Text: Edwin W. Bowen, “Poe Fifty Years After,” The Forum (New York, NY), vol. XXI, June 1901, pp. 501-510

[page 501:]

POE FIFTY YEARS AFTER.

IN the history of American authors there has probably not been a life of more pathetic interest than that of Edgar Allan Poe. Indeed, misfortune seems to have pursued him to his grave; and even after his death his memory was unmercifully traduced. Griswold's spiteful and vicious attack in the memoir prefixed to his edition of Poe's works set the fashion, which, except in rare instances, has been followed somewhat blindly. But here and there a few brave writers have dared to offer a word in defence, and to state the facts, even at the risk of being voted biassed and narrow of view. Some essayists, however, emboldened by these sporadic efforts, have recoiled to the other extreme, and by their unbounded admiration of everything that came from Poe's pen have done his cause quite as much harm as those who shamefully defame him. Needless to say, somewhere between these two extremes lies the region of truth. Wholesome advice is contained in the maxim Ne quid nimis; and this motto will furnish us a safe guide in literary as well as in political controversies,

It is wellnigh impossible to give a just and correct estimate of an author either during his life or immediately after his death. Proximity to a beautiful landscape distorts our view, and prevents our receiving a correct and adequate impression of its beauty. We must get the proper perspective and view the landscape from a point not too near, on the one hand, or too remote, on the other. Surely, then, after the lapse of half a century we may turn our glass upon Poe, in the hope of obtaining a fairer and more adequate view of the author's genius than was possible on the part of his contemporaries.

Poe's detractors have indicted him on the charge of gross immorality. To be more specific, they have said that he was an habitual drunkard, an ingrate, a scoffer, and a libertine. Now, it is not the purpose of this paper to defend Poe against the charge of occasional drunkenness. Not even his most ardent admirers, unless so utterly biassed as to be incapable of appreciating an established fact, would, I fancy, attempt to exonerate him from this accusation. But, while it is true that Poe indulged [page 502:] all too freely his convivial passion, it is equally true that he endeavored to abstain, and that he actually did abstain, from such indulgence sometimes for several months in succession. Like many others, however, he had been reared in a household where liberal potations seem to have been encouraged, or, at all events, not forbidden. Poe, unfortunately, inherited from his parents, who were stage people, a lack of self-control; and it was against this inherited weakness and deficiency in will-power that he fought with varying success and failure all his mature years, until at last he yielded and sank down in utter despair.

Little need be said in reply to the other specific charges. The conviction has grown upon me, after a careful study of his life and works, that, although at times he seemed to show but scant appreciation of the kindnesses bestowed upon him by some of his friends, Poe nevertheless was not an ingrate. He had many friends, who, when after his death an attempt was made by his enemies to plant thorns upon his grave, interposed and themselves planted roses there. Ido not believe Poe was a scoffer. Nor, on the other hand, do I think that he had any deep and abiding religious convictions, or that he ever drew much comfort from his religion. In reference to the last count in the indictment, I feel, after reading Professor Woodberry's biography, that few men have ever proved more devoted and faithful husbands than did Poe to his beautiful but frail Virginia. Upon the evidence of Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, his conjugal relations were entirely free from every discordant element; and his untiring devotion to his wife in her last lingering illness was as beautiful as it was pathetic. Moreover, there is not the slightest suggestion of immorality in any poem or story which Poe wrote. His works are as chaste as an icicle. This is far more than can be said of much of our present-day fiction.

Poe's genius may be considered in a threefold aspect. He may be regarded as a critic, as a poet, and as a romancer. In each of these realms Poe attained to eminence; but it is only in the last two aspects that I wish especially to consider him now. I need hardly say that I do not intend by this to imply any disparagement of his critical genius. On the contrary, Poe, in my judgment, is rightly entitled to the distinction of being the first American man of letters to write criticism deserving the name. Before his advent into journalism criticism had been but little better than fulsome flattery. After his appearance journalistic criticism entered upon a new era. His reviews, though frequently drastic, and sometimes, it must be admitted, inspired by personal prejudice, had, nevertheless, a wholesome and stimulating effect upon American authorship. [page 503:] His “Marginalia” awakened a sense of injustice and resentment in the breasts of the more virile, and struck sheer terror to the hearts of the weaklings. Mr. Stedman justly calls his sketches “a prose Dunciad, waspish and unfair, yet not without touches of magnanimity.” It has been truly observed that whenever Poe, unbiassed by personal motives, pronounced favorably upon the talents of an autor, such as Bayard Taylor, Mrs. Browning, or Tennyson, his judgments have been sustained by the verdict of the present generation. But his prejudice made him merciless and unrelenting to the New England poets, as a class. According to his view nothing good or beautiful could come out of the Nazareth of Boston. It need hardly be remarked that the present generation has, in many instances, reversed Poe's critical dicta.

But enough of Poe as a critic. Let us now take up his poetry. In his masterly essay on Thomas Gray, Matthew Arnold says of that writer that his whole history as a poet is contained in a remark, made by an appreciative friend, to the effect that “he never spoke out in poetry.” The same remark is equally applicable to Poe; for it is a common feeling, shared alike by the present generation and by his contemporaries, that he never really gave complete utterance to the poetry which kindled his imagination and stirred his soul.

Poe was not a prolific writer. All the poetry that he ever published could be pressed between the covers of a very slender book. But volume is not the only, or even the main, criterion in determining the standing of a poet. Indeed, it is rather an insignificant factor. In the determination of a poet's standing, spontaneity and passion, not volume, are the criteria. “Poetry,” says Poe, in the preface to his juvenile productions, “has been with me a passion, not a purpose.” Still, we heartily wish that he had written more of purpose, though no less of passion.

It must be conceded that Poe's range of subject — his register, to borrow a musical term — was quite narrow. In his youth, as a critic has observed, he struck the key-notes of a few themes; and the output of his mature years was but a variation on these. The death, in his youth, of a lady to whom he was devoted made a profound impression upon his susceptible heart, and filled his soul with a poignant feeling of sadness and of longing for one far removed from human companionship and beyond recall. This henceforth was to be the inspiration of his genius and the burden of his song. Says Mr. Edmund Gosse, the eminent English critic, himself no mean poet: “If Poe had not harped so persistently on his one theme of remorseful passion for the irrevocable dead, if he had employed his extraordinary, his unparalleled gifts of [page 504:] melodious invention, with equal skill, in illustrating a variety of themes, he must have been with the greatest poets.”

Poe's best-known poems, those upon which his fame as a poet rests, are “The Raven,” first of all, “The Bells,” “For Annie,” “Ulalume,” “The City in the Sea,” “The Haunted Palace,” and “The Conqueror Worm.” Of these “The Raven,” written in 1845, is by far the most widely known, and deservedly the most popular. With its publication Poe, like Byron with the publication of “Childe Harold,” leaped immediately into fame. His manuscript articles which, up to this time, editors had kept in dark pigeon-holes were now brought to the light of day, and were greatly in request; and enterprising magazines were eager to announce, as a special attraction, a new poem by the author of “The Raven.” The instant success of this production provoked a new edition of Poe's writings, which appeared toward the end of the year 1845, under the title, “The Raven and Other Poems.” This volume contained wellnigh all the verse Poe had ever written. The early poems had undergone alterations more or less slight, in accordance with the author's fashion of recasting and republishing his early work as if it were appearing for the first time.

In view of the popularity of “The Raven” and of its importance as being Poe's greatest poem, it will not be out of place to linger over it for a while and notice it somewhat in-detail. In his “Philosophy of Composition,” Poe gives a detailed account of his method of composing “The Raven” and of its motif; and the story has such a vraisemblance and such a positiveness about it as almost to compel belief. Moreover, the author's peculiar views, which he set forth elsewhere, in respect of the poetic principle are involved in the account; and he uses “The Raven” to illustrate his theory as to the aim and scope of poetry.

Poe believed, with Coleridge, that the pleasure arising from the contemplation of beauty is keener, more chaste, and more elevating to the soul than that which springs from the contemplation of truth by the mere intellect, or even than that which springs from any passion of the heart. He maintained, further, that it is through this sentiment of beauty that man acquires his clearest conceptions of eternal nature, and is consequently brought into closest touch with the divine. This subtle power exists in the beauty of nature, which inspires man with a belief in something beyond nature, fairer and more beautiful still, to be discerned only by the imagination. It is the province of art to fashion this ideal beauty for the gratification of man's spiritual emotion. This is the end and aim of all the fine arts, but more especially of the crowning [page 505:] arts of music and poetry. The incitements of passion, the precepts of duty, and even the lessons of truth are included; but they must be subordinated to the main point of the contemplation of beauty. It follows, therefore, that beauty is the sole legitimate theme of poetry; and so Poe defined poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty.”

However, Poe in his definition did not take the term beauty in its widest and broadest sense, which would include all truth, emotion, and ethics. On the contrary, he restricted the term to what he was pleased to call supernal beauty, that is, the domain of sadness and regret. He regarded a beautiful woman as the very quintessence of beauty, and the death of such a woman as the most poetical theme in the world. This is the motif and inspiration of “The Raven.” On the general principle that vice can never be beautiful, of course nothing base or degrading could legitimately fall within the province of poetry.

As a minor consideration Poe insisted that, from the very nature of our mental constitution, it is necessary that a poem be brief and aim at a single artistic effect, since the undivided attention cannot be held for several consecutive hours by one subject. This canon, however, was inspired by Schlegel's dictum of the unity or totality of interest. Such a long poem as the “Iliad,” the “Odyssey,” or “Paradise Lost,” according to Poe's theory, depends for its interest and effect upon the various briefer incidents or poems which go to make it up. When we read a poem of great length the attention naturally relaxes at intervals; and, since the interest is not sustained throughout, the poem fails to produce a single artistic effect. Furthermore, Poe maintained that, in order for a poem to produce a characteristic effect, it should possess a distinct rhythm or metre, together with a certain grotesqueness of conception and quaintness of language. Now, all these conditions, Poe claimed, were met in “The Raven” in particular, and in his other poems in general. For in the former we find as the motif of the poem the death of a beautiful woman, Lenore; the unique refrain “Nevermore;” a certain grotesqueness of conception in the setting; and an air of quaintness about the language.

Like Lanier, another Southern singer whose career offers almost as many pathetic incidents, Poe was endowed by nature with a keen appreciation of rhythm and music. He was preëminently a melodist; and, what is more, the melody of his verse has not been equalled in the history of American literature, and is not surpassed by any British poet. But, as has been already stated, his register was not wide. Within a limited range he could and did achieve remarkable results, as in the refrain [page 506:] of “The Bells” or “The Raven.” The musical effect of the ballad of either of these poems was, up to the time of their publication, unequalled, and it has not been surpassed since. Poe, with a few choice words, like Paganini with his simple violin, produced a spell which was truly marvellous. It is said of the great musician that such was his control of his instrument, and such his perfection of technique, that in every part of musical Europe even with his very first notes he held vast audiences spell-bound. It may be said of Poe that such was his intuitive sense of beauty, and such the melody of his verse, that he arrested the reluctant attention of the reading public of the two English-speaking nations, and by his haunting music cast a glamour over their poets which none of them, after repeated efforts, has ever since succeeded in reproducing. Mr. Gosse tells us that Poe has proved himself to be the Piper of Hamelin to all later English poets, of whom there is hardly one whose verse music does not show traces of his influence. Surely, it is no small distinction thus to have stamped the impress of one's own genius for melodious verse upon the succeeding generation of English poets, and that, too, of the Victorian era.

Poe is sometimes called a poet of one poem; and the criticism is not altogether unjust. For to the world at large he is generally known as the author of “The Raven.” I think Mr. Stedman comes nearer the truth, however, when in an epigrammatic sentence he says: “Poe was not a single-poem poet, but a poet of a single mood.” The theme is the same in almost all his poems, namely, ruin. This is the burden of his song; this is the one poetic subject that always kindled his imagination. To be sure, the treatment varies, as might be expected; but the inspiration of his poetry is almost invariably drawn from this one source. “Israfel” furnishes an exception, but it is an exception which proves the rule.

This is Poe's greatest limitation; and a serious limitation it certainly is. It undermines the foundation of his claim to being regarded a great poet, in the sense that English poets like Milton, Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and many others that might be named are entitled to rank as great poets. Poe, in my judgment, is an artist in verse; a great artist, indeed, but hardly a great poet. It is true that he possesses “originality in the treatment of themes, perennial charm, exquisite finish in execution, and distinction of individual manner” — elements of poetical greatness as set forth by an eminent English essayist and critic — but he lacks, it seems to me, one of the qualifications needed to entitle him to rank with the great poets. His fatal defect is [page 507:] his narrowness of range. “The Raven” may wing its ceaseless flight through anthologies, and be admired by generations yet unborn; but this alone does not make its author a great poet any more than the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” entitles Gray to rank with the world's great poets. However, although this Southern poet may fail of the distinction of being entitled to rest in the Valhalla of the world's great poets, yet, in my opinion, he justly deserves to rank with the greatest American poets, if, indeed, he is not the very greatest among them.

But it is time for us to consider our author in the aspect of romance. Dearly as he loved it, poetry was never a serious purpose with Poe, as he himself informed the reading public in his youthful preface. It was upon his prose romance and his critical work that he relied to establish his fame. Upon these he was willing to stake his claim to immortality. It ought to be remarked here, however, that it was more especially in the province of romance that he exhibited, in the highest degree, his intellectual force — his vigorous imagination and his acute analytical powers. He has handed down his name to the present generation as the founder of the school of writers, now so popular, who practise the short story. He also deserves the distinction of being the founder of the modern detective story and the modern sea story. Dr. A. Conan Doyle, whether he acknowledges it or not, must be classed as a disciple of Poe; for his “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” is but the method of Poe carried to its logical conclusion.

Poe's power developed early. Indeed, his genius may be called precocious. Some of his early stories were among his best, and were hardly surpassed in his mature years. His earliest effort, “A MS. Found in a Bottle,” exhibits practically the same distinctive qualities as appear in the flower of his work. The difference is one of degree, not of kind. That was a suggestive comment made by Kennedy, to whom young Poe submitted his maiden manuscript: “The young fellow is highly imaginative, and a little given to the terrific.” And the criticism is just; for there is no story written by Poe which is not more or less grotesque, and which does not give unmistakable evidence of the author's rare gift of imagination.

His stories naturally divide themselves into two classes: first, the analytical tales, dealing with the grotesque and the terrible; and, secondly, the speculative tales, dealing with the weird and the supernatural. Examples of the former class are “The Black Cat,” “The Gold-Bug,” “The Tell-tale Heart,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue;” examples of [page 508:] the latter are “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia,” “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” and “William Wilson.” The latter class constitutes the author's earlier work in fiction. In the tales of this class Poe gradually worked up to a dénouement through a complicated series of facts and incidents. In the tales of the former group, starting with the dénouement, he gradually unravelled the plot by his ratiocinative method until he worked his way, incident by incident, back to the very beginning. The end aimed at is different, as well as the starting-point. In the imaginative group it is the emotional element which is emphasized; whereas in the ratiocinative group the solution of the mystery is all important, and the attention is accordingly focussed upon the incidents leading up to this mystery. In both classes of tales Poe showed his inventive genius, his rare imagination, and his subtle artistic power in the selection and in the grouping of the facts — this last especially in the ratiocinative tales.

The following paragraph is interesting as setting forth in the author's own words the aim which he sought and the method which he followed in the construction of his tales:

In all Poe's stories, subtly conceived and cleverly and exquisitely executed as some of them incontestably are, there is no one character that has taken hold of the affections or that really lives. Poe never painted a single live character. Though a consummate artist, he yet lacked that subtle power of characterization which Thackeray exhibited, in so eminent a degree, in the creation of his immortal Becky Sharp, and Dickens in the creation of his equally famous Sam Weller. These characters are as well known as if they had been real flesh and blood, and will doubtless continue to live in the affections of the people as long as English literature lives. But we search in vain in Poe's fiction for any counterpart to the tactful, impudent Becky Sharp or the resourceful Sam Weller. We find nothing in Poe that even remotely approaches either [page 509:] of these famous characters. His men and women are as cold as marble, and about as destitute of feeling. They do not appeal to the sympathies; they do not touch the heart. They are clever sketches, faultlessly drawn; but they are, after all, simply “ingenious studies in black and white.” Pygmalion so loved Galatea, the beautiful creation of his chisel, that the gods inspired the cold marble with life, to satisfy the prayerful yearning of the artist's heart. But Poe never had any deep reverence or tender feeling for any of the cold, soulless creations of his genius. It is said that some novelists have wept when they have killed the heroes of their own invention. Poe was not of these. He did not hesitate to alter and make over again any of his uninspired, lifeless characters, or even to reduce Deity itself — as in “Eureka” — to a mere mathematical formula. Poe's men and women were conceived in the head, not in the heart, and born of the intellect; consequently they had no warmth of feeling, no soul. This fatal defect in characterization is due, in large measure, to Poe's woeful lack of human sympathy and his utter lack of humor. In no other part of his writings did he make such a signal, glaring failure as in his humorous tales.

Moreover, Poe did not know how to combine people and situations in ordinary life. He could paint one character only at atime. He never learned the art of painting from life, and never succeeded in portraying characters in their interplay upon one another. Indeed, when he painted he took his models not from real life, but from his own imagination. He was the victim of his own over-developed fancy. Here is the weak spot in Poe's artistic equipment. His imagination was abnormally developed, and he lacked the will-power to control and direct it. It was this abnormal imagination that gave color and direction to all he ever achieved, not only in fiction, but also in actual life. It was the promptings of his imagination that he followed when, in his effort to throw men and women upon the canvas, he projected morbid persons like himself, not robust, healthy characters. He could, it is true, invent single situations that resembled those of actual life; but he could not follow these up in a natural sequence. In short, he was a romancer, not a novelist. I believe, with Mr. Stedman, that Poe could never have written a novel.

Yet, despite the limitations of his tales Poe was an entertaining, a charming romancer withal. Of his sixty tales or prose narratives it will be found, when they are sifted, that only about a third deserve to live. But these will live; and they have already won for their author, abroad as well as at home, a fame which, perhaps, no other American [page 510:] has excelled. By his intellectual characteristics he seems to have appealed to the French reading public with special force. Indeed, the French were the first foreigners to discover his star, which they hailed with characteristic delight — a star whose light, after more than half a century, shows no sign of waning brilliance. It appears from the biography appended to the definitive edition of Poe by Messrs. Stedman and Woodberry that between 1890 and 1895 there were made at least ten translations of his works into various foreign languages. What can have brought about such a remarkable result? In a word, it must be Poe's unique genius — his intense originality, which has hardly been paralleled in literary history, and his indefinable, inimitable charm of manner, which appeals not simply to men of one particular clime or country, but to all men everywhere.

EDWIN W. BOWEN.