Text: Thomas Dunn English, “Our Bookshelves [Review of The Raven and Other Poems],” Aristidean (New York, NY), vol. I, no. 5, November 1845, pp. 398-402

[page 398:]

THE book-trade have been busy with new issues since our last. Some of the books published have been of much importance. There is less of re-prints, and more of translations and American works, than usual

WILEY and PUTNAM continue their Library of Choice Reading with spirit The following are their last issues:

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[page 399:]

8. “The Raven and other Poems, by EDGAR A. POE.” Quite a controversy is being carried on, at the present time, between the critics, concerning the merits of Mr. POE, as a poet. It appears that Mr. POE was invited to deliver a poem before the Boston Lyceum, on the same evening during which Mr. CALEB CUSHING was to deliver an address. The poet, dilatory as he usually is, neglected until too late to write anything original for the occasion; and, in order to test the judgement of the Bostonians, who, to trust their words, are judges of everything, he recited a poem of his, which had been written and published at the age of ten. As a pscycological [[psychological]] curiosity, the poem was very wonderful, but as a poem, it is such as a juvenile production might have been expected to be. It took very well with the audience, who, deny it if they dare, applauded most furiously. That same night, over a bottle of Madeira, the poet let out the secret; and BOSTON — that is, the transcendental donkies who call themselves BOSTON — has been in a ferment ever since. “ Strait jackets wouldn’t howld ‘em, for the rage they were in, when they found themselves diddled.” They began to abuse POE, who spoke back; and, dirt began to fly lustily from both parties. That Mr. POE was wrong in performing such a trick, we assert without hesitation; but the less the clique in Boston say about critical judgement, the better. According to their own story, they invited a poet, whom they now assert has no claims to the title, to deliver a poem before the best of their literati. Why, they should now take such uncommon pains to prove themselves donkies, we cannot, for the life of us, conceive.

The book opens with “The Raven,” a peculiar and extraordinary [page 400:] production. It is an evident attempt to evolve interest from a common-place incident, and by means of the mechanism of verse, to throw beauty around a simple narration, while the very borders of the ludicrous are visited. So far, it is successful in the highest degree. The reader is interested and borne away in spite of himself, by what, on a cool examination, appears to be nothing. The peculiar arrangement of the lines and metre, is not original with Mr. POE, the same thing being found — with the exception of the repetition, in meaning, of half of the last line of each stanza — in Miss Barrert's book. On this repetition, however, much of the poem's effect depends.

“The Raven” commences with a simple narration, rather inclined to the ludicrous. ‘The poet is seated, upon a dreary midnight, poring over an old volume, when he hears a faint tapping at his chamber door. This he supposes to be some visiter, and he distinctly remembers it, because

“—— it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor” —

and he was immersed in sorrow, through the loss of his loved LENORE. The rustling of the silken curtains, the hour, the memory of the dead, and the otherwise stillness, filled his heart with a vague terror. So he stood, and repeated, in order to quiet his own alarm, that it was some late visiter entreating entrance. After a minute, his heart grew stronger, and opening the door, he entreated pardon of the unseen visiter, for the detention — alleging that he was napping, and the tapping was so light that he was scarcely sure that he heard it. But there was no reply, and no one was to be seen; he peered into the darkness,

“But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token” —

and the whispered word “Lenore!” was murmured back by the echo. Turning into the chamber, he heard another tapping, some- what louder, and going to his lattice, flung open the shutter. In stalked an old raven, who perched on a bust of PALLAS, over the chamber door. Amused by its strange and grave appearance, the poet jocularly inquired its name, and the raven answered — “Never- more.” The poet marvelled at this apparently meaningless answer; but the bird answered nothing else, and sat in quiet. To a mournful anticipation of the poet, that the bird would leave him, as other friends had, the bird replied with the same word, and the poet began to believe that the bird's apparently only stock of language had been caught from some unhappy master, whom disaster had followed, until that word had become the only burthen of his song. Again smiling at the quaint manner of the bird, he sat himself down in an easy chair, and began guessing the meaning — if meaning there was — in that he heard. From this point out, let the poet tell his own story : —

“This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o “er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore! [page 401:]

“Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

‘Wretch,’ I cried, ‘thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh! quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!’

Quoth the raven, ‘ Nevermore.’

“ ‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘ thing of evil! — prophet still. if bird or devil! —

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —

On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —

Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I implore!’

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’

“ ‘Prophet!’ said I, thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore —

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.’

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’

“ ‘Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked, upstarting —

‘Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’

“And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ,

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted — nevermore!”

That much of the effect depends upon the mode of construction, and the peculiar arrangement of words and incidents, there can be no doubt; but, the power to conceive and execute the effect, betokens the highest genius. We hold a poem to be of high merit, which can effect our mind as “The Raven” did, and does; and that the common-place has been raised from its degradation by a master-hand, is sufficient to place Mr. POE in a high rank. It requires more power to raise a demon to heaven, than to drag an angel down to hell.

Of the other poems, in the first part, there are some inserted for no other purpose, that we can conceive, than to fill up the book. The commencement of “The Sleeper,” is one of the finest pictures of sleepy calm, in the language. For instance —

“I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,

Exhales from out her golden rim,

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically,

Into the universal valley.

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;

Wrapping the fog about its breast,

The ruin moulders into rest;

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take,

And would not, for the world, awake.” [page 402:]

“The Coliseum,” written at an early age, has force — and contains well-managed apostrophe and antithesis. The close is unsatisfactory and incomplete. “Lenore” is musical and melancholy — it tells a tale without seeming to attempt narration. “Israfel,” is a very pret- ty specimen of fiddle-de-dee. “Dream-land,” “The City in the sea,” “The Haunted Palace.” and “The Conqueror Worm,” are well managed allegories — the first and last, especially fine. The scenes from “Politian,” are not of any great account. They are very well in their way — and their way, is not remarkable. The Sonnet to “Zante” is beautiful. So much for the first part of the work.

The second portion of the volume is the reprint of a volume published by Mr. POE, at an incredibly early age; and as far as we understand it, is re-published, to discredit one of the foreign reviewers, who charged Mr. POE with being an imitator of Tennyson. The charge was ridiculous — the poets being unlike; and Mr. POE had better let that sleep. As a curiosity — as we said before — the poem is well enough — nothing more. It is in most respects puerile, and so deeply transcendental that no one can tell what it is all about. Yet it is wonderful that a mere child could have written such lines as the following — and we are satisfied, as true as it is wonderful.

“Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall

Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall

Of their own dissolution, while they die —

Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.

A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,

Sat gently on these columns as a crown —

A window of one circular diamond, there,

Look’d out above into the purple air,

And rays from God shot down that meteor chain

And hallow’d all the beauty twice again,

Save when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring,

Some eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing.”

But these, and several other forcible lines, by no means compensate for doses of such stuff as the following, which is given ad nauseam, through the poem:

“Oh! nothing earthly save the ray

(Thrown back from flowers) of beauty's eye,

As in those gardens where the day

Springs from the gems of Circassy” —

and so on, and so on.

Yet, throwing these things aside, and taking the first part of the volume, as a fair selection from the poet's writings, we cannot help pronouncing Mr. POE, the first poet of his school — a school peculiar, in some measure to himself — in this country. As such we admire him, and look with wonder on his productions; yet they have little power over our spirit The sensations we feel in reading his poems are more those of admiration than sympathy. We feel at, rather than with him; if that expression will convey our sentiments, with sufficient clearness. They are not fitted for every mood. It is only in the dim twilight, or by the dim light of a flickering candle, about to die in its socket, that they should be read. Then — we can even feel them — can sympathise with the lover for his lost LENORE — can wonder with [page 404:] him at the unearthly beauty of the sleeper — contemplate in awe the wonders of the ruined Coliseum — wander

‘By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named Night,

Ona black throne reigns upright;”

contemplate the

“(Time-eaten towers that tremble not)”

in the city in the sea; behold with awe the “haunted palace” of the human mind; or thrill to see a play of hopes and fears, in a theatre, where

“Mimes in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly —

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!”

But we cannot take him up, at all seasons, with satisfaction. He is the poet of the idler, the scholar and dreamer. He has nothing to do with every day life. He is of the ether, etherial. He is not like BRYANT, calm and coldly correct; nor WHITTIER, fiery and turgid; nor like WILLIS, passionate and a la mode; nor like HALLECK, nervous and imitative. He is neither the poet of out-door nature; nor the poet of every day humanity. He is the poet of the ideal; and sings to his own soul, having no care to sing to the souls around him.