Text: John Phelps Fruit, “In the Workshop,” The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry (1899), pp. 87-95

[page 87, unnumbered:]

WE have attempted to trace the circle that circum scribes Poe's thoughts in (his), and about (his), poetry. A certain narrow range of sentiments makes up what may be called the topical side of this poetry, while certain other opinions — theories — belong to the technical side. It is now the handling of his theme — his workmanship — that is to claim our attention. The question is, Did Poe's sentiments find their own proper expression? Did the body take the form of the soul?

As Poe grew into the mastery of his art, our study begins, properly, with a comparison of the Tamerlane of 1827 with the revised Tamerlane of 1829. The revision may be characterized, in part and whole, as an exercise in rhetorical condensation. The episode of his stealing away from his Ada's matted bower, one bright summer's day, to follow his fortune in the strife of nations, is omitted from the edition of 1829. The name “Ada” is dropped, and there is less objective personal interest, and consequently less spontaneity.

The poem of 1827 ends with Tamerlane's return to find his home a home no more, as if the proper theme were the [page 88:] love-story. This story is only an incident. The real theme might be expressed in some such title as this, “Tamerlane: A Victim of Fate.” It was no doubt some ratiocination of this sort that revealed to Poe that the poem was unfinished, and caused him to add this stanza, —

This brings us back to the notion with which we set out. It makes a circle of dependencies. There is thus a manifest growth in his appreciation of the unity and the completeness of thought essential to a true poem. So while there is loss in the lyrical, or spontaneous, element, there is gain in what is fundamental to the organic interdependence of a work of Art.

As to the poem by parts, let us set side by side, stanzas from the two editions. [page 89:]

The first stanza, or paragraph, of 1827 reads, —

This stanza revised runs thus, —

The stanza in which he relates how they grew in age and love together, how his breast was her shield in wintry weather, and how her smiles were friendly sunshine, how he saw no Heaven but in her eyes, — this stanza shows less change in the revision. This same stanza in 1827, how ever, has an after-part of telling appropriateness in sentiment. The lines read thus, — [page 90:]

These lines are omitted in 1829, and clearly because they are considered redundant both in thought and sentiment to the stanza to which they are added, but they very aptly link the sentiment of the stanza to the general theme by recalling the situation depicted in the first stanza of the poem. They do for the middle of the poem what the last paragraph in the edition of 1829 does, that of binding back that part of the poem to the beginning. In short, the difference between the Tamerlane of 1827 and the Tamerlane of 1829 is the difference between the charming nonchalance of the loose sentence and the rather prim circumspection of the periodic.

Having given, in the first instance, due attention to the theme and its topic, Poe, in the revised Tamerlane, shows an intense interest in the technique of the poem. He may be interpreted as avowing thereby that material is, in a sense, insignificant, and that workmanship is all-important. We can conceive him having some such motto as Materiam opus superabat. He could tell you that a low grade of workmanship might make of a block marble, a passable gate-post, but that artistic skill could give it the infinite worth of a Venus of Milo. Poe was alive to the fact that, in matters of Art, our spring of interest is in a workman ship that glorifies the artist.

Whatever the revisions found in the volume of 1829 exhibit,. Poe gives us in the same volume some new creations [page 91:] in which there is more competent evidence of his artistic skill. Apparently at one effort he wrote the sonnet, To Science. One needs merely to know the demands of the sonnet as a form of verse to appreciate fully Poe's success. The essentials for which he labored in revising Tamerlane are conspicuous in this sonnet. There is a single sentiment expressed in the most consonant terms.

He resents the iconoclastic spirit of science. He begins with the exclamation, “Science!” as if he recognized an appeal to his discursive ability. He calls science a true daughter of Old Time, because she is meddlesome, peering about with her eyes, altering all things. She is a vulture that preys upon the poet's heart. He cannot love her be cause she is not content to leave him to seek his treasure in the jewelled skies. She would make fictions of his eternal verities. She would break down his idols, and leave him disconsolate in a world of dull realities.

The simple adequateness of the express form to the sentiment is remarkable, and the connotation of the verbal terms is “beyond compare.” Be it remembered that it is aside from our purpose to ask if the rime-scheme be Petrarchian or English, that knowledge would not effect its inherent worth. How does the concrete form stand to the sentiment? A careful study will challenge the most audacious critic “to gild refined gold” by suggesting emendations.

So much cannot be said in praise of Al Aaraaf, taken as a whole: it is a case in which a part is greater than the whole.

The lyric to Ligeia is the first exemplification of Poe's doctrine that the pleasure of poetry resides in the indefinite sensations produced by the association of music with perceptible images. This theory was not, however, put into prose till later, — in the prefatory letter of 1831. [page 92:]

This lyric is the first conspicuous instance of Poe's individual artistic skill. The sonnet to Science ranks him as a poet-artist; this song suggests his differentia.

Suppose we glance at the round of perceptible images in the song. We should remember that we are in Nesace's realm of “bright beings.” She calls them to leave tenantless their crystal home to fly with her across the moony sky to other worlds.

Ligeia is one of the “spirits in wing.” Will she toss on the breezes, or, incumbent on night, like the lone albatross, be capriciously still to watch with delight the harmony there?

Is that not a charming picture? A creature so beautiful (in soul) that her harshest idea runs to melody! See her toss on the breezes to the music of the spheres! Picture her capriciously still! It is the harmony she is watching with delight!

The picturesque element is suggestive of harmony: we ideate harmony personified. But apart from this the mere word-and-letter element affords us experimentally a sense of harmony in the concord of sweet sounds. If we read the words without voice, the vocal organs mutely enjoy the rhythm, but it is most natural to break out singing them. What more can be said in praise of his art?

The maiden's name, “Ligeia,” begins with the liquid of liquids.

Repeat “Ligeia” with the rising inflection, then pause a moment for the liquid tones of the name to flow into and through your soul. After that how aptly does “My beautiful one!” flow from the lips!

See how the onomatopoetic effect of the word “harshest” is neutralized by the word that comes before and the word that follows, making thereby a melodious line. The simple letter-combination in this line exemplifies the thought of the two lines.

Here is enough of detail to show that the soul of the thought — the sentiment — informs the body to the very fibre. Such work is the product of the creative imagination.

Ligeia is the guardian of the harmony there. Is she loth to leave? Go she must with the other bright inhabitants, but Nesace assures her that no magic shall ever dissever her music from her image. She is commissioned to go wake “many a maid” asleep on moorland and lea. Note how she is to do it, —

Here we have the same wonderful adaptation of expression to sentiment. It is interesting to note how perfectly this ending consists with the beginning. Ligeia is introduced to us as the vigilant guardian of harmony in that realm. She has bound many eyes in a dreamy sleep; but she is now to awaken the fair maidens with their musical numbers. She is to “breathe” on their slumbers. Could Ligeia do anything but “breathe” these notes? It would [page 94:] not be her nature to whisper. Pronounce the word “breathe.” Nothing explosive — discordant — about it! Think of its office as from her lips it steals all softly in ear. It awakens from sleep as a spell which no slumber of witchery may test. Ligeia could be “capriciously still,” but could dissolve the “slumber of witchery.” What a subtle connection of thought is here suggested! All and in all and through all may be traced the (hidden?) soul of harmony.

The theme of Al Aaaraf is Beauty, and the topic of the song to Ligeia is Harmony; it is not the beauty that is inherent in the theme, nor the harmony that belongs by nature to the topic; but it is the beauty that comes from the harmony in the handling of theme and topic, that we seek. It is “the glow of beauty,” —

for which Poe found a most appropriate emblem, namely, a fair river, bright, a clear flow of crystal, wandering water. Dwell upon the elements of this picture. The concrete form of beauty must be clear as crystal, a perfect mirror; it must be rhythmical as suggested so subtly in “wandering water.”

Let beauty gaze into its wave: it glistens, it trembles, it lives, —

Beauty gives life to form, and form worships beauty, —

It is one thing to have prosy notions about the relation of science to poetry, and quite another to make poetry in [page 95:] the expression of them; it is one thing to think didactically of the interworking of the body and soul in Art, but altogether a different thing to set forth conclusions in harmonious numbers.

In the edition of 1829, Poe demonstrates that he is a creator of Beauty. It is a mistake to think he must have a story of passionate love, as in Tamerlane, for material; for his protest against the intentions of science has the genuine poetic fervor; and what others trudge to, discursively, stands out to him in some symbol of beauty, charming to contemplate. It is through his artistic workmanship that he, thus early, proves his divine right to the laurel.