its singing robes,” was one of metre not expression. Moreover, the polishing process is not always one of improvement. I have read Mr. Ingram's “Life and Letters of Poe” with very real pleasure and appreciation.

R. G. T. COVENTRY.