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Science and Edgar Allan Poe's Pathway to Cosmic Truth

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Science and Edgar Allan Poe's Pathway to Cosmic Truth SCIENCE AND EDGAR ALLAN POE’S PATHWAY TO COSMIC TRUTH by Mo Li A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Middle Tennessee State University May 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Philip Edward Phillips, Chair Dr. Maria K. Bachman Dr. Harry Lee Poe I dedicate this study to my mother and grandmother. They taught me persistence and bravery. !ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must express my immense gratitude to Dr. Philip Edward Phillips for opening up Edgar Allan Poe’s starry worlds to me. Without Dr. Phillips’s generous guidance and inestimable patience, I could not have completed this study. I would also like to thank Dr. Maria K. Bachman and Dr. Harry Lee Poe. Their invaluable insights and suggestions led me to new discoveries in Poe. !iii ABSTRACT Poe’s early grievance in “Sonnet—To Science” (1829) against science’s epistemological authority transitioned into a lifelong journey of increasingly fruitful maneuvering. Poe’s engagement with science reached its apogee in Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848), his cosmological and aesthetic treatise published near the end of his life. While exalting intuition and poetic imagination as the pathway to Truth, Eureka builds upon, questions, and revises a wealth of scientific authorities and astronomical works. Many classic and recent studies, however, appreciate the poetic value but overlook or reject the scientific significance of the treatise. In contrast, some scholars assess Eureka by its response and contribution to specific theories and methods of nineteenth-century or contemporary science. Although some scholars have defended Eureka’s scientific achievements, they rarely investigate the role of science in Poe’s other works, especially his early or enigmatic ones. More importantly, only a few critical studies have attempted to examine the trajectory of Poe’s allegiance with science in his lifelong cosmological interests. This study scrutinizes a distinctive set of Poe’s works across his literary career to demonstrate how science, astronomy, and related fields, in particular, assisted and motivated Poe to seek the Truth and build a universe. The works analyzed include “Al Aaraaf” (1829), “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” (1835), the extensive endnote (1839) to the tale, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), “The Power of Words” (1845), and Eureka (1848). Poe incorporated numerous astronomical events, !iv discoveries, and theories, the most significant of which include Tycho Brahe’s supernova, lunar voyages, the United States Exploring Expedition, William Herschel’s and Pierre- Simon Laplace’s Nebular Hypothesis, Newton’s laws of gravity, and Kepler’s law of planetary orbits. Instead of dismissing these scientific references as springboards for poetic imagination, this study inspects these scientific texts and contexts more closely to uncover their epistemological role in Poe’s cosmos. The study argues that epistemological challenges and problems posed by scientific developments stimulated Poe to investigate the elusive nature of knowledge and develop his method of obtaining Truth. By contemplating the merits and limitations of science, Poe achieved his own fusion of science and poetic invention. Keywords: Edgar Allan Poe, cosmology, epistemology, astronomy, science, Eureka. !v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………………… viii INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER I: CLAIMING A HOME ON TYCHO’S STAR: “AL AARAAF” AND THE POETIC VISION AND VISIBILITY…………………………………………………. 23 In Search of a Higher Home …………………………………………………..30 The Trouble with Vision ………………………………………………………..33 Reclaiming the Night Sky ………………………………………………………35 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………51 CHAPTER II: “TO DROP ENIGMAS”: EPISTEMOLOGICAL UNCERTAINTY IN “HANS PFAALL”………………………………………………………………………53 Hans Pfaall’s Self-Revival and Self-Reinvention……………………………….62 Poe’s Self-Revival and Self-Reinvention………………………………………..72 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….77 CHAPTER III: “THAT WORD OF ALL WORDS”: THE PROBLEM OF KNOWING AND THE POWER OF WORDS IN THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM………………………………………………………………………………………80 Jeremiah N. Reynolds and the Power of Words………………………………….81 Reynolds-like Characters in Poe’s Pym………………………………………….88 The First Allegory of Knowing: Stumbling in the Dark on the Grampus ………90 !vi Page The Second Allegory of Knowing: Stumbling in the Dark of Tsalal……………96 Interlude, or the Third Allegory of Knowing: Stumbling in the Dark of Pym …102 The Second Allegory Continued: The Physical Power of Words and the Paradox of Unity and Difference………………………………………………………..105 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..117 CHAPTER IV: THE BIPARTITE SOUL OF THE SCIENTIST-POET: “THE POWER OF WORDS” AND THE MYSTERY OF CREATION………………………………..120 The Astronomer’s Eye………………………………………………………….127 A Flight into the Nebular Hypothesis…………………………………………..130 The Mathematician’s Mind and the Lab of Organic Creation………………….138 The Poet’s Loss…………………………………………………………………143 Conclusion……..……………………………………………………………….146 CHAPTER V: “A RAPID WHIRLING” ON THE TOP OF ÆTNA: POE’S METHODS OF INCORPORATING SCIENTIFIC SOURCES IN EUREKA………………………148 Literature Review of Eureka as a Scientific Treatise…………..……………….154 Rhetorical and Stylistic Analysis of Poe’s Incorporation of Scientific Sources..162 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….. 196 EPILOGUE……………………………………………………………………………. 200 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….. 208 !vii ABBREVIATIONS Collected Letters [O] Ostrom, John Ward, Burton R. Pollin, and Jeffrey A. Savoye, eds., The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe (two volumes) Levine [L] Levine, Stuart and Susan F. Levine, eds., Eureka: A Prose Poem Mabbott [M] Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Vol. 1, Poems; Vols. 2-3, Tales and Sketches Poe Log [PL] Thomas, Dwight and David K. Jackson, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849 Pollin [P] Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Vol. 1, The Imaginary Voyages; Vol. 3, Writings in the Broadway Journal: Nonfictional Prose—Part I: Text Thompson [ER] Thompson, G. R., ed., Essays and Reviews All references to these texts will be cited parenthetically in the body of the study, using these abbreviations above. All other references will be cited in the footnotes. !viii !1 INTRODUCTION SCIENCE! meet daughter of old Time thou art Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes! Why prey’st thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture! whose wings are dull realities! How should he love thee — or how deem thee wise Who woulds’t not leave him, in his wandering, To seek for treasure in the jewell’d skies Albeit, he soar with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragg’d Diana from her car, And driv’n the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? The gentle Naiad from her fountain-flood? The elfin from the green grass? and from me The summer dream beneath the shrubbery? (Poe, “Sonnet—To Science [untitled])1 Although Edgar Allan Poe’s first poetry collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, had been published two years earlier, this version of “Sonnet—To Science” (1829), !1. This is the very first version of “Sonnet—To Science,” untitled and published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems (Baltimore: Hatch & Dunning, 1829), 11, Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, http:// www.eapoe.org/works/poems/sciencea.htm. Poe would improve the imagery and musical quality of the poem tremendously in his later revision. For instance, the last line would read: “The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree” (M 1:91). !2 untitled at the time, is arguably the poet’s most memorable early work. The speaker of the poem indicts science as the “Vulture” (line 4) who ruthlessly preys on “the poet’s heart” (line 3). Science pesters the poet when he wishes to “seek for treasure” (line 7) in the starry night sky. When the poet sets out to enjoy his “summer dream” (line 14) in nature, he finds the forest, springs, and meadow tenantless; science has violently expelled the creatures of classical mythology from their idyllic, mystic dwellings. The poet laments that he can neither love nor admire someone whose “peering eyes” (line 2) rob his poetic vision and whose aggressive hands leave him friendless and dreamless. Perhaps, to many readers, Poe’s first major poetic statement is one of protest, lament, and longing in a world in which new views violently disrupt and displace the familiar landscape. This voice of protest, lament, and longing, in fact, recalls the turmoil in Poe’s life, leading up to the composition of the poem. As his estrangement with John Allan,2 his foster father, was exacerbated, Poe began to grapple with the notion of home with a mixture of anguish, disdain, and longing. As his attempt to win back Allan’s affection failed, Poe vowed to attain success and fame. This unrest and longing for home !2. Soon after their mother’s death on December 8, 1811, the orphaned three-year-old Edgar Poe and two- year-old Rosalie Poe were taken in respectively by the Allans and the Mackenzies. Rosalie Poe was legally adopted by the Mackenzies, but Edgar Poe was never adopted by the Allans. While Poe’s relationship with Frances Allan, his foster mother, remained mutually devoted, his relationship with John Allan, the foster father, began to witness more and more disagreements as Poe grew older. During Poe’s early years, John Allan provided his foster son with the comfort and education befitting a young Southern gentleman. He even took the young Poe with him during a five-year business trip in England. However, as a new college student at the University of Virginia, Poe found his financial and social status vulnerable when John Allan refused to offer sufficient funds to cover the necessary college expenses. In a desperate attempt to provide for himself, Poe resolved to gambling, only to find himself in a large amount of debt. In March 1827, during a visit to the Allan house, Poe fought bitterly with his foster father after discovering that the latter refused to pay for the gambling debts. The fights resulted in Poe storming out of the Allan house and traveling to Boston. After living in destitution for months, Poe joined the U.S.
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