Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe

IN MEMORIAM EDGAR ALLAN POE
BORN MDCCCIX—DIED MDCCCXLIX
How dark a woe! Yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition! Yet how deep—
How fathomless a capacity for love!

There is no exquisite beauty without
some strangeness in the proportion.
--inscription on a tablet in the library at West Point

For anyone unfamiliar with the details of Poe’s life, it usually comes as a great surprise to learn that he did a stint in the U.S. Army, and, moreover, was a very good soldier. It seems appropriate—or, at least, as appropriate as I could get within the theme of this strange blog—to devote a Memorial Day post to his short, curious military career.

When eighteen-year-old Edgar Poe arrived in Boston from Richmond, VA in April of 1827, he had reached the end of his old life, with no firm plans on how to start a new one. After the end of his first and only term at the University of Virginia, he had quarreled so bitterly with his foster-father John Allan that he quit his adopted hometown altogether, determined to strike out on his own. We do not know exactly what he did during this period, until he enlisted in the Army on May 26 of that year, under the name “Edgar A. Perry.” His reasons for taking this seemingly uncharacteristic career move—and doing so under an alias, to boot—are unknown. It is assumed that he signed up out of sheer desperation, because he was unable to find any other work. If this is the case, Poe must have been in dire straits indeed, as the contemporary military was notorious for, as one historian put it, “Small pay, little recreation, hard duty, and scant opportunity for advancement.”

Poe’s education—highly unusual for the average recruit of the era—served him well in his new position. He quickly became clerk for Company H, 1st Artillery, under Lieutenant Joshua Howard. His duties involved handling routine papers, serving as messenger between his company and regimental headquarters, writing Howard’s letters, and preparing payrolls and muster-rolls. However tedious this work may have been, it at least excused him from the even more tiresome garrison duties of his comrades, and gave him a relatively large amount of leisure time.

Poe was soon promoted to the highly important job of an artificer, with the tasks of preparing the battery’s bombs and shells, and helping to supervise the ammunition supply. His new status gave him a raise in pay—from $5 to $10 dollars a month, as well as “one ration of whiskey or rum per day.” He performed so effectively that on January 1, 1829, he was promoted to regimental sergeant-major—the highest non-commissioned grade in the Army—which was a remarkably speedy rise in the ranks.

However, Poe soon realized that as things stood, his chances for further advancement in the Army were limited. The military was, as he later wrote, “no place for a poor man.” The following month, he wrote John Allan asking his help in procuring an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point. Poe was under the impression that his Army experience would enable him to breeze through his cadetship in only six months or so—an erroneous assumption that would cause him a good deal of trouble later on.

Three weeks after Poe wrote this letter, his foster-mother Frances Allan died, and he obtained a week’s furlough to attend her funeral. During his visit to Richmond, he and Allan came to something of a reconciliation, and they agreed Poe would apply for a discharge from the Army and seek an appointment to West Point. Accordingly, on April 4, 1829 “Sergeant-Major Edgar A. Perry” was ordered discharged “on furnishing an acceptable substitute without expense to the government.” This order took effect—under his real name—on April 25.

Poe had made an excellent impression on his superiors. Lieutenant Howard wrote a letter of recommendation stating that his habits were “good and entirely free from drinking.” Other officers wrote a similar letters to the Academy, asserting that the young soldier was “highly worthy of confidence,” “highly praiseworthy and deserving of confidence,” “free of bad habits,” and would follow the responsibilities of a cadet “studiously and faithfully.” Allan himself wrote an appallingly cold letter on Poe’s behalf that fell into the “with friends like these…” category. He made a point of stating that "the youth" “is no relation to me whatever” and that he had only interested himself in the young man because “every Man is my care, if he be in distress.” This ungenerous letter—written by someone who had raised “the youth” from infancy—alone does much to excuse Poe’s resentful attitude toward the man he once called “Pa.”

Unfortunately, Poe’s attempts at finding a substitute did not go smoothly. Under normal circumstances, he could, with the permission of his commanding officer, pay a bounty of $12 to the first man who had enlisted after he filed the request to be discharged, or deliver a larger bounty to any other man who was deemed acceptable. However, when Poe applied for his discharge, his superiors were all away on other business, forcing him to pay a bounty of $75. He paid $25 in cash, and wrote a note for the remainder.

Poe obtained his appointment to the Academy in the spring of 1830, and on June 28 passed the entrance examinations. Cadet life soon proved to be a surprise for him, and a most unpleasant one. Discipline was much stricter than anything he had previously experienced, his duties were monotonous, if not distasteful, and although he excelled academically, he found his studies unchallenging. What must have been most galling for a budding literary genius were the rules allowing cadets to visit the library only on Saturdays, when they could only check out one book “calculated to assist him in his class studies,” and forbidding them to “keep in his room any novel, poem, or other book not related to his studies.” He had fled one dead-end position for one that was quickly looking even deader.

Poe doubtless found his new circumstances disagreeable, but he appears to have kept his troubles to himself for the first months of his cadetship. However, in January 1831, disaster struck. His substitute in the Army, Sergeant Samuel “Bully” Graves, to whom Poe owed money, (it is still disputed whether or not this loan related to the $75 bounty,) had sent John Allan a letter Poe had written Graves, contemptuously dismissing Allan as a brutal, drunken skinflint.

Allan, unsurprisingly, did not take this well. He had long been greatly dissatisfied with his increasingly uncongenial ward, and he took this opportunity to write Poe a letter announcing that he was washing his hands of the young man for good. Poe—who never did learn the First Rule of Holes (“when you’re in one, stop digging”)—responded with an equally bitter missive detailing every stored-up grievance he ever had with Allan—it was an impressive list—and announcing his decision to resign from the Academy, declaring he was too tired and too poor “to put up with the fatigues of this place.” Allan did not bother to reply, merely annotating the letter with the words, “I do not think the Boy has one good quality. He may do or act as he pleases.”

It was a supreme tragedy for both Poe and Allan—particularly, of course, for the former—that these two men had an uncanny genius for bringing out the worst in each other.

Poe carried through with his threat. He began deliberately missing parades and all other class formations. On January 23, the first record of disciplinary action against him appeared: He was arrested “for absenting himself from his academic duties.” On February 8, he was court-martialed for neglect of duty and disobedience of orders. Poe does not appear to have offered any real defense, and he was quickly found guilty and sentenced to be dismissed from the Academy effective March 6. This delayed dismissal was the work of the Superintendent, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer. Thayer was fond of the wayward cadet, and, as a final favor, arranged to keep him on the Academy roster long enough to earn sufficient pay to settle his debts. On February 19, he departed for New York City. He took with him the money he had on credit with the treasurer of the Academy—twenty-four cents.

He left West Point with one of the strangest legacies ever offered by a cadet. Before his departure he solicited subscriptions among his fellow students for a new edition of his poems. One hundred and thirty one cadets (out of a total of two hundred and thirty two) put up $1.25 each to cover the cost of publication. (This suggests Poe was hardly the forbidding, friendless outcast of popular imagination.) Soon after his arrival in New York, the volume—dedicated to “The U.S. Corps of Cadets”—appeared. It contained, among other now-famous poems, “To Helen,” “Israfel,” and "Irene" (later retitled, “The Sleeper.")

It was said many years later that when Poe’s former classmates read the book, they were outraged. They had given Poe their money expecting more of the little rhymes satirizing cadet life he had composed for their amusement. This “ridiculous doggerel” he produced instead, was, they proclaimed, a complete waste of their money.

Poe always did face tough audiences.

(Note: For anyone interested in further details of Poe’s Army period, William F. Hecker’s brief, but highly insightful book, “Private Perry and Mister Poe,” is the definitive work on this under-analyzed period of his life. Major Hecker--a West Point graduate and career military officer, as well as a literary scholar--was, very sadly, killed in action in Iraq in 2006. This Memorial Day post is particularly dedicated to him.)


Image via New York Public Library

Marginalia

This post is designed to provide a home for a few stray bits of Poeana I've encountered here and there.

1. The Case of the Postponed Pym

"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" was issued by Harper's in July of 1838. However, the firm applied for copyright and had a title page prepared over a year earlier, in June 1837. (A month before, the "Knickerbocker" announced that the novel was "nearly ready for publication.") Why the long delay? We have no idea. Poe researcher Kenneth Rede suggested "they withheld the volume from the public to give Poe, desperately in need of funds, and without employment at the time, a reasonable opportunity to find a periodical willing to continue the serialization of the tale...and that when he failed in this quest, they then brought out the book as originally planned." It has also been theorized that Harper's held off releasing the book because of the uncertain economic climate of the times. (May 1837 saw a financial panic which inaugurated a severe depression that lasted until 1843.)


These theories, though plausible, fail to completely convince me. Admittedly, however, I cannot think of any better explanations. It is a curious coincidence that we know almost nothing of Poe's personal and professional activities between his move to New York City early in 1837 and his relocation to Philadelphia about a year later. Could this strange gap in his timeline have any connection to the simultaneous pause in the life of "Pym?"



2. Bayard Taylor's Poe Parody

In October of 1845, Poe became the sole proprietor of the "Broadway Journal." He bought out his partner, John Bisco, with the help of a promissory note for fifty dollars, which was endorsed by Horace Greeley. When it came due, Bisco evidently collected it from the endorser. ("As was to be anticipated," snorted Poe biographer George Woodberry.) Greeley, rather tastelessly, dined out on the episode for years to come, even proclaiming in his autobiography that he offered the note to someone seeking Poe's autograph "for half that amount."

The episode itself, thanks to Greeley, is relatively famous. What is less well-known is the fact that Greeley's friend Bayard Taylor was, for reasons known only to himself, inspired to commemorate it in a poem, "The Promissory Note." The result is one of the weirder Poe spoofs:

In the lonesome latter years,
(Fatal years!)
To the dropping of my tears
Danced the mad and mystic spheres
In a rounded, reeling rune,
'Neath the moon,
To the dripping and the dropping of my tears

Ah my soul is swathed in gloom,
(Ulalume!)
In a dim Titanic tomb,
For my gaunt and gloomy soul
Ponders o'er the penal scroll
O'er the parchment (not a rhyme,)
Out of place out of time,
I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,
(O, the fifty!)
And the days have passed, the three,
Over me!
And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote
At the bottom of the note
(Wrote and freely,
Gave to Greeley,)
In the middle of the night
On the yellow, moonless night,
When the stars were out of sight,
When my pulses, like a knell,
(Israfel!)
Danced with dim and dying fays
O'er the ruins of my days,
O'er the dimeless, timeless days,
When the fifty, drawn at thirty,
Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty
Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,
(Let him hold it!)
Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;
Now the days of grace are o'er,
(Ah, Lenore!)
I am but as other men;
What is time, time, time,
To my rare and runic rhyme,
To my random, reeling rhyme,
By the sands along the shore,
Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer "Never more!"

Many poems made money, but this is the only case I know where money made poems.

3. Rufus W. Griswold, Poetic Muse

Another example of bizarre verses from the World of Poe comes to us courtesy of Frances S. Osgood. It is well known that in 1846 Poe wrote her an acrostic Valentine poem containing her name. His more frivolous biographers have tried to twist this innocuous--and probably commissioned--contribution to a Valentine party into evidence that they had some sort of close relationship (overlooking the fact that the poem misspelled her middle name and called her a dunce.) Left largely ignored is the fact that in 1850, Mrs. Osgood wrote a similar, but far more intimate poem to none other than everyone's favorite fraud, Rufus Wilmot Griswold. This poem, which George Woodberry dryly called "an illustrative document in regard to the literary group," rarely has appeared in print. I propose to do my part in correcting that omission. Fanny and the Reverend won't live this one down--in a manner of speaking--if I can help it. (Note: By reading the italicized letters, their names can be found--hers, left to right, his, right to left.)

For one, whose being is to mine a star,
Trembling I weave in lines of love and fun
What Fame before has echoed near and far.
A sonnet if you like--I'll give you one
To be cross-questioned ere it's truth is solv'd.
Here veiled and hidden in a rhyming wreath
A name is turned with mine in cunning sheath,
And unless by some marvel rare evolved,
Forever folded from all idler eyes
Silent and secret still it treasured lies,
Whilst mine goes winding onward, as a rill
Thro' a deep wood in unseen joyance dances,
Calling in melody's bewildering thrill
Whilst thro' dim leaves its partner dreams and glances.

Even more embarrassing evidence of her partiality (however self-serving) for Griswold can be found in her 1850 collection of poems, which "his attached friend" dedicated to him "As a souvenir of admiration for his genius, of regard for his generous character, and of gratitude for his valuable literary counsels."

4. In Which I Give John Evangelist Walsh the Plot of His Next Book

On a related note, an Edward A. Oldman wrote a peculiar letter to the New York Times which appeared in the August 11, 1929 issue. He claimed to know "the real reason" behind Griswold's enmity for Poe, information he gathered from "reminiscences at first-hand" he acquired from Poe's old classmates at the University of Virginia. (It was not explained how these youthful acquaintances would have the slightest "first-hand" knowledge about the relations between the two men, but never mind that.)

"From this material," wrote Oldham, "one important statement is recalled. It was in the effect that Rufus Wilmot Griswold was smitten with the flower-like charms of the poet's wife, and had on at least one occasion been rebuffed by her, the incident very nearly causing a permanent rupture between Poe and Griswold. The latter never forgot the circumstance and was known to have harbored a feeling of rancor against the poet."

This is nearly as silly a tale as the old cliché that Poe and Griswold were rivals for the dubious charms of Mrs. Osgood, but far more delightful. As long as the world is going to be plagued by badly-written, ahistorical Poe novels, I wish somebody would write one featuring a scene where the lustful Reverend makes impassioned advances to Virginia, only to have flowery Mrs. Poe "rebuff" him with a well-aimed knee to the groin. And perhaps a karate chop to the neck.

I may have to write it myself.

Poe scholars, showing a distressing lack of humor, have ignored Mr. Oldham's revelations, with the exception of Thomas O. Mabbott. He wrote the Times a week later, saying that he had never heard the story, "but it is one of those things that may very well be true." Thus proving a point I have made several times on this blog: There were no, I repeat, no Poe myths too nutty for Mr. Mabbott to embrace.

5. A "Lost" Portrait of Virginia Poe?

Mrs. W. H. Jackson, a self-described "admirer of Poe," wrote an article for the May 7, 1899 issue of the Detroit Free Press describing a visit she paid "many years ago" to Maria Clemm when Poe's aunt/mother-in-law was living in the Church Home in Baltimore. The article is brief and says nothing new or interesting, except for one brief statement that caught my eye. Mrs. Jackson said that on the wall of Mrs. Clemm's room hung "a colored lithograph" of Virginia holding "her favorite cat." She added, "Mrs. Clemm looked with a mother's tenderness upon this shadow of her frail child, whose nature 'touched to finer issues' was an inspiration to her gifted husband, sitting at his feet while many of the fantastic though purely rhythmic lines were dictated."

This does not fit the description of any known picture of Virginia, either accepted or apocryphal, and I have yet to find any other reference to this alleged portrait. There are several possibilities: This lithograph was lost or destroyed at some early date. Mrs. Jackson saw a generic portrait of a young woman and mistakenly assumed it was of Mrs. Clemm's daughter. Possibly, the portrait is still extant and simply has yet to be identified as Virginia. Finally, and most probably, Mrs. Jackson simply made that detail up. (That would be entirely typical of the newspaper stories of the day.)

6. A Glimpse of Poe in 1845

The May 1, 1895 issue of the Boston Globe carried a letter from a George Barron, who claimed to have been a fellow-boarder with the Poe family ("on Greenwich St., near the Battery") in the early half of 1845. I have never seen his brief reminiscences reprinted, so I quote them here. Barron described Poe as "particularly kind and attentive" to Virginia and Mrs. Clemm, "and they all seemed much devoted to each other."

"From what I saw of this remarkable man at that time, his kind attentions to his wife and mother-in-law, and his natural politeness to his fellow-boarders sitting near him at the table, I was sure he was at heart a true gentleman, notwithstanding what his detractors may have then or since said of him. While he was not a communicative man, but rather reticent and reserved in his manner, yet he was always courteous in responding to those who addressed him. He was always neatly and well dressed when I saw him, although I had the impression he was suffering somewhat from poverty at that time."

Barron's only specific anecdote regarding Poe was about the poet giving him and some of the other boarders complimentary passes to a lecture he was giving, only to have it cancelled due to bad weather, "to the great disappointment of those of us who were present." (The April 18, 1845 issue of the New York Evening Mirror noted that Poe was scheduled to lecture the previous evening, but was forced to postpone "in consequence of the inclemency of the weather.")

7. All You Need to Know About Sarah Helen Whitman

In 1874, she wrote John H. Ingram that she had never seen a ghost, "though I once saw a beautiful luminous hand that wrote for me three initial letters, which I still preserve & look upon with awe & wonder!"

8. Stop the Internet, I Want to Get Off

Finally, let me address a few of the utterly idiotic and equally indestructible Poe Myths I've seen floating around online:

A. No, Poe was not kicked out of West Point for showing up for drill stark naked. Sorry, flashers.

B. No, Poe was not an atheist. A widely-circulated quote attributed to him, that "all religion is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry," is apocryphal. It originated from a justifiably obscure 1901 biography by a noisy crackpot named John Alexander Joyce, which is full of outlandish and clearly fictional statements. (Of especial note is his chapter claiming that "The Raven" was stolen from an 1809 poem called "The Parrot"--a work which never actually existed outside of Mr. Joyce's fevered mind.) Joyce claimed to have received this quote from a "Mr. William Barton, who was a typo and foreman on the 'Broadway Journal' when Poe was editor of the paper." I have not found any other indication this Barton even existed, and there is absolutely no reason to take this as evidence of Poe's spiritual beliefs. His views were unquestionably unorthodox, but I dare anyone to read "Eureka," "The Island of the Fay," "Mesmeric Revelation," "The Poetic Principle"--to make it short, just about anything he ever wrote--and still say he was an atheist.

C. No, as far as we know, Poe did not have any sort of connection to "Barnaby's Castle" in Providence, Rhode Island. However, judging by the keyword searches used to find this blog, a puzzling number of people seem to think he did, which makes me suspect that an overimaginative tour guide is lurking somewhere in the background.

D. No, Poe did not die of poison on a park bench, he never had a pet raccoon, he never wore a goatee, and Sarah Elmira Shelton was no Alice Eve. Thanks a bunch, Cusack.

E. I shall close with one sentence I never thought I'd ever have to write: No, Elizabeth Poe was not pecked to death by crows. Please, people. You're beginning to depress me.

The Raven Meets the Reverend

No roundup of critical opinion regarding the new John Cusack stinkbomb "The Raven" would be complete without having Rufus Wilmot Griswold himself weigh in on the matter. As you can imagine, the movie just killed him.

"I spent eleven dollars and nearly two hours of my afterlife for the privilege of sitting in stunned silence amongst fewer than three dozen other movie-goers, all of whose enjoyment of the movie was at first spoilt by some creep hurling obscenities at the on-screen Poe… Until at length the usher told me to quiet down or I would be escorted out of the theater."

"I’ve no complaint regarding the film’s portrayal of Poe as a drunk, a drug addict, a madman & a litterbug; I am in fact pleased to see that my posthumous characterization of the Poet Inebriate is alive and well!"

I say no more. Just head on over to the Reverend's place (enemy territory though it may be) and enjoy reading a truly fine tomahawking. Much as it goes against my principles to give this particular Devil his due, I can now say that "The Raven" has finally been given the critical respect it deserves.

A footnote. [Mild spoiler alert--as if I could spoil this thing more than the filmmakers already have.] Regarding the "dramatic climax" of this movie: Does anyone remember how a novel, which later became a film, called "The Vanishing," ended? It's obvious the writers of "The Raven" remember it very well, except that they made a complete botch of it. The bloody idiots can't even steal very well.

World of Poe Goes Hollywood, and Heartily Regrets It

"...too purely imbecile to merit an extended critique...one of a class of absurdities with an inundation of which our country is grievously threatened..."
- Edgar Allan Poe, review of "Paul Ulric," Southern Literary Messenger, February 1837

"The fact is, the drama is not now supported for the sole reason that it does not deserve support...The common sense, even of the mob, can no longer be affronted, night after night, with impunity...if the playwright, we say, will persist in perpetrating these atrocities, and a hundred infinitely worse...if he will do this, and will not do anything else to the end of Time--what right has he, we demand, to look any honest man in the face and talk to him about what he calls 'the decline of the drama?'"
- Edgar Allan Poe, "Does the Drama of the Day Deserve Support?" Weekly Mirror, January 18, 1845

Quoth the Raven, "I'm calling my lawyer."

Something of a sense of professional duty compelled me to waste time and money on John Cusack's "The Raven." From what I had seen and heard of the movie, I wasn't expecting much, and it did not disappoint me in that regard. The premise--Poe plays detective to hunt down a serial killer who uses murder methods based on his stories--is one that has for years been an overused staple of crime fiction (not to mention a mercifully defunct TV pilot,) and the filmmakers did not make the slightest effort to improve the tired concept. "The Raven"--the title says it all about the film's lack of imagination--is simply a typical slasher flick with Poe's name pasted on as a quickie marketing tool.

Cusack, painfully miscast and hammy though he may be, is not the worst thing in this movie, (that honor goes to Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare's sorry excuse for a script,) but he's not Poe, either. His character (or, rather, caricature) does not have the slightest resemblance--physically, emotionally, or historically--to the actual man, although in a movie this stupid that's almost inevitable. Perhaps I take such things too much to heart, but seeing someone who was universally described--even by his enemies--as a quietly charming, dignified, refined, and courteous gentleman portrayed as an arrogant, childishly egomaniacal, rude smartass is deeply offensive.

Alice Eve, who plays his (entirely fictional) love interest, has some charm, and might have made a decent Virginia Clemm in another, better movie--despite being one of those actors who looks vaguely uncomfortable in period pieces. (Or perhaps her unease was due to the fact that she and Cusack made such a ludicrous couple. The writers could not have created a more unconvincing romance if they had paired Poe off with Rufus Griswold...the latter, incidentally, instead meets a bloodier fate in this film.)

Another source of irritation is that the film simply could not decide what it wanted to be. It was too campy and illogical to be taken seriously, and too intellectually pretentious to be any fun. And the true source of horror in this thing is the dialogue.

Not long ago, a literary agent told me, "Everybody in Hollywood has a Poe screenplay they're trying to sell." (This particular agent had three.) If that is the case, it is a marvel that with so many scripts to choose from, this silly mess is what finally gets produced. (And when this film is--as I predict--quickly hooted out of theaters, that will probably discourage the development of other, and possibly worthier, Poe-related projects.)

If you enjoy seeing people dispatched into eternity in various extremely gruesome ways, you might like "The Raven." There really is nothing more to be said about this production. (Although, to be fair, I did get a few moments of entertainment for my money--when Cusack-as-Poe went into his Dirty Harry impersonation and started waving a pistol around I fell into uncontrollable giggling fits.)

Otherwise, this tired, unpleasant film so bored me I could not even work up any real animosity. (It is not even necessary to include "spoiler alerts" for any review of the film, as it features the most idiotic denouement in recent memory. There is absolutely no challenge in guessing the murderer's identity, and what is more important, you simply don't care.) "The Raven" failed to even reach a level of "Mommie Dearest"-style enjoyable epic awfulness. It was just there, a perfect example of the generic, immediately forgettable, two-hour style-over-substance time-suckers that the film industry churns out with such monotonous regularity.

Look, gang. Do us all a great favor. Instead of putting more money into the pockets of everyone responsible for the half-witted exploitation of a dead genius, watch something like the following video instead. This is Poe:

Psyche, uplifting her finger, said...

"...This blog is up for an award? What the hell?"

Yes, strange though it may seem. One of my favorite people of the interwebs, Pauline, that Friend of Poe and nautical historian extraordinaire, has included me in her list of nominations for the Very Inspiring Blogger award. I was, naturally, quite surprised by this, as I am not known for inspiring much of anything, except perhaps calls to the police. Needless to say, however, I am humbly flattered and grateful.

With the nomination goes a certain amount of responsibility. It seems that I am to not only give all of you seven facts about myself, but to nominate seven other bloggers for the honor. I must say, I find the latter duty daunting, in view of all the fine blogs out there, and the former frankly appalling. Pauline, old girl, you don't know what you're letting my readers in for with that one.

Well, a deal's a deal. Here are--in no particular order--seven details about yours truly:

1. This may come as a great surprise, but I'm a really big fan of Edgar Allan Poe.

2. My mother was a psychiatric RN and my father a Hell's Angel. Yes, I know. It explains a lot.

3. I can't stand avocados. And mushrooms. And eggs. In other words, to me, Hell is an omelet.

4. I spend a disgraceful amount of time at the racetrack, where I have somehow become a well-known figure around the local circuit. Can't think why. In my defense, however, I plow all of my ill-gotten gains into donations to the many deserving thoroughbred rescue/adoption/retirement organizations connected to the sport, such as Old Friends, Tranquility Farm, United Pegasus, Friends of Ferdinand, and too many others to list here. They all do great work, and are sadly in need of donations. (Hint, hint...)

5. I consider the four main food groups to be red wine, coffee, cheese, and Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate With Almonds bars.

6. When I was three, one of my aunts was studying "Macbeth" in college. I was a very curious child--in every sense of the word--so I read it along with her. I became enamored with the scene where the witches are casting their spells ("Double, double toil, and trouble/Fire burn, and caldron bubble/Filet of a fenny snake/In the caldron boil and bake...") I wound up memorizing that whole passage, and for quite some time afterwards, I'd recite it at unexpected moments. It was, I am told, quite startling to people who didn't know me.

7. The only actor I've ever really swooned over is Lane Davies, who was on a quite nutty but often entertaining soap opera called "Santa Barbara" in the mid-'80s. That was the one soap I ever watched in my life, simply because I was so mad for the guy. I stopped watching in 1986, however, after they got rid of my favorite actress on the show, his onscreen love interest (a giant letter "C" killed her character--no, really) and they paired him up with an actress named Nancy Grahn whom I just loathed. The show, I am told, really went downhill soon after that point and it was eventually cancelled. Serves 'em right.

Well, thankfully, so much for My Back Pages. On to the nominations! It was quite difficult for me to narrow it down to seven, so I decided to concentrate on blogs or bloggers that have some sort of a Poe connection. I settled on the following, with my apologies to everyone I was forced to omit:

1. Edward II. Kathryn Warner's excellent blog deals with a completely different era, but her ongoing efforts to present the truth about this controversial king reflect what I have been attempting here. She has--only in a far more erudite and impressive style than anything I've done--shown the world the truth of Henry Ford's words, "History is the bunk."

2. Kristi P. Schoonover. Staunch Friend of Poe, and a fine writer.

3. Maria, aka @__Nevermore__. OK, I cheated with this one. She, unfortunately, does not have a blog, but her Twitter account is a must-follow for Poe fans. The Ninja Death Rays she sends out to anyone who does our Edgar wrong make me look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Great stuff.

4. The Midnight Society. A walk on the weird side of Richmond, Virginia. What could be more Poe?

5. The Sump Plug. For anyone following the Lenore Hart Wars, this post alone was an instant classic. As I explained in an earlier post, Archie Valparaiso not only decimated any claim Hart had to credibility, but he simultaneously demolished the legend--which I had long questioned--of Poe and Virginia's alleged honeymoon trip to Petersburg. For a Poe geek, it doesn't get much cooler than that.

6. Lifetime Reading Plan. Poe fan. Reader. Knitter. Great blog for anyone with a passion for books.

7. Last, but certainly not least, is none other than Rufus W. Griswold. "What?" I can almost hear you saying. "You're honoring your Twitter Nemesis, that infamous scoundrel, that sworn foe of all things Poe? How can that be, Undine?"

I'll tell you. I am bestowing this tribute to the Reverend for one very good reason. I can't wait to see what he'll do with it.

Well. Many thanks, once again, to Pauline, even though I suspect this post has tempted her to take the nomination back pronto. Later this morning, I will post my review of the new movie "The Raven," which I saw last evening. In the meantime, I'll sum up the experience in two words: Hoo. Boy.

Why It Was Never a Good Idea to Send Poe Hate Mail

Today, we look back fondly on a minor Poe feud that took place this week in 1845. Obscure an incident as it may be, I felt it was still worthy of remembrance.

It all started so amicably. In early April, Poe, in his role as drama critic for the "Broadway Journal," wrote to William Dinneford, the manager of New York's Palmo's Opera House, asking for the usual free admission granted to journalists. Poe indicated that he wished to see Dinneford's upcoming production of Sophocles' "Antigone," and was anxious to do it "Justice."

Poe's subsequent review of the play was utterly withering. In the April 12 issue of the "Journal," he wrote: "The idea of reproducing a Greek play before a modern audience is the idea of a pedant and nothing beyond...Many persons will be curious to understand the mode in which the Greeks wrote dramas and performed them--but, alas! no person should go to Palmo's for such understanding." He added, "We are really ashamed of wasting so much space in commenting on such a piece of folly."


Dinneford was not pleased. On April 15, he sent Poe an indignant letter focusing on his outrage that Poe had been able to savage his play gratis.

"SIR!" he spat, "In your note of the 2d inst. you request of me the favor of being placed on the free list of this theatre, because (as your letter says) you were anxious 'to do Justice to Antigone on its representation.' Your name was accordingly placed on the free list. Your Critique has appeared, in the Broadway Journal, characterized, much more by ill nature and an illiberal spirit, than by fair and candid, or even just criticism.

In justice therefore to MYSELF, I have withdrawn your name from the free list. I am always prepared to submit; as a catererer [sic] for public amusement, to any just remarks, though they may be severe, but I do not feel MYSELF called upon to offer facilities to any one, to do me injury by animadversions evidently marked by ill feeling. I am SIR!

With very great respect,

Your most obt servt W. DINNEFORD.
To Edgar Poe, Esq., &c. &c. &c., Author of THE RAVEN.
New York, Apl. 15, 1845. No. 8 Astor House"

Poe's response was no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Poe. The April 19 “Journal” carried the headline “Achilles' Wrath.” Below it, Poe commented, "At 'No. 8 Astor House,' in a style (no doubt) of luxurious elegance and ease, resides a gentleman and a scholar, who (without paying his postage) has forwarded us a note, (through the Despatch Post,) signing it either Mr. W. Dinneford, or Mr. P. or Mr. Q. Dinneford--for he writes a shockingly bad hand, and we are unable to make out all his capitals with precision. It is not always the best scribe, however, physically considered, who is capable of inditing the most agreeable note--as the note of Mr. Dinneford will show. Here it is."

Poe then reproduced Dinneford's letter. He went on to say, "We are not wrong (are we?) in conceiving that Mr. Dinneford is in a passion. We are not accustomed to compositions of precisely this character--(that is to say, notes written in large capitals with admiration notes for commas--the whole varied occasionally with lower case)--but still, we think ourselves justified in imagining that Mr. Dinneford was in a passion when he sent us this note from his suite of boudoirs at the Astor House. In fact, we fancy that we can trace the gradations of his wrath in the number and impressiveness of his underscoring. The SIRS!! for example, are exceedingly bitter, and in THE RAVEN, which has five black lines beneath it, each one blacker than the preceding, we can only consider ourselves as devoted to the Infernal Gods."

"Mr. Dinneford is in a passion then--but what about? We had been given to understand, that it was usual in New York, among editors newly established, to apply (by note) for the customary free admission to the theatres. The custom is a wretched one, we grant, but since it was a custom, we were weak enough, in this instance, to be guided by it. We made our note to this Dinneford as brief and as explicit as possible--for we felt that the task was a dirty one. We stated distinctly that we wished to be placed on his free list for the purpose of 'doing justice to Antigone'--just as he says himself. To this note the inhabitant of No. 8 Astor House condescended to make no reply. Supposing that the man 'knew no better,' and pitying his ignorance from the bottom of our hearts, we proceeded to the theatre on its opening night, in the full certainty of at least finding our name on the free list. It was not there. And the blatherskite who could behave in so indecent a manner, as to fail first in answering our note, and secondly in paying attention to the request it contained, has the audacity to find fault with us because we dared to express an unbiased opinion of his stupidity--that is to say, of the stupidity of a play gotten up by himself, Mr. Dinneford."

"...We are not wasting words on this Quinneford[sic]--it is the public to whom we speak--to the editorial corps in especial. We wish to call their attention to the peculiar character of the conditions which managers such as this have the impudence to avow, as attached to the privilege of the free list. No puff no privilege, is the contract. That is to say, an editor, when admitted to the theatre, is to be understood as leaving his conscience in the street. He is admitted not to judge--not to criticise--but to adulate..."

"We have spoken, altogether, of 'such managers' as Quinneford--but fortunately such managers are few. There is certainly not in New York, at the present moment, any other member of the theatrical profession, who either would have behaved with the gross discourtesy of this gentleman, or who, in inditing the preposterous letter published above, could have proved himself, personally, so successful a 'caterer for the public amusement.'"

Poe dismissed the hapless manager with, "We told him that we meant to do him justice--and we did it."

Episodes such as this make me wish longingly that Poe was around today to write a blog. What he'd do with trolls would be a perfect joy to behold.

(P.S. Poe's fellow critics and New York audiences all agreed with his opinion of Dinneford's "Antigone." The play closed after barely two weeks.)


Images via Wikipedia, NYPL.

Book Review: Evermore, by Harry Lee Poe

"Many people know of Edgar Allan Poe, but almost everything that people know of him is wrong."
-Harry Lee Poe

Whenever I buy a new book about Poe, I usually wind up feeling like my pocket was just picked. However, the most recent purchase, “Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe,” was a pleasant surprise. It is the most well-intentioned book about Poe to appear in some time, and certainly one of the most original. This attempt to examine “Poe’s life and work from a philosophical and theological perspective” is literary criticism, not biography, but it provides a fine tool for understanding the famously enigmatic writer on both a personal and professional level.

Following a brief overview of Poe's life, the book is divided into five sections: “Suffering,” “Beauty,” “Love,” “Justice,” and “Universe.” Harry Lee Poe (a descendant of Edgar’s cousin William) describes how each of these subjects figured in Poe’s writings, and ties them all together to show the remarkable thematic consistency of Poe’s work, and how even his earliest poems and tales were natural stepping-stones to “Eureka,” that amazing “intersection of science and imagination.” As HLP noted, “Poe had always understood that his body of work had a unity that could only be understood in terms of the whole.” Poe’s unique virtuosity in so many stylistic forms (including ones that had yet to be formally recognized, such as science fiction) had the ironic effect of pigeonholing him. Modern-day readers think of him merely as a “horror writer” or the “father of the modern detective story,” or the author of the one poem everybody knows, “The Raven.” While virtually everyone acknowledges Poe's mastery of one literary genre or another, his mastery of them all is too often overlooked.

“The history of criticism of Poe,” HLP writes, “is the history of individuals who have imposed their agendas on the body of Poe’s work.” Indeed. HLP emphatically refutes the pernicious habit of interpreting Poe’s writings as autobiography (although even he occasionally falls into this seemingly irresistible trap.) Throughout the book, he does a good job of conveying the idealism, nobility, and spirituality that permeates Poe’s writings, but his criticism is most important towards the end, when he discusses “Eureka,” which he recognizes as the logical culmination of Poe’s entire body of work. HLP contributes a concise analysis of that wild masterpiece which alone makes the book worthwhile.

Unlike most critics of “Eureka,” he gives as much attention to Poe’s philosophy as his science. In particular, he addresses Poe’s efforts to explain what may be mankind’s oldest and most frustrating mystery: The paradox of how a world containing such wonder and beauty can also spawn so much evil and suffering. Poe saw matter as “Spirit Individualized,” a mere temporary “means to an end,” a method of creating conscious intelligence. The material universe would eventually collapse in on itself, leaving God to “remain all in all.” However, this expand-and-collapse cycle could be carried on forever, with an infinite number of universes being born and then going into nothingness “at every throb of the Heart Divine.” (Cf. “The Island of the Fay.”)

He went on to state that “no soul is inferior to another.” As the Creator of matter “now exists solely in the diffused Matter and Spirit of the Universe” we are all, in effect, our own God--“infinite individualizations of Himself.” This process of multiplication increased God’s happiness, but magnified the Creator's pain as well. Poe saw God as the author of the ultimate novel. "The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of God.” Pain is an unavoidable, even necessary, part of the plot, but Poe also believed in a high form of ultimate justice that would only be understood when the story of the Universe was complete. As he said earlier in “Mesmeric Revelation,” “pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible, is possible in the organic…All things are either good or bad by comparison. A sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the contrast of pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be; thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.”

Poe restated that concept even more forcefully in “Eureka”: “In this view, and in this view alone, we comprehend the riddles of Divine Injustice—of Inexorable Fate. In this view alone the existence of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more—it becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow which we ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our own purposes—with a view—if even with a futile view—to the extension of our own Joy.”

However, I disagree with HLP’s impression that Poe’s “vision of God remains somehow incompatible” with his “knowledge of Love and Justice.” HLP shares the common assumption that Poe saw the ultimate “annihilation” of the individual soul as a negative prospect, but that is hardly how I interpret Poe’s meaning. “Eureka” is essentially a deeply positive, even joyful work, with the ultimate end of this physical universe seen as not just a necessity for the “plot,” but a final blessing. Poe believed our souls will never actually die—they will just return to their beginnings as one with God. His postscript to “Eureka” tells us, “The pain of the consideration that we shall lose our individual identity, ceases at once when we further reflect that the process, as above described, is neither more nor less than that of the absorption, by each individual intelligence, of all other intelligences (that is, of the Universe) into its own. That God may be all in all, each must become God.”

If that statement doesn’t exemplify Love and Justice, what does?

The book has a few odd flaws and factual errors, mostly in the more biographical sections. For instance, HLP seems to assume (although his wording is rather vague) that all correspondence between Poe and Charles Dickens has disappeared. In truth, there are three letters by Dickens to Poe extant.

HLP also states that Hiram Fuller claimed Poe was a forger who was carrying on an “immoral” relationship with Frances Osgood. Fuller published a column where Thomas Dunn English charged Poe with forgery, but he himself was not responsible for the libel. There is no evidence that Fuller—or any other contemporaries, for that matter—accused Poe and Mrs. Osgood (whose middle name, by the way, was “Sargent,” not “Sergeant”) of any impropriety.

Although I applaud any mockery of “Poe’s Mary,” HLP fell into the common mistake of calling Mary Starr “Mary Devereaux.” And his suggestion that Poe was the model for “David Copperfield,” strikes me as, to say the least, eccentric. Finally, while I agree that Poe’s existence was not the unrelieved Gothic nightmare of popular imagination, I would still hesitate to say that “On the whole, Poe’s life could be called happy.” (In particular, I believe HLP gives an overly sunny view of Poe's circumstances and state of mind in 1848-49. He also possibly reads too much into the allegations that Poe joined the Sons of Temperance shortly before his death.)

However, these are examples of relatively minor drawbacks to an otherwise admirable book. I am not normally a fan of elaborate literary interpretations—I belong to the school of “If you want to know what the book is about, read the book.” However, Poe has been so consistently misrepresented, and so much of his most significant work, such as “Eureka,” consistently ignored, that “Evermore” makes a necessary addition to the canon of Poe studies—a field littered with half-baked Freudianism, willful ignorance, and professorial narrow-mindedness. Although this is a scholarly work, it is written in a clear, unaffected style that is a refreshing change from the usual pompous academese found in books of this nature.

HLP also shows a gratifying recognition of the fact that Poe was not only a great writer, but a great man. The last few lines of “Evermore” note, “Poe discovered that the things that interested him (science, religion, and art) lay at the intersection of the rational, the empirical, and the imaginative. As he explored these matters, he found that Justice, Love, and Beauty pointed beyond themselves toward something eternal from whence they had come. In the midst of striving to be a poet and to raise the standard of American literature, he managed to affect the course of world literature and to provide a philosophy of art that film directors would follow without having any idea that it came from Poe. Yet such a public figure and popular icon remains a mystery.”

Read “Evermore"--or better yet, read Poe’s own writings in their entirety--and he will be far less baffling.

In Which Poe Becomes a Soap Star

On this day in 1845, the New York "Evening Mirror" ran an advertisement headlined "The Craven: by POH!" It is one of my favorite examples of how, mere weeks after the first publication of "The Raven," Poe and his bird of yore had already become what we would call pop culture icons. The ad read:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while with toil and care quite weary,
I was pondering on man's proneness to deceitfulness and guile,
Soon I fell into a seeming state 'twixt wakefulness and dreaming,
When my mind's eye saw a scheming fellow counterfeiting soap--
Yes! counterfeiting GOURAUD'S matchless Medicated Soap;
Twisting sand into a rope!

Of all the littlenesses that weak human nature presses
Surely no disgrace like this is noted on the page of yore;
There could be no concealing, while this craven thus was stealing,
That he knew no kindly feeling, but disgraced the form he wore;
And it wrung my bosom's core!

The heart of this same craven was as black as any raven,
Though nicely shorn and shaven was the hair and phiz he wore;
As cold he seemed, and callous, as a sculptured bust, of Pallas--
And his intellect was dull as the boards upon my floor,
Or the bricks above my door!

I said--"thou man of evil (I will not call thee devil,)
Get thee back into the darkness and the night's Plutonian shore!
By my fame thou hast a token, that the spells which thou hast spoken,
Are scattered all, and broken! Craven, wilt thou now give o'er,
And never counterfeit my Soap or Poudres any more?"
Quoth the craven--"Never more!"

Dr. F. FELIX GOURAUD, of 67 Walker street, again deems it necessary to caution the public against purchasing any imitations of his matchless Italian Medicated Soap, incomparable Poudres Subtiles and marvellous Grecian Hair Dye.

All one can say is, the mind reels at the thought of what the good doctor could have done with "Ulalume."


(Image via the delightful blog The Virtual Dime Museum, which contains in the archives a nifty account of Dr. Gouraud's very messy divorce, if you have a hankering--and who does not?--for Victorian-era bad company.)