A Neglected Anniversary

As you may know, today happens to be the anniversary of the birth of the most notorious figure in Poe’s history, the Reverend Doctor Rufus Wilmot Griswold. When I contemplated how to go about marking the event on this blog, my first instinct was to remember the old adage about de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est—which is certainly more than the old boy did for Poe. Then, fortunately, reason returned to its throne, and I realized I’d have a lot more fun if I just took that phrase and chucked it out the window.

Accordingly, I decided to offer a brief roundup of some of my favorite quotes about Dr. Griswold. They do justice to his unique and striking personality in a way my own words could never hope to equal:

“Are there no regulations in America to keep the curs out of the cemeteries?"
-Charles Baudelaire

“Griswold, about whose private character there is but one opinion, among those who knew him best, judged the poet according to his (Griswold’s) standard of morality. Mr. George R. Graham describes him as sensual and licentious; Mr. Charles H. Brainard, of Boston, states that he was a hard drinker and a falsifier, who was often detected in questionable practices.”
-Poe biographer William Gill

"I may say, however, that Griswold's biography of Poe was (not to mince words) a malicious libel, that he knew this when he printed it. As I told Mr. Griswold this, to his face, I feel no hesitation in stating it to you. The truth is that Griswold hated Poe, but also feared him; however this libel on Poe was kept back till the latter's death. It is, I suppose, what Griswold meant, when he told me once, 'If I survive Poe, I've a rod in pickle for him.' For Griswold was a coward, among other things, and certainly not restrained by any high sense of honor."
-Charles J. Peterson, letter to John H. Ingram, March 3, 1880

“Mr. G. belongs to the class called ‘toady’…“...what will be his fate? Forgotten, save only by those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or if he is spoken of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused his trust.“
-An anonymous writer, believed to be Henry B. Hirst, 1843

“...a notorious blackmailer...I myself had to pay him money to prevent abusive notices of Sartain’s Magazine“
-John Sartain, 1893

“Graham has made me a good offer to return. He is not especially pleased with Griswold--nor is any one else, with the exception of the Rev. gentleman himself, who has gotten himself into quite a hornet’s nest by his 'Poets & Poetry'…He is a pretty fellow to set himself up as an honest judge, or even as a capable one.”
-Edgar Allan Poe, letter to F.W. Thomas, September 12, 1842

“The Reverend Mr. Griswold is an ass, and what’s more, a knave.”
-James Russell Lowell, letter to Charles F. Briggs, March 21, 1845

“This creature…did not ample documentation prove that he actually existed, we might suppose him, along with Dodson and Fogg, one of the less plausible inventions of Charles Dickens."
-modern-day literary critic Perry Miller

“…that base, base man, Griswold…”
-Maria Clemm

“Rev. Rumpus Grizzel.”
-George Lippard

And, of course, the accolades piled up from the witnesses called during Griswold’s 1856 divorce trial:

“I have heard many persons speak of Dr. Griswold, so I may say I know his general character for veracity; and have known it since 1848; it is very bad…his boasts of ladies’ favor and correspondence…”
-Elizabeth F. Ellet

“I have known Dr. Griswold’s character for fifteen or twenty years; it is extremely bad.”
-S.J. Waring

“…he is notorious for insincerity and untruth…I think him an unprincipled and bad man…I know nothing favorable to the man Rufus W. Griswold.”
-Charles D. Lewis

“…a man constitutionally incapable of speaking the truth, a sycophant in your company, a serpent in the company of those who like to hear you unjustly spoken of…a moral coward and a dangerous person to be connected with.” “…a hypocrite in religion, a charlatan in literature, and a bad man everywhere…I don’t know of anything in favor of libelant.”
-Ann S. Stephens

“I do know the general character of Dr. Griswold for truth and veracity; have known him since 1837; his character for truth and veracity is bad.”
-Hamilton Randolph Searles (the brother of Griswold’s late first wife.)

“I have known libelant’s general character since I knew him; it is bad.”
-Fanny J. Searles

So, happy birthday, Reverend. As my personal gift to Dr. Griswold, I was benevolent enough to refrain from quoting some of his poetry in this post. A deplorable biographer, to be sure, but to do him justice, his Twitter account has proved to be immensely entertaining. Even if he did once utilize it to call me a “degenerate gambler.”

Some Overlooked Poe Reminiscences

The following article, “The Character of Edgar Allan Poe,” appeared in the “Brooklyn Magazine” for March 1886. It was written by Margaret E. Wilmer, whose father, journalist Lambert A. Wilmer, knew Poe off-and-on for about a ten-year period beginning from the early 1830s. Miss Wilmer wrote a piece about Poe for “Beadle’s Monthly” in 1867 that has been quoted in several books and articles about the poet, but the existence of this later article seems to be unknown to researchers. Because the essay is so obscure, I repeat it here, for the benefit of anyone with a fondness for Poe anecdotes. There are several obvious factual errors in Miss Wilmer’s account (and it is certainly an exaggeration to claim that “not one whisper of the plaudits which now proclaim his genius to the world…came to cheer him while he lived and toiled upon this earth,”) but her reminiscences are still of some historical interest:

Nothing in modern biography is more remarkable than the wide variation between different estimates made of the character of a person who lived and moved amidst us so recently as did Edgar Allan Poe. Yet it is not really marvelous that there should be a great deal of fanciful speculation concerning a celebrated man with whom very few people ever obtained any real intimacy, and whose most characteristic traits did not so float upon the surface as to be obvious to all his acquaintances.

The writer's father (whose last earthly days were spent in Brooklyn) was the most confidential friend of Poe when both were just entering upon a professional literary career, and they continued in constant and intimate association until the author of "The Raven" finally changed his place of residence from Philadelphia to New York.

Everyone has read descriptions of Poe as a wild and haggard-looking wretch roaming the streets at midnight, and muttering fearful fancies, and still more fearful maledictions to the silent stars. Indeed, to judge a literary man (as many appear to do) by the creations of his pen, it would be easy to believe that no more weird, awful, and unearthly-seeming being than he who wrote "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" was ever seen in the mortal flesh. To most readers, such writings seem the product of a brain burning with madness or intoxication, and a heart tortured by
passion and despair, or, as some will have it, by remorse, for mysterious and appalling sins.

The Edgar A. Poe who, with his lovely and fragile wife, so often visited the house of my parents, was not only a man of the most gentlemanly appearance and manners, but unusually precise in his dress, his deportment, and his habitual modes of speech. So far from having about him any suggestion of the wild, erratic and terrible, he was one of whom most people would criticise as being over fastidious, and even finically particular in his tastes. In fact, his nature was not excitable, hot-blooded and impassioned, though a contrary impression might be produced by his readiness to resent anything which he took as an impertinence or an injustice to himself. But let it be remembered that Poe was a Virginian, trained in the old Southern school of honor, which taught that pride and an intolerance of affronts were to be regarded as cardinal virtues. His sensitiveness, too, was wound up to much more than its normal tension by the effect which hard and enforced brain work has upon the nervous system, and yet more by the bitterness of finding himself doomed to a life of pinching poverty, and to the endurance of sneers and slights from men of intellect far inferior to his own. We need to remind ourselves that not one whisper of the plaudits which now proclaim his genius to the world, not one flash of such glory as now surrounds the name of Edgar Allan Poe, came to cheer him while he lived and toiled upon this earth.

True, the poet, his wife and her mother, Mrs. Clemm, all shared the gift of preserving, both in themselves and their home surroundings, an air of exquisite neatness and refinement which could not be lost amidst the privations of their utmost poverty. I believe no one has ever thought of accusing Poe of being an unkind husband, and he certainly was not in sympathy with that vulgar smartness which displays itself in jests concerning the anxiety of every married man to see his mother-in-law a corpse as soon as possible. The stanzas addressed by the poet to his Virginia and to her mother (who was also his own aunt) are full of tenderness, admiring appreciation and reverential love.

A doubt has recently been raised in regard to the long and universally credited assertion that Poe was, at some time or other, a slave to strong drink. Reverend J.J. Moran, of Virginia, who became acquainted with the poet in his last days, states that he indulged in pernicious stimulants only at very rare intervals during his life, as he knew that the effect of alcohol upon an organization like his was most potent and terrible. Dr. Moran believes that intemperance was no habit of Poe's closing years, at least, and had nothing to do with his untimely death. Here there seems to be a mystery equal to any which the great writer himself ever interwove with his fictitious plots. It is certain that during the years of their constant association, my father never discovered in Poe any tendency toward drinking habits, and the testimony of parties with whom he resided soon after his removal to New York is to the same effect. If Dr. Moran can prove that the poet had no such vice in his later days, then one of the most extraordinary and obstinate slanders that ever pursued the memory of genius will be crushed forever.

And now we come to speak of a circumstance in regard to which Edgar A. Poe may be pronounced the most unfortunate of all distinguished men, either ancient or modern. In all previous instances, those who felt especially called upon to write a certain man's biography, seemed by that act to enter into such sympathy with him that they could do nothing else than to make the fullest possible exhibition of his good qualities and gifts, and the best apologies for his short-comings. Macauley has alluded to a memoir of Lord Bacon as having been written with an enthusiasm even "passing the love of biographers." Among his last recorded wishes, Poe had expressed a desire that his writings should be selected and arranged for publication by N. P. Willis, and his biography written by Rufus W. Griswold. Mr. Griswold was a "Reverend" who was but little known as a preacher, and a literary man whose celebrity rested principally upon books made up of selections from and sketches of other authors. Poe had written some caustic things of this industrious compiler, but he paid him the high compliment of entrusting to his magnanimity and sense of justice the guardianship of his memory when he was no more.

Misplaced laudation in obituary sketches may be a blameable weakness, but what shall we say of a biographer who, through every page, pursues the object of his memoir with such furious hatred that it is impossible to imagine how so much prejudice and spite could keep within the bounds of truth and justice? Most people, under the circumstances, would have felt that there was a sacredness about the trust reposed in them by the dying poet. Dr. Griswold made use of that trust, not only to expose in the fullest manner every admitted fault of Poe, but to bring to light new charges against his character, some of which, at least, were supported only by testimony which would not warrant their repetition even by a professed enemy. For instance, Dr. Griswold accuses Poe of a most disgraceful attempt at blackmailing a woman, and then adds with a hypocritical "Alas!" that the poet was undoubtedly guilty of "many such" actions. We do not believe that there is any man who never spent a term in the penitentiary, and yet has been guilty of "many such" outrages upon humanity and honesty as this case would involve. How could a long array of such crimes (whose very essence consists in their secrecy and concealment) be known to Dr. Griswold, and yet never be brought under the notice of any legal official?

But by far the worst feature of this whole case yet remains to be spoken of. The biography of whose spirit we have noticed this small sample, was written for and prefixed to an edition of Poe's works which, as its preface states, was published for the pecuniary benefit of Mrs. Clemm, the mother of the poet's deceased wife. She was a lady of lovely and noble character, superior culture, and most delicate refinement of feeling. Even before Edgar Poe became the husband of her daughter —the dear and early lost—she had loved him with the most maternal tenderness as her only sister's only child. Her pride in the genius of "darling Eddy," her sympathy with his struggles, and her anxiety to smooth the path of toil for him as far as possible, were equal toVirginia's own. When death had deprived her of both her children, and she was left to utter helplessness and desolation, hers was surely a case to be approached only with the most delicate and respectful assistance. The publication of a handsome edition of Poe's works formed a highly befitting mode of raising a fund for her relief, but when the unfortunate lady came to peruse the pages of her Edgar's memorial, what did she find? A horrible delineation of him as a monster of baseness and corruption, and all this accumulation of injuries to the beloved dead sent forth as part of a scheme for her benefit, and under the sanction of her name! A plan to publicly exhibit the poet's fleshless bones, and give a share of the proceeds to the afflicted mother, would have been less shocking than this!

But the hater and the mourner, as well as the poet himself, have now passed into the unseen land, and Edgar Allan Poe may come to be treated with as dispassionate fairness as any other historical character. He had faults and weaknesses, known to all who really knew him, but let not these be magnified and multiplied either by unrelenting malice or by the almost equally culpable recklessness of those who would claim a knowledge that they do not possess.

Note: Poe, of course, was not the child of Maria Clemm's "only sister," but of her brother David Poe. Dr. Moran's statements on this or any other matter must be treated with extreme caution, as the good doctor was notoriously as uncertain as a weather forecast and as trustworthy as Wikipedia.

Walt Whitman and "The Raven"

"The Raven," as you may already know, saw its probable first publication (in the New York "Evening Mirror") on this day in 1845. I decided to celebrate the noble anniversary by spotlighting two of the poem's more curious homages.

On January 11, 1848, Walt Whitman, who was at that time the editor of the "Brooklyn Eagle," published in his newspaper "A Jig in Prose," one of the innumerable parodies of "The Raven." It ran:

"Once upon a evening dreary,while I pondered lone and weary--o'er many an olden paper, reading forgotten stories o'er; suddenly I heard a curious, lonely, ghostly, strange, mysterious grating, underneath the floor! "'Tis some little mouse, I muttered, underneath the office floor--and nothing more. And again I trimmed the taper--and once more resumed my paper--aged, forsaken, unique paper--poring its ancient contents o'er; when again I heard repeated, this same mysterious grating, but much louder than before--and it seemed like someone sawing wood beneath the office floor; 'tis no mouse thought I, but more. As I listened, each particular hair stood upright perpendicular--cold, outstanding drops orbicular soon my forehead o'er--while a strange mysterious terror, filled my soul with fear and horror, such as I never felt before; much I wondered what this curious grating meant beneath the floor! Thus I sat and eyed the floor. And thus watching, gazing pondering, trembling, doubting, tearing, wondering, suddenly the wall was sundered, as for Banquo's ghost of yore--and while gazing much astounded, there--from there bounded a huge rat upon the floor! Not the least obeisance made he, but a moment stopped and stayed he, and nothing more. And, while gazing at each other, suddenly out came another--somewhat greyer than the other, with the weight of years he bore; then with imprecations dire, I raised my boot and higher, a step advancing nigher, whirled it safe across the floor; but the little imps had scatttered, and the door was bruised and battered, that it hit and nothing more!"

Poe scholars have speculated that these lines were composed by Whitman himself, who was known to have greatly admired Poe's work--"The Raven" in particular. (Whitman briefly met Poe in 1845, when the "Broadway Journal" published one of his essays. He later recalled that "Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear'd well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded.")

An additional clue for his possible authorship is the fact that "Jig in Prose" was published anonymously, and it was Whitman's usual practice to give credit to "Eagle" articles he did not write. If Whitman did indeed write this little jeu d'esprit--surely one of the feebler "Raven" tributes--it would not be a great surprise that he'd hesitate to reveal himself as the author. (In an ironic touch, Whitman was--for political, not, as one would assume from the above doggerel, artistic reasons--fired from the "Eagle" shortly after this poem's appearance.) One can only say that the available evidence for his authorship is sparse, but certainly plausible.

Whitman certainly had a taste for "Raven" knockoffs, however strange they may have been. Exactly one year earlier, he published in the "Eagle" another exercise in transforming Poe's celebrated bird into a turkey. Whitman described J.J. Martin's "The Dove" as "not possessing the artistic beauty of Mr. Poe's celebrated 'Raven,'" but it was, he declared, a work that "commends itself to every reader by its graceful spirit of the Christianity...its influence, as far as it goes, will be more apt to soften, and meliorate the heart."

'Twas midnight, solemn, dark and deep,
And vainly I had courted sleep,
When, worn with pain, and anguish-tossed,
Hope, faith, and patience nearly lost,
I heard a sound, a gentle sound.
Breaking the solemn stillness round.
A gentle, soft and murmuring sound,
Making the stillness more profound.

I hushed my breath--again it came--
My heart beat faster--still the same
Low, gentle murmur met mine ear,
Approaching nearer and more near,
A single sound, yet soft and clear,
And strongly fraught with memories dear,
A flood of clear and single light,
Then burst upon my raptured sight,
Filling my little chamber quite.
And in that light a bird was seen,
Not "grim and black" with stately mien,
But purely white and beautiful,
With look so mild and dutiful,
A lovely bird, with plumage white,
In that calm, still and clear moonlight.

This winged visitor answers every piteous wail of the narrator not with an ominous "Nevermore," but with a cheery "God is love!" After four more verses which I simply do not have the fortitude to transcribe, the poem concludes:

"Thanks heavenly messenger," I cried,
"Remain that picture still beside,
Surrounded by the light of truth,
Companion meet for sinless youth,
Thou blessed type of Love and Peace,
My hope and faith thou'lt still increase;
Be ever near me, gentle dove,
I know I feel that--"God is love!"

By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--If poetry like that isn't sacrilege, I don't know what is.

Well, never mind. As I suggested last year on this date, do give yourself some respite and nepenthe by reading the real thing.

Happy Birthday To You...

"If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Israfel"

In honor of Poe's 203rd, I present "Our Israfel," a poem written by Edwin Markham in commemoration of the Poe Centennial in 1909. Inevitably, it pales compared to whatever Poe and his lyre within the sky might compose for this day, but, alas, a mere "mortal melody" is the best I can offer here and now:

"The sad great gifts the austere Muses bring
In their stern hands to make their poets of
Were laid on him that he might darkly sing
Of Beauty, Death and Love.

They laid upon him hunger as a dower,
A hunger for a loveliness more strange
Than Earth can give--more wild than any hour
Of all this chance and change.

They laid upon him Music's trembling charm,
The mystery of sound, of shaken air,
Whose touch can lift the spirit or alarm--
Build rapture, build despair.

They touched him with imagination's rod,
The power that built these heavens that soar and seem--
These heavens that are the daring of some God
Stirred by the lyric dream.

And then (for oh, the Muses do not spare!)
They set for him one final gift apart:
They gave him sorrow as a pack to bear,
Sorrow to break the heart.

And so they called the poet into Time,
The saddest and the proudest of the race
That ever came this way with sound of rhyme,
In quest of Beauty's face.

He came with rumor of the mystery,
Crying the wonder ever on before,
The laureate of dreams that cannot be,
Of Night and the Nevermore.

He steered toward shadow with melodious helm,
Touching with somber prow the wharves of Dis,
Exploring all the dim and hollow realm
This side the last abyss.

He looked on cities in their crumbling hours,
Where Death obscurely mumbles out his rune,
Hoary, remote, alone, where time-torn towers
Hang spectral in the moon.

He mused among the dim sarcophagi,
While far upon the rim of ruin fled
A host of hooded forms that hurried by
With laughters to the dead.

He walked our streets as on a lonely strand:
His country was not here--it was afar.
Not here his home, not here his motherland,
But in some statlier star.

Life was his exile, Earth his alien shore,
And these were foreign faces that he passed:
For he had other language, other lore,
And he must home at last.

His country was not here, but in the isles
Of Aidenn ringed around with lustrous seas,
Where golden galleys skim the silver miles
Or sleep upon the breeze.

And there were gardens where the fountains springs
In valleys of a many-colored grass--
Gardens where bulbuls in the shadows sing,
And rose-pale maidens pass--

Gardens of hyacinths and asphodels,
Inwoven with the sounds of warbling rills,
With triple-tinted suns and lilied wells,
Walled in by golden hills.

And there he built him palaces of song,
Lifting their spires against the pallid moon,
With corridors where shapes of shadow throng
When night is at her noon.

He sought his dream-love there by many names
Of terror and of pity and of peace--
Lenore, Ligeia (burning like pale flames)
Morella, Berenice.

He trod high chambers lit with ruby light,
And heard in the hush the somber arras stir,
And stir again, in the deep and secret night,
With memories of her.

He heard the demon whispers in the deep,
And songs of deathless love where seraphs are;
He saw the cliffs of Time, a ghostly heap,
But over the cliffs the star!

O poet, not for you the trampling street,
The wrangling crowd that cry and clutch for gold,
And so you followed Beauty's flying feet
Into the dim and old.

O poet, life was bitter to your heart:
These stones have memories of the tears you shed.
Forgive the serpent tongue, the flying dart--
Forgive us from the dead.

You sang your song: we gave you scorn for pay:
For beauty's bread we gave a stone; and yet
Because our eyes were holden on the way,
Remember to forget.

Sing, Israfel: you have your star at last,
Your morning star; but we--we still must live!
So now that all is over, all is past,
Forget, forget--forgive!"

Indeed, there is still very much for you to forgive, old boy.

Plagiarism Carnival #2

...Although, by this point, perhaps it would be more appropriate to forget about carnivals, and start in on the "Masque of the Red Death" references.I thought it was about time for yet another update on the "Raven's Bride"/"Very Young Mrs. Poe" plagiarism case, for the benefit of newcomers to this blog and anyone not following the latest news on Twitter. (Note to St. Martin's Press--despite your fondest hopes, this story is not going to go away anytime soon.)

Archie Valparaiso, the hardest-working man in show business, is the major contributer to this edition of the Carnival. First, he makes a further examination of Lenore Hart's "I just used the same historical sources" excuse and finds that it is, well, all wet.

Next, he looks at the "It's all just coincidence that the two novels share at least 57 similar passages!" argument, and does the math.

In this post, Mr. Valparaiso ponders, weak and weary, the mystery of SMP's inexplicable determination to stick to a long and embarrassing public cover-up all to protect a little-known, lightweight fiction writer whose novels are evidently about as popular as IRS audits. He takes a closer look at Ms. Hart's husband, a considerably more successful author, and unearths some interesting information. David Poyer may turn out to be the crucial figure in this whole scandal.

Salon magazine recently held an online symposium on "What is plagiarism," featuring, among others, Jeremy Duns and Dennis Johnson of Melville House. "The Raven's Bride" is among the cases discussed.

IThenticate, a plagiarism detection software company, included Ms. Hart's little masterpiece among their "Best of 2011 Plagiarism Events." The blog includes this highly suggestive comment: "I sense a deja vu here, and feel this will be an ongoing story in 2012, as St. Martin's Press takes a look at her other work and determines whether their stance remains the same."

Probably the most notable development to date is that New York's Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony, a nonprofit educational institution where Lenore Hart teaches creative writing (!), has suspended its connection with her pending what it hopes will be an "early resolution" of the "issues" that have arisen concerning her work. One wonders what "resolution" they expect to see.

I honestly have no idea if the Mailer Center is sincere in this expressed desire to keep their distance from a writer with "issues"--if this is the case, my guess is that Ms. Hart may as well permanently kiss the place goodbye right now--or if the statement is merely a public face-saving cover story, designed to get people off its back until the whole issue eventually dies. We shall see.

Well, that's it for now, folks. It's amazing to realize that it's been nearly a year since that fateful day when I settled down to read my just-arrived-in-the-mail copy of a new Poe novel. During that time, the "issues" surrounding the book have become bigger and stranger than anything I ever could have imagined, and who knows where it all may end. To quote an old tune that's long been a sort of personal anthem of mine, "I can't help but wonder where I'm bound."

(Images via New York Public Library, Wikipedia)

"Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!"

"What I here propound is true:--therefore it cannot die--or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will 'rise again to the Life Everlasting.'"
-Preface to "Eureka"

Albert Einstein is one of the most illustrious people ever to critique Poe's magnum opus "Eureka." Unfortunately, his opinions of the work--which appear in two letters to Poe collector Richard Gimbel and two more to biographer Arthur H. Quinn--are disappointingly limited and contradictory. It should also be noted that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Einstein's focus was merely on the strictly scientific aspects of Poe's work, largely ignoring "Eureka's" even more compelling spiritual elements.

In December 1933, Einstein answered what was evidently a request from Gimbel to comment on "Eureka." He wrote a brief, but friendly note, agreeing to read "the story by the master," and pass on his opinion. The next month, he wrote again, saying he had "partly studied" "Eureka," but doubted he would be able to make a thorough analysis of the work, "in spite of all the attraction which radiates from this wonderful man." He described the opening section as "a very beautiful achievement of an unusually independent mind," but deprecated Poe's cosmogony as inadequate, due to the limited scientific advances of his era. (As Poe anticipated certain of Einstein's own concepts, this is somewhat ironic.)

Seven years later, Arthur Quinn also asked the scientist for his views of Poe's masterwork, as part of Quinn's research for his book about the poet. Mysteriously, Einstein's letters to him reveal a much more negative attitude towards both "Eureka" and Poe personally. In June 1940, he wrote Quinn that he had read "Eureka" some years back, but remembered little about it, except that it was to be "valued more from the artistic than from the scientific standpoint." He asked Quinn to send him the work, if the biographer wished a more detailed response.

Two months later, he wrote that after looking through the copy of "Eureka" Quinn had provided, he realized he was mistaken--that he had never read it before, and he now found the book "a bad disappointment." He found the first part clever in some ways, but ultimately weak in many scientific respects. The latter half of the book, where Poe described his own theories of the universe, was, Einstein sniffed, like "the scientific crank-letters I receive every day." He attributed this to Poe's "pathological personality" depriving the poet of the ability for self-criticism.

As Poe scholar René van Slooten noted, Einstein's critique of "Eureka" was itself full of flaws, and he also pointed out, as reason for Einstein's sudden hostility, that he was at that time at odds with Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître, two scientists who had taken inspiration from Poe's writings. It is also undoubtedly true that "Eureka's" strong religiosity was anathema to the strictly materialist mind of the famed physicist. It is assumed that a good part of Einstein's suddenly antipathetic attitude was due to his increasing tension over the advent of World War II. However, I suspect there is even more to it than that. From Einstein's comments, I found myself wondering if he had actually even studied "Eureka" thoroughly, and it is clear that whatever he did read rather baffled him. As heretical as it may be to suggest the fabled genius had his limitations, I suspect "Eureka" so irritated him simply because he failed to understand it.

In any case, it is obvious that Poe himself believed that "Eureka's" true importance lies in its philosophy, not the literal cosmogony. However, even his scientific claims have experienced a renaissance in recent years, as it becomes increasingly obvious that Poe was not limited to his era scientifically, but was actually in many ways far ahead of his time. Whatever flaws "Eureka" may have, no serious modern authority would dream of dismissing it as a mere "crank-letter."

Einstein himself may not be as infallible as is commonly assumed. If recent scientific experiments suggesting that neutrinos (subatomic particles) travel faster than light are verified, it would require a revision of Einstein's special theory of relativity--one of the cornerstones of modern physics.

In such a changing and uncertain universe, who can say with any true confidence where and how Poe was wrong?


Note: More about Poe and Einstein, including facsimiles of some of the letters quoted here, can be found at that fascinating work-in-progress, "The Eureka Project." This post is obviously heavily indebted to the site.

Happy New Year From the World of Poe

Ringing in the New Year at Washington Cathedral:

...What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future!--how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells!--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Decking the Halls, Edgar Allan Poe Style

A little gem I found on YouTube. Poe! Poe! Poe! Merry Christmas!