Text: Burton R. Pollin, “The Broadway Journal: Notes (May 1845),” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan PoeVol. IV: Broadway Journal (Annotations) (1986), pp. 81-103 (This material is protected by copyright)


∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


[page 81, continued:]

[[NOTES to THE BROADWAY JOURNAL]]

106/4} The author, more correctly, is Stapp; the book has 164 p. and was republished (Austin, 1935).

[page 82:]

106/9} Collations are made from the Phila. ed. (G.B. Zieber and Co., 1845), pp. 145-47.

107/2} B. Mayer (1804-79), founder in 1844 of the Maryland Historical Society; Mexico As It Was and As It Is (1844), is cited in the Weekly Mirror of 5/3, p. 63 (opposite “The Gazelle” on p. 112 [facsimile text]). The author of the rev., not Poe according to the style, says that his purpose in speaking of the book is “to gibbet literary thievery.” He gives a list of 21 widely separated passages with the pages of their parallels in Mayer. Right below this article is an interesting “review” of the Aristidean, mentioning Poe's “savage, merciless, bitter and unjust” attack on the “Waif” of Longfellow, who will not “let judgment go against him by default!”

107/6} Pub. 1845, 23 p.

107/9} Marsh (1801-82) was a lawyer, diplomat, scholar in many fields.

107/17} Marsh's oration to the New England Society was about the Goths and their descendants, the Puritans of New England. Marsh is attacked for floridness of language, imprecision and fanaticism. The remarks contained in the pamphlet originally appeared in The Churchman newspaper of NY.

107/19} The following rev. was synopsized by Poe for his 9/45 article XIX, “Our Bookshelves” in The Aristidean (234-42), specifically no. 6, on 235-36; one sentence from the BJ is quoted verbatim.

107/20} This information was gleaned by Poe from the publisher's ed. For part 1, “Second Series,” see the rev. or rather long excerpt in 10/11/45 SM (278 [facsimile text]).

107/28} For Macaulay see Indexes of Br. and BJ, and for Wm. Cobbett see SM 18.

107/34} Essay II, para. 3: “I went to the Louvre to study, and I never did anything (in painting) afterwards.”

107/44} “On a Landscape of N.P.“ — a scene with Orion setting out on a journey. [page 83:]

107/49} “On the ignorance of the Learned,” pp. 45-54.

107/51} The last para. discusses the fresh insights of men and women of “good sense” and little learning.

107/57} Pub. 1845; 292 p.

107/60-69} Poe either misunderstands Putnam's explanation of the provenance of this anonymous article (249-92 in his vol.) or chooses to do so. The original article, deliberately hostile to the British, is a mock review of the most recent productions of Griswold, Longfellow, Bryant, Colton, and one anonymous author of Washington (a poem). It first appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review (London) of 1/44 (pp. 291-324). Thence it was copied by the North American Review, vol. 59, 7/44, 1-44, which explained at the very end that it came from the British journal, which “pretended it came from the North American Review.” Putnam merely transferred this concluding remark to the headnote of his reprint. Poe seems to have overlooked this statement, although he is right in questioning the motives of Putnam, for long a resident in London as spokesman for the books of Wiley and Putnam.

The French word “niaiseries,” here misspelled, is one of Poe's favorites to designate “trifles,” “foolishness,” “nonsense.” It is one of his “hall marks.”

107/71} The publisher apologizes for the poor quality of the plates, presumably made by antistatic printing (see pp. 83-86 [facsimile text]).

108/4-17} “Texas,” pp. 90-104; “Widow,” pp. 111-14 (by Walt Whitman); “Hans Spiegen,” pp. 127-29; Longfellow commentary, pp. 130-42 (by Poe himself, with a mention of the BJ); “Shood-Swing,” pp. 146-52 (a “Tale of China,” by English); “Notes,” pp. 153-55 (Poe is the first entry); “Strangling,” p. 89; “Polly Bodine,” p. 156; “Heart-Burst,” p. 104. For a good analysis of the article on Longfellow see Moss, Poe's Lit. Battles (176-78), who judges this attack as deliberately more “devastating” so as to make those in the BJ seem comparatively mild and balanced.

108/36} Although not a French usage, Poe seems to mean “moral tone” here as he did “physical appearance” by “physique” in 86/44 [facsimile text]. The woodcuts (decorated initials and vignettes) by the young, highly competent F.O.C. Darley (1822-88), [page 84:] later under contract for Poe's abortive Stylus, insured some artistic merit.

108/38} For Poe's general opposition to namby-pambyism see 36/44-47.

109/1} Although probably not by Poe, this is included to show Poe's continuing interest in the subject (see 55, 80 [facsimile text]).

109/12} See M 28n for the origin of the basic adage.

109/24} See Poe's verse “nutmegs out of a pineknot” (Poems, 394).

109/50-68} “Caudle lecture. A curtain lecture.” Term derived from a series of papers by Douglas Jerrold, “Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures,” which were pub. in Punch (1846). These papers represent Job Caudle as a patient sufferer of lectures from his nagging wife after they draw the curtains of their bed.

109/64} Laman Blanchard died in 1845; see 92-93 above.

109/68} Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), scientist and editor of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia (133 vols.) and Cabinet Library (1830-44), lectured in U.S. and Cuba (1840-45) as well as the British Isles.

109/73-77} William Howitt (1794-1879) was author of Visits to Remarkable Places: old halls, battle fields, and scenes illustrative of striking passages in English history and poetry; pub. in London, 2 vols., 1840-42, and in Phila. by Carey and Hart, 1841. The book here promised is not listed in catalogues.

110/5} “Homeric Glossary” is correct.

110/7} Pub. 1844 and 1845, viii + 599 p.

110/20ff.) This comes from p. vi.

110/24-34} Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824): “In 1808 he printed privately fifty copies (London) of his ‘Carmina Homerica, Ilias et Odyssea.’ This consists of Prolegomena, the text being added in the later edition of 1820, 8vo. His object [page 85:] was to restore the text to its supposed original condition and he introduced the digamma and various earlier forms” (DNB, 11.259). Poe's source is Anthon's Preface. For Poe's great respect for Anthon, often diplomatically displayed, see my Index for other reviews.

110/42-43} Correctly spelled Buttmann, Nagelsbach.

110/52-54} The same words appear on p. vii of the book.

110/58} As usual, Poe lauds Anthon, America's leading classicist, as in other articles (see Index).

111/2} Blackwood's, 4/45 (British ed.): “Virgil, Tasso and Raphael” (401-414); “Ping-Kee's View of the Stage” (415-423); “The Midnight Watch” (424-447); “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” (448-460); “Marston: or, the Memoirs of a Statesman, part XVI” (461-473); “Bentham's Etruria Celtica” (474-488); “Suspiria de Profundis: being a sequel to the Confessions of an English Opium Eater” (489-502); “North's Specimens of the British Critics. No. III, Dryden” (503-528).

111/6} Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) published the first version in 1822. For Poe's use of De Quincey see TOM 199, 207, 339, 880 and Letters, 58. The side line is probably Poe's — for emphasis, but an illegible word (not reproduced) has the general style of Mrs. Whitman's writing.

111/11} See 83, 101 [facsimile text] for revs. of the embodying book.

111/14} Author's preface, “Ante-Praedictum.”

111/17-59} From “The Rising Sun,” pp. 451-53.

112/3} More properly Linz on the upper Danube in Austria.

112/6} See Poe's fondness for puns in 105(a) and the Br. Index.

112/10} Shakspeare: Poe's regular spelling.

112/12} James E. Murdoch gave a series of five readings on Shakespeare at the Society Library beginning on April 18. The plays selected were Macbeth, Hamlet, Henry IV, and Othello. See [page 86:] 105(c).

112/16-18} Palmo's was established in 1844 as an Italian opera house by Ferdinand Palmo. November and December saw operas by Rica and Donizetti, followed by Rossini's Semiramide in January. Antigone was presented on April 7, and the Ethiopian (i.e. Negro) Serenaders began on May 1.

112/21} May 6.

112/28-32} After several delays Griswold finally delivered his paper, “Literature and Art in America,” at the NY Historical Society on May 6. The lecture took about two hours and was well received by the audience (Joy Bayless, Rufus Wilmont Griswold [Nashville: Vanderbilt U. P., 1943] pp. 98-99). See Index for Griswold entries.

112/33-40} W. Alpers was linked as pianist and organist to the inception of the Philharmonic Society (12/42; see Odell, 4.679-80, 684) and he is most active in the accounts of concerts as instrumentalist until close to his death on 5/3/45.

112/41-45} This appears in the 5/3 Weekly Mirror, 2.62, with this caption (probably by Willis): “The following, from our newfound, boy-poet of fifteen years shows a most happy faculty of imitation” and, under the title, “after the manner of Poe's ‘Raven.“’ The end of every one of the 12 stanzas of 6 lines each has the refrain “Fare thee well.” It ineptly tells of Isabel, now an angel, who appears to the poet as an evanescent gazelle. One suspects that Cooke is somehow related to Philip Pendleton Cooke of Virginia, who contributed to the BJ, exchanged letters with Poe, and perhaps influenced “Annabel Lee” (see Index of Letters by Ostrom).

112/45} Samuel Carter Hall (1800-89); the excerpts arc from only vol. 1 of the 3 vol. set (Chaucer to Prior). “Old English Poetry” is not part of the title. This rev. of the NY ed. (304 + vii-x p., Saunders and Otley, 1836) originally appeared in the 8/36 SLM. It was rewritten for the BJ with the omission of the first 1 1/2 columns (see H 9.91-103, especially 94ff.), and comprised also SM 3 and SM 9 in Br. See the extensive notes of commentary for both articles and the collation for the passage from the BJ article, changed from that of the SLM, in SM 9b. No ed. of 1844 or 1845 warranted this article, showing Poe's desire to express or reaffirm his views on the British poets. [page 87:] Hall's book was reprinted in 1848.

112/55-60} For this early (1836) statement of the “indefinite” and its link to both arts see SM 3n and M 44.

112/62} “Ideality” for “beauty,” a phrenological term, is common in Poe's work (see M 20).

113/8-37} For the Davideis (or Creation) of Abraham Cowley (1618-67) see Pin 48, MM 75, 202, SP 36. For John Donne see M 202 (and loci given there). In M 202 he links these two through “fervid, hearty, free-spoken songs” but here through Samuel Johnson's application of “metaphysical.” He often opposed Coleridge's “anomalous metaphysicianism” (see M 202g) and, usually, Wordsworth's “didacticism” (M 202). Poe seems confused about the different British schools, their aims and methods, perhaps through his confinement to anthologies. In the initial para. of the rev. (omitted here) Poe instances the poets of 400 years in the book, ranging from Chaucer and Lydgate to Dryden and Matthew Prior (1664-1721), evidencing the looseness of Poe's designation of “school” for this “entire class of writers.”

113/45-50} Samuel Carter Hall (1800-89) had a splendid career in journalism, literature, and art criticism, with many books in varied fields and some recognition. Poe's deprecation seems unwarranted. The 1836 ed. of this volume (p. 114) shows no differences from Poe's transcription save for the accidentals, Poe having modernized spellings. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) addressed “On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia” (Gems, 116-17) to Elizabeth, the daughter of James I.

114/1-2} The word “art” here seems to contradict 113/9, save that there too he speaks of the artificial verse of Cowley, apparently meaning here that art is equivalent to elaborate technique, overwrought perhaps rather than with well-applied or “adapted” principles leading to a successful “Art-Product” as he says in Eureka. It is still a fuzzy distinction which ignores the aims and standards of the period itself in imposing a straitjacket of criticism.

114/9-12} George Wither (1588-1667) wrote the five pastorals subsumed under this title in the Marshalsea prison, to which his satires of 1613 brought him; after a series of publications and further trouble with the government he became a convinced Puritan — perhaps the link which caused Poe's comparison with [page 88:] the youthful Milton's invocation to the goddess Melancholy (1632). The excerpt cited from Gems (pp. 166-70) has been modernized in spelling by Poe.

114/39-42} Bishop Richard Corbet (1582-1635), a decidedly minor poet, whose poems were collected in 1647. Poe cites “Farewell to the Fairies” (Gems, 143-45) by the first line (which needs a comma after “Farewell”) rather than its given title.

114/42-76} This comes from “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn” as in the Miscellaneous Poems (1681) of Andrew Marvell (1621-78) and thus titled by Hall in Gems (63ff.). Collation shows changes only in accidentals save for 72: On / With, here and in SLM.

114/77-87} This section begins SM 9, which continues to the end of the BJ and SLM article, save for not incorporating the relatively minor substantive changes introduced into the BJ text (see SM 9c for collations). See SM 9a for comments on Poe's keen interest in pet animals in life and in his fiction.

115/1-26} In his paraphrase of Marvell's 30 lines Poe is not entirely faithful, for he inserts “nest-like bed” and the “head turned back” (of the fawn) as well as the link of the winds with the four feet. The plural of “delights” enables him to list the “graces” in the poem, while the fawn of the poem had one delight, to fill itself with roses.

115/26-33} These are not “concluding lines” for the poem, which continues with the actual death and final tears of the animal. The sentimentality of Poe's analysis apparently leads to his own word “hyperbole” (with absurdity added in SM 9 or copied from the SLM version). The speaker clearly is not a “child” but a maiden to whom the suitor Sylvio had given the deer before he proved “false.” The wanton “Troopers” casually shot the deer which dies, and the “nymph” promises to erect a Niobe-like statue of herself with the deer at her feet.

115/34-41} This short notice may be assigned to Poe as the sort of work that Briggs would scarcely assign himself, even to skim through, while the reviewer's singling out “the one chapter” sounds characteristic. It came out posthumously in 1829 in London, in 2 vols., the American edition having vi plus 569 p. in one vol. Dymond (1796-1828) was writing against Paley's Utilitarianism and veering towards that of Godwin and the [page 89:] English liberals; hence, his disparagement of “Legal Practice.” The essay, “The Morality of Legal Practice,” is on pp. 154-68. For a fuller treatment, from the discussion in Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, see 89/13-24 [facsimile text].

115/42-53} This is a mere announcement of the book and an unfulfilled pledge of a future notice. The singling out of the subtitle is typical of Poe's interest and method. Curiously, the word “chronothermal” meaning pertaining to time and temperature did not enter the language until 1881 (sic) in the OED. The American editor, Samuel Henry Dickson (1798-1872), was prominent, having founded the Medical College of South Carolina, and becoming professor at NYU and elsewhere after 1850.

116/1-3} M. Alterton first attributed this to Poe; see The Origins of Poe's Critical Theory, U. of Iowa, 1925, p. 84. Cf. 304/53 [facsimile text] for a cross ref. The article, signed “P” but not printed by Harrison, is important; it shows Poe's keen interest in the graphic arts, as also in “Assignation,” “Philosophy of Furniture,” “Oval Portrait,” and “Oblong Box,” and in his close attention to the illustrations of the books reviewed. It also demonstrates the limitations of him and others of his day in judging works of art (see the last para.). We are hampered in assaying this rev. by not having the material that probably was distributed or posted at the exhibition, which cannot now be traced. The original by Titian may be “Venus and Cupid” at the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, ca. 1545, or “The Venus of Urbino” (Uffizi, ca. 1538), the latter a celebrated nude. For Poe's second thoughts about “Venus” see 304/53-59 [facsimile text].

116/4} Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), noted portrait artist, formed a renowned collection of drawings by Michael Angelo and Raphael.

116/5} Washington Allston (correctly) (1779-1843), American painter and poet, pupil of Benjamin West in London and much influenced by the Venetian school of painters. Poe mentions the apostrophe to Allston in his rev. of the poetry of Rufus Dawes in the 10/42 Graham's (H 11.136).

116/32} This common spelling of Raffaello Santi or Sanzio (1438-1520) was used by Poe (in regard to his “Venus”) for his obscure, inexplicable joke in “L‘Omelette” (TOM 35). The “Madonna of the Chair” is in the Pitti Palace, Florence. [page 90:]

116/37-40} Poe's statement about the hedonic purpose of art is basic to his aesthetics, which held that didacticism or the promotion of morality should have nothing to do with literature.

116/41-46} Poe alludes to a sexist principle for exhibitionvisits as though it was not then unusual. In 1806 the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Phila.) displayed plaster casts of nudes, presumably male, from the Louvre draped on a Monday visiting day “for women only.” This custom persisted into the 1840s and 1850s, q.v. in M. A. Hallgreen, Landscape of Freedom (1941), 177, and Helen W. Anderson (1911), The Penn. Academy of Fine Arts (1911), 1, 13. Poe's statement about women is fine, but he somewhat attenuates it with his rather gauche joke about the response of the very young and old at the end-the sort of joke that is rare in Poe's chaste writings. The question of nudity in art was rife in Victorian America, and it erupted over the exhibition at the time of Hiram Powers’ nude female statue of “The Greek Slave” (q.v. in 282, 287, 304; see also “La Sortie du Bain,” 297 [facsimile text]).

116/47-55} Poe was a strong adherent of Jeremiah Reynolds, proposer and proponent of the U.S. government expedition to the unknown South Pole area, and deeply resented the appointment of Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) to head the six-ship four-year expedition, presented in Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1844); in his uncollected, brief rev. of preliminary activities in the 9/43 Graham's Poe explained that future glory would accrue to Reynolds, not Wilkes. For this partiality and for his many debts to Reynolds for ideas, language and general stimulus in Pym and the tales, see the many notes (listed in the Indexes) and for two reviews see PD, 78 (7 loci), also Discoveries in Poe, ch. on “Poe as Miserrimus.” It must be said that Reynolds was an enthusiast and something of a scientific quack. The SLM article is on pp. 305-22.

117/9} The examples are on p. 316.

117/19-20} Pp. 281-87.

117/20-25} Pp. 295-99. See “Literati” sketch of 7/46 (H 15.69) where he likewise misspells Pearse. For the Barrett article see 4/45, 235-43.

117/26} Cf. 88/55-59 for his earlier response to this article [page 91:] and 14/15-24 for Poe's views.

117/36} Poe's strange oversight! There are 8 poems on 266, 278, 287, 294, 299, 303, 305, unless he means nothing worthy of the designation.

117/39-53} Of all these, only F. O. C. Darley's name is signed. The pages of the contributions are, respectively: 243-47; 261-65; 269-70; 271-75; 276-77; 266-68; 279-80. Nathaniel P. Willis, Poe's very good friend, in 1835 married Mary Stace, who died in childbirth in 1845.

117/55-61} The “View of Rock Mountain” is the second plate, with the other two being the first and third, all preceding the text of the number.

117/62} Harrison prints from the Griswold 1850 Memoir (p. vi) a letter from Poe to Griswold containing an apology for being “offensive” to Griswold (in Poe's lecture) and ending: “See my notice of C. F. Hoffman's sketch of you” (H 17.170). Killis Campbell (Mind of Poe, 91) compared the original with that printed by Griswold, italicizing passages forged and inserted by Griswold, including the ref. to “my notice” (also Quinn, 449). Griswold describes the letter as “without date,” but Campbell cites the post mark “New York, April 19,” which is 1 month before the appearance of this notice. Ostrom completely omits this end-section in Letters, 284-85.

117/63-67} This is one of the most generous and favorable statements on Griswold made by Poe. Charles F. Hoffman's sketch is on pp. 241-43; for the author see 80/28 above.

118/1-2} The Prose Writers of America with a survey of the history, condition, and prospects of American Literature (Phila., Carey and Hart, 1847), 552 p.

118/3-9} These are the “papers” in the 6/45 Graham's by title, author, page and genre: “The Trial,” W. H. C. Hosmer (244), poem; “Poor Benny,” Joseph R. Chandler (245-50); “Forgive the Doubt,” Henry Tuckerman (250), poem; “Little Harry's Dream,” Ann Stephens (251-54); “Ho-Ta-Ma,” Charles Hoffman (261-63); “Dante,” Longfellow (264); “Sketches of Naval Men,” Edward Preble Cooper (265-76); “Laura, or the Veiled Maiden,” Caroline Butler (277-80), prose; “Wayfarers,” Elizabeth Smith (280), poem; “The Flowers,” Fanny Forrester (281), poem; “May,” Alfred Street [page 92:] (244), poem.

118/13} An understood “looking” can easily justify the “Like.”

118/14-16} See 78/62 [facsimile text] and note for a similar comment on her 4/45 Graham's poem; “Lulu” is on p. 281.

118/38} deeper / deepen; this is the only variant, perhaps showing Poe's great care in this transcription and printing.

118/48-51} See 162-67 [facsimile text] for the rev. of the book by his former friend of Phila. For a possible (and amusing) cause of the rupture see TOM, Poems, 317/12.

119/59-62} The adulation by the British Establishment and general populace of the military hero and Tory statesman, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington, distressed Poe, now veering toward the Young America (and anti-British) movement; hence his mockery of this half column in the Albion, the weekly long publication in NY for the resident British and their entourage, in the number for 5/10/45, p. 288 (col. 1). It starts thus: “By the late arrival we learn that the Morning Post of the 18th ult. contained two paragraphs stating the Duke was taken suddenly ill in the House of Lords, and was obliged to quit the house leaning on the arm of another peer. The Duke contradicted these reports in the following characteristic manner.” There follows his letter of 5/18/45 denying this, claiming that he stayed to the end of the session and took part in the discussion, that he told a caller that he was well the next day and not “convalescent,” and these facts should be stated in the paper. The rest of the article is the quoted passage. Poe wishes to show the pomposity of the man and his admirers and deprecate upper-class English style.

119/65} Col. John Gurwood (1790-1845), private secretary to the duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley, 1769-1852), was editor of the Wellington Despatches (1837-44).

120/14} Poe scorned the works and views of William Cobbett (1766-1835), very varied author (known also as “Peter Porcupine”), and especially detested his Grammar (1817, pub. in America first). See SM 18b for treatment.

120/80} Poe is humorously alluding to Falstaff's account to [page 93:] Prince Henry, in King Henry IV (I), 2.4, of his brave resistance to assailants who grow in number from 2 to 11, but he skips from 4 to 7. Is this Poe's joke?

121/1-2} Poe often berates authors for this “fault”; his deliberate use of the device of polysyndeton at the end of “Masque” is famous.

121/29} William Wilberforce Lord (1819-1907), Poems, 1845, 158 p. (ed. by TOM as Poetical Works, 1938). See M 169a for a brief account of this poet, minister, and friend of the Knickerbocker group.

121/32} In fact, Lord studied at the University of Western NY, then at Princeton Seminary and Auburn Theological Seminary, was made a fellow of Princeton College (1845), took orders in the Episcopalian Church (1847), etc. In 1845 his verse won praise from Wordsworth (says National Cycl. of Am. Biog., 3.516; see also 126/46 below).

121/35-45} Poe obviously treats Lord here as a new bepuffed darling of the above group, just as he had Theodore Fay, praised in advance for Norman Leslie, which Poe “exposed” in the 12/35 SLM. See Moss, Poe's Lit. Battles, and Pollin, Mi Q, 1972, 25.111-30. This may explain Poe's vituperation of Lord as poet and overlooking of his playfulness.

121/45-46} Charles King (1789-1867), ed. NY American (182345), assoc. ed. of NY Courier and Enquirer (1845-48), president of Columbia College (later Col. University, 1849-64).

122/4-5} See 101/79 for mention of this 12 1/2 cents edition. The Voices of the Night first came out in 1839 as the principle poem in a collection (Cambridge: J. Owen), xv + 144 p. By 1843 it was in its seventh ed. at Cambridge and was being published in London. In 1845 the poem was brought out with a few others (Boston: Redding and Co.), 32 p.

122/18-19} See The Book of Common Prayer: “O God, when thou wentest forth before the people: / when thou wentest through the wilderness, / The earth shook, and the heavens dropped / at the presence of God” (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 396).

122/37} This is an accepted variant of “doggerel.” [page 94:]

122/51} In “The Poetic Principle” (1850; in his earlier lecture of the late 1840s), para. 16, Poe says that this “sentiment” inspires the “soul” to create “supernal beauty,” especially in music.

122/54} Poe, with his preference in subject matter for the death of a beautiful woman (“Phil. of Comp.” para. 18), often alludes to Juliet's death (see “Poe and Shakespeare” in SAR 1985, by Pollin).

123/1-3} “Worship,” lines 47ff. (above 2 lines included). The italics are Poe's.

123/11} Ibid., 94ff.

123/15} See “King Pest” (TOM, 253) for a situation using similar terms. Poe's “Burton's” should be “Burton,” since the ale comes from an English brewery town named Burton, not a proprietor of that name.

123/20-33} Lines 132ff. (Poe's italics).

123/45} “To My Sister” is the title.

125/53} The novel of 1828 by Edward Bulwer Lytton (q.v.).

123/68-76} This is on p. 131.

124/2-18} This is on p. 134.

124/14} This is on p. 63.

124/25-33} This, on p. 60, is clearly meant as a burlesque of Poe (e.g. Poe's word “Aidenn” ends line 4, q.v. in PCW, 83). See more on this, 126 below.

124/35-39} Obviously in ref. to Fuseli's famous “Nightmare” picture.

124/49} This is on p. 81 (p. 50 in the 1938 reprint of the Complete Poetical Works); TOM adds the distich to Poe's “Comic Rhymes,” Poems, 488-89.

124/57} On pp. 32-38. See the “Lit.” sketch on M. Fuller (H 15.76) for a use of this passage. [page 95:]

124/59-67} Poe ridicules Lord's poems again in M 169, for being borrowed. Poe greatly admired the swirl and roar of Niagara (TOM 387, 580, 862, 1017).

125/1-2} The excerpts are from p. 351.

125/13-25} These are lines 61-73.

125/46} “Calliope,” line 76.

125/47-48} Merry Wives of Windsor, 5.5.77. Poe is unjust; there is no link.

125/50} From “Worship,” lines 193-94.

125/57} “Ode to England,” lines 207-208.

125/56-62} This charge plus that anent “Haunted Palace” (126/1-24) is used for M 214, q.v. for analysis. See also notes for 126.

123/53} Poe adds “(wilt)” and italics.

125/64} “Worship,” line 244, which reads: “And ere beheld on earth, did garden heaven!”

125/67} A variant of other texts, this is recorded (1.50-52, 54-56) by TOM in Poems, 99, 101, as Version H.

126/1} Poe here and below is quoting from Lord's “The New Castalia.”

126/14-24} Lines 1-12 of this poem of 1839 and also used in M 214. TOM's note on line 12 (Poems, 317) is interesting, especially for the Hirst parody; TOM contended that this BJ attack on Lord is “an ironic jest. Lord's poem was a deliberate parody, which Poe pretended to take seriously.” This is undermined by Poe's excerpting the charge for M 214 as one of his many anti-plagiarism passages. The parody is obvious to us, but possibly not to Poe. Unfortunately TOM, more knowing about Lord than anyone else, did not see fit to report Lord's response in letters to Poe's attack. See M 214b for Poe's later borrowing from “New Castalia” for “The Bells.” Several revs. call it a “burlesque” without mentioning Poe however, e.g., SLM, [page 96:] 6/1845, 11.641-45: “a miserable parody,” and Godey's, 7/45, 31.47: “A Tennysonian travesty ... full of melodious jinglings and tinklings of words.”

126/25-30} Lines 67-70.

126/31-35} These comprise lines 3 and 4 in the octameter version of “The Raven,” and are treated by TOM as variant G which differs from the established version in wording and in meter: “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, / As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door —.” (See Poems, 363, 369.) Did Poe genuinely wish to change these elements or merely write carelessly a poem that he was to recite so often?

As to the conversion into tetrameters — here so much easier to contain within the narrow columns — the headnote in the 2/45 American Review printing, in which Poe clearly had a hand, explains why other lines in each stanza could not be halved this way — not to mention that “Philosophy of Composition” (para. 10) sets “about 100” lines as the ideal length of a poem — therefore of “The Raven” (108). More important — could Poe imagine Lord's parody to be a deliberate “theft“? Notice how Poe insinuates himself amongst the admired great ones at the end of the para.

126/46} Lord had been tutor at Amherst College, and see 121/32n. Poe, who left college so early, often lashed out at “Professor” Longfellow.

126/58-62} The six lines from “Worship” come from these pages: 2, 3, 8, 12, 15.

127/4-8} On p. iii.

127/14-16} From “Worship” (238), Poe's italics, and omission of exclamation point.

127/17-29} From “Hebrew Hymn” (1 ff.). Poe adds italics and changes “more glorious.”

127/30-34} From “To a Lady About to Take the Veil” (st. 11).

127/35-37} “Saint Mary's Gift.”

127/38-40} “Sonnet: Birds in Winter” (7 ff.). [page 97:]

127/41-44} “Sonnet: My heart built up a palace.”

127/45-47} “To an American Statesman” (st. 5, lines 7-8).

127/48-49} Poe here exaggerates (see “didst” at p. 128).

127/54-57} See Godey's laudation of Lord (7/45) for a sample. See The Town for a humorous rejoinder to the rev. by Poe (in the Poe Log of 5/31).

127/58-59} Poe here puns on The Litany of The Book of Common Prayer, as above.

127/60-63} Wm. Trotter Porter (1809-58) was the popular, sizable editor of the varied sports and cultural journal Spirit of the Times in NY (from 1831-1844). Poe was friendly enough to attempt to place a sketch by P. P. Cooke (1846, Letters, 313-15) in the weekly.

127/64-69} Poe was partial to the folk-humor style of such sketches, as in A. B. Longstreet's “Georgia Scenes,” which he had praised in the SLM (H 8.258-65). The two “tales” were “The Big Bear of Arkansas” by T. B. Thorpe and “Jones’ Fight” by “an Alabaman.” For a laudatory judgment of the ed. see Mott, 48081.

128/2} James Field, ed. of St. Louis Reveille, was a friend of Poe and often supported him in his paper (see Ostrom, Letters, 318-20, 324, 327).

128/5} Poe had become friendly with the young Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-88), who was to become one of America's greatest illustrators, first, through his contract to furnish plates for The Stylus (1/31/43) and next, for his two woodcuts for the “Gold-Bug” (6/7/43), q.v. in Quinn, 369, 392.

128/6} NY: Saxton and Miles, 1845, 15 p.

128/12-13} Misprint for The Dorsay Portraits (Phila.: Carey and Hart, 1845, 128 p.). These seem to be caricatures or takeoffs on satirical sketches dealing with the portraits by the notorious Count Alfred D‘Orsay, member of Lady Blessington's coterie in London (described by Willis in his “reports” from London), soldier, spendthrift. The sole copy of the book has not [page 98:] been available to me for examination. Perhaps Poe's orientation toward British novels by Disraeli (Vivian Grey) and Bulwer Lytton (Pelham) motivated his remark at the end.

128/17-20} No copies of this “pamphlet” are reported by the LC catalogue. It was first pub. in London: H. Clarke, 1845, 74 p.

Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (the proper spelling, 1771-1848) was reared in Prussia before becoming a strolling actor, then a serious student at Frankfort, and finally a teacher and novelist. He moved to Switzerland where he held a high post in the government educational system and published, most prolifically, histories, historical and moralistic fiction (collected writings pub. 1825-28 in 40 vols.). See 150/45 ff. for a less favorable notice of this author.

128/26} This rev. first appeared in the SLM, 9/36, almost exactly as it is here. Poe's opinion appeared in condensed form in “Literati,” Godey's, 9/46.

Lydia Maria Francis Child (1802-80) was a prolific writer of novels, tales, essays, and occasional pieces in journals and separately published. In the “Lit.” sketch (H 15.105-107) Poe commends her work for its “purity, chastity and ease” of style, imagination and vigor — the last evident especially in her novel of 1836, Philothea, The BJ article is a virtual reprint of Poe's rev. in the SLM of Philothea: A Romance (Boston: Otis, Broaders; NY: George Dearborn, 1836), 2 vols., 234 p., now published again (Boston: J. H. Francis, 1845, 290 p.). The only significant changes are at the beginning (see below, 33n). All collations and refs. to the text are made to the 1836 ed. The book initially and in its reprint and also Poe's long, enthusiastic revs. evidence the intense interest of the time in historical fiction and in classical history, also shown in Poe's works, such as “To Helen,” “The Coliseum,” and “Shadow.”

128/27} For Poe's views of Eugene Sue's style, see MM 176, 181. The designation itself is Poe's coinage.

128/33} The first seven lines of this rev. differ from that in the SLM of 9/36, 2.659-662, para. I (two sentences of which are adapted to the beginning of the “Lit.” sketch):

“Mrs. Child is well known as the author of ‘Hobomok,’ ‘The American Frugal Housewife,’ and the ‘Mother's Book.’ She is also the editor of a ‘Juvenile Miscellany.’ The work before us is of a character very distinct from that of any of these publications, and places the fair writer in a new and most [page 99:] favorable light. Philothea is of that class of works of which the Telemachus of Fenelon, and the Anarcharsis of Barthelemi, are the most favorable specimens. Overwhelmed in a long-continued inundation of second-hand airs and ignorance, done up in green muslin, we turn to these pure and quiet pages with that species of gasping satisfaction with which a drowning man clutches the shore.

The plot of Philothea is simple. ...

128/38} Both texts misprint “Clazomenea” which is correct in Pin 72.

129/55} denied / introduced 129/56) should be tried

129/64} and is condemned (SLM)

130/5} is also adjudged (SLM)

130/17} already done (SLM)

130/19} It is done / They are

130/27} Not a typo in SLM.

130/41} On pp. 141-42.

130/66} The most special (SLM)

130/71} with his now (SLM)

131/1-39} On pp. 152-54: Charities / Gharitioe (line 25) and bounty / blessing (line 37).

131/46} This is in ch. XIII, near the end.

131/52-54} are pictures whose merit will not fail to be appreciated by all whose good opinion is of value. (SLM)

131/57} soul-directing (SLM. Although an obvious “typo” I leave it for its many interesting implications.

131/61} at Corinth (SLM) [page 100:]

131/70} Ch. XIV, p. 182.

131/73} In the novel the name is “Pandaenus” but in both revs. it is thus.

132/4-8} Ch. XV, p. 192. SLM (also the original) has “in the fountain” and “is then rejected.” Cf. “the waters” in the original.

132/14-16} In place of “The subject ... Newnham” the 1836 text has: “It will be seen that even the chimeras of animal magnetism were, in some measure, known to the ancients.” For Wm. Newnham, author of Human Magnetism, with its discussion also of Chauncey Hare Townshend, see Poe's BJ rev., 69-70, used also for M 180 (with commentary notes on the book and both men). Poe's keen interest but skeptical views helped to produce the hoax-tale “Valdemar,” later discussed in the BJ (see 355-56).

132/21} of the events which befell (SLM)

132/22} On pp. 194-96 of Ch. XV.

132/48} The word “intreaty” is probably a deliberately used old-fashioned form, actually given by the OED for the 17th and 19th centuries.

132/72-73} again said / had spoken (a line deleted here)

133/7} It may be that Poe derived a slight stimulus for his three dialogue-in-heaven sketches from this passage quoted in 1836 — as well as an idea used in “Valdemar,” completed 11/45.

133/19} slaves, Mibra and Geta (SLM)

133/25-55} Collations — 25: is no ignoble specimen / 26: not any powers on the part of any author / 27: an evidence / 29: and this little ... is greatly weakened / 30: the constant necessity of / 31: costume, habits / 32: It should be borne in mind that the “Pompeii” / 33: this species / 36-37: an event so far from weakened in interest by age, ... thrillingly exciting / 51: the mere vehicle for bringing forth / 53: which we have mentioned as at variance / 54: shall be justified in declaring the book / 55: a signal triumph /.

133/50} Both the 1699 Telemachus (Télémaque) of Bishop François Fénélon (1651-1715) and Anacharsis (Voyage du jeune [page 101:] Anacharse — 1788) of the Abbe Jean Jacques Barthelemy are mentioned in the unrevised first para. of 1836, as setting the frame and tone for Philothea as a favorable educational novel. The favorable citing of Edward Bulwer Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii (1834) earlier in the para. is a rare instance of approval of Bulwer, much discussed and often exploited for curious bits of learning and bons mots but rarely praised. For Poe's adverse views of this very book see M 49, CS 6 and, especially, LST 4.

133/57, 58, 61, 62-63, 64, 65-67 & 134/1-8) Collations — advantageously / Its purity of thought and lofty morality are unexceptionable. It would prove ... / with whose spirit / for when we know that the fair authoress disclaims any knowledge of the ancient languages, we are inclined to consider her performance as even wonderful. / at which a scholar / (and ... teachers [end]) = the trial of Aspasia and her friends for blasphemy should have been held before the Areopagus, and not the people. and we can well believe that an erudite acquaintance of ours would storm at more than one discrepancy in the arrangement of the symposium at the house of Aspasia. But the many egregious blunders of Barthelemi are still fresh in our remembrance, and the difficulty of avoiding errors in similar writings, even by the professed scholar, cannot readily be conceived by the merely general reader.

On the other hand, these discrepancies are exceedingly few in Philothea, while there is much evidence on every page of a long acquaintance with the genius of the times, places, and people depicted. As a mere tale, too, the work has merit of no common order — and its purity of language should expecially recommend it to the attention of teachers.

134/8} One notes that Poe has trimmed up his language a bit and has eliminated a few unnecessary phrases and technical points which, he may have realized, were shaky in the first rev., such as the Areopagus formality. He still leaves the deliberate impression that he has newly read Barthelemy's book, probably never even conned. It is noteworthy that he seems to exempt, totally, this class of fiction from his growing conviction about the harm done to art through didactic objectives, probably because the purpose and the method are so overt and the artistic aims so secondary.

134/9-18} Although this is probably by Briggs, as Hull asserts, the material is so intimately connected with the end of “Literary Gossip” on p. 346, which has much in Poe's vein of [page 102:] thinking and received numerous side linings from him in 1848, that I include it for overall interest and relevance. Moreover, Charles Astor Bristed (1820-74), friend of G. H. Colton, who published “The Raven,” was richly attractive to Poe as an independent thinker and scion (see M 191a). Certainly, Poe rarely is even this favorable to the hostile Knickerbocker Mag. Bristed's rev. of English Poetry and Poets of the Present Day, is on pp. 34-46, in “Literary Notices,” while the “original poem” is on 487-88 (q.v. below).

134/19} Article (b) on this page is actually the third of a group marked “Literary Gossip,” the first two of which are undoubtedly by Briggs. But they are all separated by rules and it is barely possible that Poe, with his intense admiration for Tennyson might have executed this one, especially in view of his sidelining the whole discussion that precedes the poem and even portions of the verse. The text itself is based on the Knickerbocker, reason for denying it at all to Poe. Poe's obvious attention to the article subsequently makes it worthy of reprinting, with a very great caveat as to authorship.

134/29-30} Tennyson used as a motto for his 1830 “Mariana” poem “Mariana in the moated grange,” an adaptation of Measure for Measure, 3.1.279.

134/35-39} A similar anecdote appears in the London Mercury, 1921, 5.144-55, “Memories of Tennyson” by Mrs. W. Cornish.

134/40 ff.) The “American gentleman” was misleading the Knickerbocker and therefore the BJ concerning the provenance of this, for it was a most interesting poem printed in a “collection of miscellaneous poems by various authors, edited by Lord Northampton, The Tribute of 1837. The Edinburgh Review of 10/37 said: “We do not profess to understand the somewhat mysterious contribution of ... Tennyson, entitled Stanzas ... which describe the appearance of a visionary form, by which the writer is supposed to be haunted amidst the streets of a crowded city” (The Cambridge ed. of Tennyson's Poetic and Dramatic Works, Boston, 1898, 832-33). Interestingly, the great poem Maud; A Monodrama (1855) grew out of this poem, which was included as the 4th section of Part 2, with many changes. Tennyson later said that it should be called “‘Maud, or the Madness’ ... slightly akin to ‘Hamlet,“’ one of the two “finest things I‘ve written.” Our specific interest is the closeness in manner, mood, and even [page 103:] theme it bears to typical Poe productions, with some hints too for Poe's “Ulalume” of 1848. Tennyson summarized it to Dr. Van Dyke: “It is dramatic; it is the story of a man who has a morbid nature, with a touch of inherited insanity, and very selfish. The poem is to show what love does for him ... the man with the strain of madness in his blood and the memory of a great trouble and wrong that has put him out with the world” (Riverside ed., p. 198). The two editors responsible for this period in A Literary History of England (1948, Baugh, ed.), Chew and Altick, keenly say about the poem: “The plot, with its poor but proud lover pitted against the heroine's wealthy family and his haughty rival, and leading to death and madness, is quite commonplace. The self-revelations of a speaker of abnormal mentality owe something to the scenes of madness in prose fiction” (1387). There is something of “Lenore” and “The Man in the Crowd” and, especially, as this section was reshaped in the final publication (pp. 214-15), of “The Raven” and “Ulalume” so that the cross currents between the two poems are worth exploring, although not here, as an instance of the “spirit of the age” as it affected both master poets.

135/46-47} memorial / manorial; heats / beats

135/57-59} In the 6/45 issue, front page. Poe's growing enthusiasm over this “new” process (as in 83-86) makes insertion of this technical explanation likely.

136/14} See 223 (8/23/45).

136/15} Willis was Poe's truest and staunchest friend.

136/16-18} See 118 for another announcement and poem from this work and the rev. (162-67).

 


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Notes:

None.


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[S:0 - BRP4J, 1986] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (B. R. Pollin) (May 1845)