Text: Anonymous, “The Lecture at the Academy,” American Beacon and Norfolk and Portsmouth Daily Advertiser (Norfolk, VA), vol. 48, no. 62, September 14, 1849, p. 2, col. 1

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THE LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY

This is the evening for Mr. Poe's lecture at the Academy. The subject selected for the occasion “The Poetic Principle,” is one affording a large field for the display of the genius, and fine literary acquirements for which this gentleman is so distinguished, and we doubt not that all who attend will be much gratified. Mr. Poe delivered the same lecture a short time since in Richmond with marked success, and the following prefatory paragraph which was then published in the Whig, we have thought proper to copy for our readers:

“MR. POE'S LECTURE TONIGHT. — With the object of giving some idea of the nature and character of the entertainment offered our citizens, this evening, at the Exchange Hall, we would mention that, this Lecture, on the Poetic Principle, is one of a course delivered before the Providence Lyceum last Fall — the other lecturers being Rufus Choate, Theodore Parker, Alonzo Potter, (Bishop of Pennsylvania,) Louis Agassiz, the French Savant, and Daniel Webster. Daniel Webster opened the course. Mr. Poe had the largest audience of the season — more than 1600 person.

“Of his poem, the Raven, which Mr. Poe will recite at the conclusion of his lecture, Mr. N. P. Willis says: “it is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry every produced in America — and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift. It is one of those dainties we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everyone who reads it.”

“Miss Barrett, now (Mrs. Browning,) the first and most celebrated of British poetesses says of it “The Raven has created a vivid sensation, ‘a fit horror’ here in England. Some are taken with the fear of it, and all with its music. Many of my friends who have the misfortune to posses a bust of Pallas, cannot bear to look at it in the twilight. I hear of persons absolutely haunted by the ‘Nevermore.’”