Indefinite Pleasures and Parables of Art: An Investigation of the Aesthetics of Edgar Allan Poe
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Indefinite Pleasures and Parables of Art:
An Investigation of the Aesthetics of Edgar Allan Poe
By Jennifer J. Thomson
A Thesis in the Field of English for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
Harvard University
May 2018
Copyright 2018 Jennifer J. Thomson
Abstract
This investigation examines the origins and development of Edgar Allan Poe’s aesthetic theory throughout his body of work. It employs a tripartite approach commencing with the consideration of relevant biographical context, then proceeds with a detailed analysis of a selection of Poe’s writing on composition and craft: “Letter to B—,” “Hawthorne’s Twice-Told
Tales,” “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle,” and “The Philosophy of
Furniture.” Finally, it applies this information to the analysis of selected works of Poe’s short fiction: “The Assignation,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Oval Portrait,” “The
Domain of Arnheim,” and “Landor’s Cottage.” The examination concludes that Poe’s philosophy of art and his metaphysics are linked; therefore, his aesthetic system bears more analytical weight in the study of his fiction than was previously allowed. By providing a holistic account of Poe’s theories of art and their metaphysical basis, new avenues of interpretation become available and a new theme emerges: the selected become parables about the nature of art.
Dedication
To my grandmother Norma, who believed in me;
my husband Matthew, who inspired me;
and to Dean Shinagel, who encouraged me.
iv Table of Contents
Dedication...... iv
Chapter I. Introduction...... 1
A Tale of Three Poes...... 3
The Formalist Poet...... 7
The Southern Gentleman...... 9
The Tomahawk Man...... 12
Conclusion...... 16
Chapter II. The Aesthetic Theory...... 18
“Letter to B—”...... 19
“Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales” ...... 26
“The Philosophy of Composition” ...... 31
“The Poetic Principle” ...... 36
“The Philosophy of Furniture” ...... 41
Conclusion...... 46
Chapter III. The Aesthetic Theory Applied to the Analysis of Poe’s Fiction...... 48
“The Assignation” ...... 49
“The Fall of the House of Usher” ...... 56
“The Oval Portrait” ...... 59
“The Domain of Arnheim” ...... 62
“Landor’s Cottage” ...... 68
IV. Conclusion...... 73
v Bibliography...... 76
vi
Chapter I.
Introduction
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term ‘Art,’” Poe muses in his published marginalia for The Southern Literary Messenger, “I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the
Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’” To this he appends, “The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‘Artist’”
(Marginalia 243, 164). This reflection appears in publication in 1849, a few short months before his death, and after the publication of his controversial lecture, Eureka—the culmination of a lifetime spent in pursuit of a unified aesthetic theory. By the 19th century, Beauty, Passion, and
Truth had become Transcendentalist buzzwords. Where Poe’s contemporaries often conflated these terms, Poe made calculated distinctions. In the most general terms, Poe believed that
Beauty belonged to the soul; Truth, to the intellect; Passion, to the heart; and that to each of these values belonged a corresponding art or literary form for which their expression was best suited.
Poetry, by virtue of its rhythmic musicality, is uniquely suited to the expression of Beauty; prose, by virtue of its definitiveness, is best representative of Truth and associated Passion. Poe organizes these values along a hierarchy, placing Beauty, poetry, and the needs of the soul at its apex. A truly skilled artist, Poe insisted, would possess an intuitive awareness of how to operate within this hierarchy to elicit the fullest expression of each value by embracing its appropriate medium. Despite being so neatly methodical, a meaningful understanding of Poe’s aesthetic theory has always been elusive and it remains a challenge to scholarship, in part because it relies so heavily on abstract concepts.
1 When examining Poe’s aesthetics and how it comes to bear on his writing, scholars typically have taken it in one of two directions: they have either held it in a rigidly literal and categorical sense or have treated it as a joke had at the expense of Transcendentalists. Poe’s attempts at philosophizing often tend to be regarded as satirical. The results of applying either of these conclusions to the task of interpreting Poe’s poetry and fiction have led to equal parts contradiction and frustration, and the need either to rationalize the contradiction or simply dismiss it. Many are content to believe that the problem arising between Poe’s philosophy and what is ostensibly flawed execution throughout his work is the result of faulty reasoning. I submit that the problem has arisen due to an incomplete understanding of Poe’s fundamental aesthetic concepts. While collections have been published that focus on the composition essays, and further studies have focused on individual essays, what is conspicuously absent is a comprehensive effort to dissect the theory in its entirety, breaking down its concepts, and examining how they are developed and expanded upon across the entire body of Poe’s work.
Only then can we make a determination if the theory is sustainable. Through this examination, it is my hope to inject some fresh insight into this area of criticism toward a better understanding of
Poe as a writer, Poe as a thinker, and Poe as a man.
My examination will be conducted in three parts. First, I will establish a biographical context to explore the origins of his aesthetics and the circumstances that led to their occupying a central place in his life. In the second part, I will commence the deconstruction of “Letter to B-,”
“Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales,” “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle,” and
“The Philosophy of Furniture,” to get a more complete understanding of Poe’s aesthetic theory, how it functions, and what it hopes to achieve. In the final part, I will apply these conclusions to the analysis of Poe’s fictional works: “The Assignation,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The
2 Oval Portrait,” “The Domain of Arnheim,” and “Landor’s Cottage,” following the recurrence of his aesthetic theme and the ideas they represent. By closely engaging these works, I hope to demonstrate how Poe’s aesthetic system functions in a tripartite manner: in a literal sense, by providing a groundwork of rules for the production and criticism of art; in a metaphysical sense, by exploring the purpose of art and its connection to the soul; and in a true artistic, meta sense, by becoming the subject which references itself toward the realization of the goal of conveying truth in a unique way. With these insights, the tales previously mentioned take on a new dimension of significance. They become, in essence, parables of art.
A Tale of Three Poes
Much has been written on the subject of Edgar Allan Poe’s life: his birth to struggling actors in Boston and his subsequent fosterage by the prosperous Allan family; his childhood in
Richmond and his contentious relationship with his stepfather; his college experience in the experimental and newly-established University of Virginia and his brief career in the military and at West Point; his years employed in an editorial capacity for various publications along the
East coast; his development as a poet and writer of short fiction and his struggles to make it economically viable; his public quarrels with the New England literati; his marriage to the young
Virginia Clemm and her untimely loss; and his mysterious and ill-fated demise. A significant portion of what we know about the author originated with Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an unsuccessful Baptist minister who later turned to turned to editing (Quinn 350) and who maintained an adversarial relationship with Poe. Following Poe’s death, Griswold published several anthologies of the author’s work along with some distorted and outright fraudulent
3 correspondence and biographical material.1 Ironically, by unintentionally appealing to readers’ enjoyment of scandal, this had the unintended result of increasing Poe’s audience and subsequently, his influence. Rather than destroy the author’s legacy, each iteration of the
Griswoldian construct strengthened the power of the myth and the mystique that would eventually eclipse so much of Edgar Allan Poe’s life and work. While we may credit Griswold’s deviousness for the preservation and popularity of Poe’s work, the power of that myth has, for better or worse, shaped a significant part of early analytical work. The obsessive focus on Poe’s personality flaws has oftentimes obfuscated historical fact and led to dubious claims about the diagnostic significance of his poems and tales. It allowed us to entertain the inaccurate notion that Poe identified with his fictional madmen.
In an effort to better understand the author and his work, it is imperative that we take great care to differentiate between extant conceptions of Poe: the mythical Poe (the version of
Poe that was popularized by Griswold and seized upon by eager Freudian critics), and the factual or historical Poe (the version that was painstakingly chronicled by biographers such as Arthur
Hobson Quinn and Kenneth Silverman). There is another way we might examine Poe—a third way I refer to as the projected Poe. This refers to the public and professional image Poe aspired to create for himself. This perspective of the author deserves our consideration because it is the public face he sought to cultivate through diligence, which should hold a forward place in how we regard his published work. This third view of Poe deviates significantly from the mythical
Poe, and provides valuable insight into the factual Poe because it marries the biographical and psychological and moves us toward a more holistic understanding of Poe’s character. However, deriving this information is not straightforward; it presents itself through correspondence
1 See Quinn’s discussion on forged letters, pp. 444 – 450.
4 (allowing for differences in tone and temperament between his professional and his personal missives); it requires that we allow him the benefit of the doubt with regard to his essays and professional remarks; and it necessitates reconsideration of the ideas Poe expounds in his criticisms of other writers. Utilizing the insights gathered from the listed sources, I believe that we can access this third Poe, which will invariably enrich our understanding of his aesthetics.
There are few who wouldn’t be passingly familiar with the Griswoldian Poe mythos. It is the Poe we see so often displayed on the fronts of tee-shirts and lunchboxes—That dark, haggard man, both moody and melodramatic; that Poe who overindulged in drink and laudanum and allowed his vices and his artistic jealousies to overwhelm his good sense; that Poe who was cast into darkness by the passing of his young wife; that melancholy, brooding poet; that “Ultima
Thule” Poe.2 That Poe, we know quite well; it is indelibly etched upon the collective conscious like a grotesque cartoon. Like all myths, it bears a modicum of truth, but that truth is often exaggerated while being cloaked in third-party projection.3 The historical Poe is not the drug- addled, morally-bankrupt, habitually-melancholic ghost story writer that Griswold intended us to believe. More accurately, Poe was shrewd, sharp, and erudite; a bold and analytical critic of an incipient American literature; a tireless and sometimes successful magazine editor who worked twelve-hour days at the publishing house only to return home in the evenings to labor assiduously at his own writing; a man who excelled in athletics and languages in his youth
2 The most iconic portrait of Poe is known as the “Ultima Thule” daguerreotype, which was taken in November 1848 shortly after a failed suicide attempt. The prevalence of this specific image, particularly after Poe’s death, contributed greatly to propagating Griswold’s biased image of the author. There are several other portraits and images of Poe in existence, some of which convey a more appropriately professional image. While these images are beyond the immediate scope of my paper, the stories behind these portraits can be found in Michael J. Deas’s book, The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe. 3 By projection, I generally refer to interpretive trends that imposed their values upon the author, rather than the reverse: From the Freudian analysts who clinically diagnosed, to the French school of criticism which took its cues from Baudelaire’s personal identification with Poe, to Hollywood directors who wanted to capitalize from the sensational power of the myth.
5 (Silverman 24), and enjoyed scientific topics and cryptograms well into adulthood; a genteel, antebellum satirist who valued his Southern identity—a Poe whose bouts of alcoholism were punctuated by stretches of eager sobriety and conscientious work. We began to see this picture of
Poe emerge from the shadow of the myth as trends in scholarship started moving away from
Freudian psychological analysis, supplanting those analytic works that rested on dubious biographical or psychological claims.
The conscientious re-centering of analytical work around the realities of Poe’s life, rather than spurious conclusions, opened the way toward understanding Poe on Poe’s terms—that is, the public personae Poe cultivated while he lived.4 This Poe was merciless in his pursuit of plagiarism (in a manner that sometimes hypocritically tried to divert attention from his own transgressions); a Poe that styled himself as a firebrand critic, poetry expert, taste-maker, and steward of American literary art; a magazine editor who simultaneously appealed to a mass audience while courting an intellectual elite; an impassioned critic of “Frogpondian”5
Transcendentalism despite his close proximity to it. This third approach to Poe is not without its drawbacks: Historians and scholars have observed that Poe’s words sometimes contradict fact, because Poe was not above manipulating the truth if it meant advancing his career, his agenda, and his art.6 Furthermore, his opinions of other authors and their work sometimes varied from one criticism to the next.7 This type of contradiction, when it is indicative of the development or organic progression of ideas, should not be held against Poe. Blatant falsehoods, on the other
4 This differs from reputation in that reputation relies on public opinion, whereas public personae rests on individual intentionality. 5 For more information, see Eric Carlson’s essay, “Poe’s Ten-Year Frogpondian War.” 6 Poe’s known falsehoods are fairly well-documented throughout Silverman’s biography, Mournful and Never- ending Remembrance. 7 I use Poe’s 1842 criticism of Hawthorne in this paper, but by 1847, Poe had a very different opinion of Hawthorne’s work.
6 hand, are not as easy to contend with because of the damage they inflict upon the author’s credibility—even if we might accept the reasons for those falsehoods. In effect, there exists a fourth Poe—the private Poe, that part of the author that we will simply never be able to access, that will forever elude us, but will always keep us coming back, enthralled by the mystery.
Putting these considerations aside, the ongoing effort to re-align what we believe about
Poe along an axis of what we actually know about Poe remains a worthwhile task when put to the interpretation of Poe’s work. I commence my examination by summarizing three significant aspects of Poe’s life that are frequently understated, ignored, or simply not given enough consideration, but are contextually significant when trying to understand him aesthetically. I offer them with the caveat that we should remain cautious about injecting too much of the author’s personal life into his work, so as to not fall into the same pitfalls as psychoanalytical critics, who arguably pushed their analysis too far.
The Formalist Poet
Edgar Allan Poe, first and foremost, identified as a poet. From an early age, he exhibited a talent for learning languages and composing verse. While attending a private academy in
Richmond, “Edgar wrote enough fugitive verse to make a whole volume” (Silverman 24). He was then only 16-years-old. His talent was made known to Mr. Allan by one of Poe’s instructors, who suggested that Poe’s work be published. However, Allan was persuaded not to publish the poems out of concern that the attention it might garner would prove detrimental to young Poe’s development (24). Several years later, Poe would publish some of these early poems to
7 unenthusiastic critical reception (Quinn 175) in the volume Tamerlane and Other Poems before financial necessity eventually drove him to embrace prose.8
Despite embracing prose for pecuniary reasons, Poe favored poetry as a medium because he felt that it was unique in its ability to convey Beauty through language, but with a visceral result. This mentality—the view of “art for art’s sake”—was not uncommon among Romantic poets. But, while Poe’s Romantic predecessors (and contemporaries such as Wordsworth) espoused free and spontaneous expression of the creative faculties, Poe advocated proper adherence to formal poetic structure, believing that anyone deserving of the designation “poet” must possess more than inspiration, but also thoughtfulness and technical prowess.
Throughout his magazine career, Poe would publish essays on compositional craft that not only reaffirmed his preference for poetry above all art forms, but also to a degree attempted to substantiate his role as a critical authority. The claim to authority, Poe demonstrated, was built upon a deep understanding of poetry and its proper function. His methodical approach to poetry was something he seemed to relish, taking pride in how well he felt he could manipulate language to adhere to structure with musicality and mathematical precision. This ability to adhere to structure was one pillar of the theory he would develop throughout his adulthood—the other pillar being originality. For Poe, to be deserving of the title of “poet,” one must demonstrate mastery of poetic forms, which constitutes specialized knowledge. It demands study, rigorous practice, cleverness, awareness, and musicality, in addition to natural talent and
8 By the 1830s, Poe had already taken to short-story composition. He submitted several of his works to a contest at The Sunday Visiter, and won with his tale, “MS. Found in a Bottle” (Silverman 91). These contests usually had cash prizes. His success in the contest eventually brought him to the attention of Thomas White, proprietor of The Southern Literary Messenger (Quinn 208).
8 creative inspiration. Given the state of education in America in the early nineteenth century,9 it was perhaps an elite vision—it required formal education and a certain amount of available time to devote to the poetic practice. For the poor and the working class, this would have been beyond access by virtue of their place on the economic chain. It seems a peculiar contradiction in Poe’s character given the precariousness of his personal financial situation. But the circumstances of
Poe’s life were uncommon, and having experienced both ends of the financial spectrum, his values reflected the turmoil of an emerging middle class struggling to establish its own identity, and discovering its own democratic definition of gentility (Marvin 84).
The Southern Gentleman
James Hutchisson referred to Poe as “the nowhere man of American literature” (Hayes
13), but given modern efforts of American (and European) cities to claim him, we could just as easily regard him as an everywhere man. Despite having been born in Boston and referring to himself as “A Bostonian” both in his first publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems and in his lecture “The Poetic Principle,” Poe bore no particular love for his birthplace beyond the sentimental value of being connected to his mother’s memory.10 Having been taken in by the
Allan family at the age of two, Poe spent the bulk of his childhood in Virginia. And while his family situation was not always a happy one, there was enough comfort and stability to solidify an emotional connection to Richmond.
9 In the mid-19th century, education reformers in America were pushing for universal, compulsory education. This was not fully enacted until 1918. Prior to this, there were private schools available to the affluent, and common schools for lower-income children that tended to be organized around a framework of Protestant values (Stone 7). 10 For further discussion of Poe’s dislike of Boston and its literary scene, reference Silverman, pg. 200; for Poe’s time stationed in Boston, see Quinn, pgs. 118-120.
9 His economic situation in the household of the Allan family allowed him privileges—a journey overseas, and an English boarding school education (Quinn 65). His step-father, John
Allan, was a tobacco merchant of Scottish birth, thus Poe was given the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom. The family remained there for three years (from when Poe was 8 to the age of 11) while Mr. Allan was attempting to expand his business. During this time, Poe studied at several English institutions, most notably the Manor House in London. This education, taken in conjunction with his visits to his extended Scottish family, exposed him to upper class refinements not often experienced by other middle-class Americans—the enjoyment of art and poetry, the study of philosophy and classics, and rigorous courses in science and mathematics. It was an experience that would leave an indelible mark on his artistic sensibilities. Returning to
Richmond, Poe studied at the private academy of Joseph Clarke and then went on to attend the
University of Virginia with the intention of studying ancient and modern languages (Silverman
29). Unable to financially sustain himself at school, he went on to secure a position in the army and served in Massachusetts and South Carolina before being discharged to attend West Point in
New York (43). After being dishonorably discharged from West Point, he then moved to
Baltimore to rejoin his family.
The move to Baltimore marks the beginning of his earnest attempts to pursue a literary career, which was punctuated by shifting geographical locations up and down the East Coast. In spite of Poe’s frequent relocation, at heart, he remained a Southerner—having spent the greater portion of his life in the South, he retained a Southern accent and took a sense of pride in his
Southern roots. Quinn notes, “the fact that he was an alien to the North has not been sufficiently appreciated. He was the only important Southern man of letters in this period to leave his section and make his fight for fame in the North” (616). In adulthood, he most likely veered conservative
10 on issues like slavery (Hayes 138), and in the years building up to the Civil War, Poe’s opinions on these matters undoubtedly would have drawn attention to his regional identity. Nevertheless,
Poe would, for the remainder of his life, maintain an air of Southern aristocratic pretension. It is difficult to determine whether or not these attitudes were internalized as the result of growing up in the South, or because Poe deliberately postured as an adversary to the Northern intellectual elite. The answer is likely both. In any event, we know that he was identified, by his peers, as being a Southerner. (Hayes 14).
Even though, in his youth, Poe enjoyed the trappings and the privilege that accompanied his family’s station and retained those upper-class pretensions which manifested themselves as
“Southern gentility,” it is only a partial reflection of the truth: His stepfather was a harsh man, and a boot-strapper who had received little formal education and was considered a self-made man (Silverman 12). John Allan never approved of his stepson’s aptitudes, lifestyle, and profession. Despite having taken Poe into his home, he never truly accepted or formally adopted him (11). Poe was often forced to fend for himself, while John Allan’s illegitimate children were provided the financial assistance that Poe lacked (52). This was most likely done, on John
Allan’s part, in a misguided attempt to instill the same self-reliant ethic in his charge.
Nevertheless, in an almost defiant manner, Poe retained the attitude and bearing of someone who came from means despite the relentless economic challenges he faced throughout his life: “At the salons, Poe not only acted the gentleman, but despite his financial straights, also looked it. Slim, neatly dressed, he was always… ‘elegant in his toilet’” (280). Poe was particularly good at maintaining appearances, and creating a memorable impression on those he met, particularly with women. People often commented on his fastidiousness of dress, physical appearance, and manners (280).
11 The experience of living abroad conveyed certain advantageous influences upon the young Poe that would later shape his career and his ideology. It was in England that he often perused the pages of Blackwood’s and similar periodicals in the British tradition that would come to exert a heavy influence over Poe’s career as a magazinist (Allen 16). These magazines occupied an interesting space in 19th century culture because they brought intellectualism and literary work to a bourgeoning middle class who, thanks in part to industrialization, were experiencing increases in money and in leisure time (Marvin 86). Magazines were more economically available to the middle class, and contained serials and short pieces that did not require a burdensome time commitment—they were, by virtue of their format, tailored to the needs of a working-class audience. These publications would provide Poe with a relatively steady source of income, and also provide the medium and the market that would inform his writing methodology.
The Tomahawk Man
Despite Poe’s poetic aspirations, the harsh realities of living by his art alone compelled him to pursue a more economically viable path. The eighteenth (into the nineteenth) century had ushered in a golden era for magazine publishing, but it was a precarious time for the publishing industry in general, and not particularly lucrative for authors trying to make money on their original material.11 Magazines, in an effort to attract talent and increase readership, often promoted contests offering cash prizes for story submissions, and so it was that Poe turned to prose-writing as a way of increasing his income and his exposure. He won one such contest in
1833 with the submission of his tale “MS in a Bottle” to the Baltimore Saturday Visiter
11 For more information about the climate of the publishing industry, see Thomas Marvin’s article “‘These Days of Double Dealing’: Edgar Allan Poe and the Business of Magazine Publishing.”
12 (Silverman 91). The prize amounted to more than just the fifty dollars he received for it; it exposed Poe to people in the publishing industry who would help him publish more fiction and even lead him to securing an editorial position at The Southern Literary Messenger in 1835
(Quinn 208).
Poe remained an editorial assistant at The Messenger for two years (after a brief dismissal due to his drinking habits) before moving on to Philadelphia and Burton’s Gentlemen’s
Magazine, then onto Graham’s Magazine. During his tenure as editor for these publications, he devised a plan to publish his own magazine called The Penn (later to be named The Stylus)—the prospectus for which he began circulating shortly after his departure from Burton’s. His editing career concluded at the Broadway Journal in New York City, where he was able to briefly enjoy the creative control he so desperately sought, but only enjoyed it for a few short months until the magazine folded due to inherited financial problems (Quinn 494). Poe died before raising sufficient capital to launch The Stylus, and his ultimate ambition was left unrealized.
In taking up the editorial mantle, Poe was making strategic professional moves that would give him more exposure to both literary communities and wider audiences. His position allowed him to publish prolifically and to increase his name recognition, which would likely help him fetch a higher price for his tales and poems. As a writer of prose and poetry, he never fully achieved that level of recognition during his life that would have made it possible for him to earn and sustain a comfortable living; he only began to experience that level of fame in 1845 (only a few short years before he died) upon publication of “The Raven,” but even then, he made virtually no money from the numerous unauthorized reprints (439). As the American publishing industry was still in an embryonic stage, it proved to be a challenging environment for an author trying to make a viable wage. In a world pre-dating copyright law, virtually anything could be
13 reprinted without giving the author intellectual credit or remuneration (Silverman 248). This contributed greatly to a growing epidemic of plagiarism. Within the magazine industry, this was also the case. Oftentimes, financial considerations determined the quality of the submissions.
Those who did not require financial support for their work—the hobbyist or the gentleman— could afford to give it away. The struggling career writer was forced to compete, not only with these contributions, but also with established European authors whose works were being pirated for profit.
Poe, functioning simultaneously as author and editor, found himself in a predicament: he was a part of a system that took bread from the mouths of legitimate artists like himself out of the financial necessity of running a publication; and he had to entertain publishing authors he felt were frivolous and below his exacting standards in order to have continuous material. He struggled to find a balance between providing marketable material (i.e., art that held mass appeal) and legitimate art (which could only truly be appreciated by an educated readership in possession of the refinements so commonly characteristic of the upper-class). On occasion, Poe had to support the unscrupulous behaviors of the magazine’s owners in order to retain his position (Marvin 89). This created a constant source of conflict between his editorial responsibilities, the concerns of his readership, and his pride as an artist—a conflict that is an intrinsic part of his work. This ongoing ethical predicament played out in Poe’s life in numerous ways: first, it inspired some of his more overtly satirical pieces (91); second, it accounts for some of his job-changing and transience which sometimes arose from job dissatisfaction; third, consideration of a varied audience determined what he wrote and how he chose to write it; and fourth, it contributed to his motivation for running his own publication—one that would uphold a high artistic standard (Levine 21).
14 Undoubtedly, the long hours and the demands of the profession honed Poe’s craft and codified his opinions on matters of art and of taste; the volume and frequency of submissions made necessary the aesthetic system by which he was able to judge good literature from the standard dross. This system, developed throughout his career, would appear to have yielded quantifiable results: during his tenure at each publication, each magazine expanded its readership,12 although this might have owed more to his fiery criticisms and his literary scuffles than his contributions or his exacting standards. As a reader of European magazines (notably,
Blackwood’s Magazine), Poe was already familiar with the conventions of the medium. He was aware that audiences enjoyed a good controversy. Michael Allen’s book, Poe and the British
Magazine Tradition, details Poe’s indebtedness to the British magazine formula—how he borrowed from successful European publications as the model for his own editorial and critical approach. One particular convention that Allen believes to be frequently misunderstood by Poe’s readers and critics is his engagement in “personal controversy”:
In the Review, in Blackwood’s and Fraser’s, even intermittently in Bulwer’s New Monthly, the most immediately arresting way of engaging the reader’s attention was found to be contentiousness. So widespread was this journalistic convention that the word “personality” came to be used primarily to describe it. (Allen, 40)
Another related convention of British publications that Poe enthusiastically seized upon was the notion of “regional antagonism”:
The Blackwood’s controversialists intensified their campaign against Leigh Hunt and his circle by stirring up regional loyalties and mounting a Scottish attack on the English literary metropolis, “Cockaigne.” […] the aim […] was to associate true “gentlemanliness” with a particular regional center, and designate the opposing center as “vulgar” … Poe’s contribution to the development of a Southern regional consciousness, the literary assault on “Frogpondium,” was clearly intended as a journalistic campaign as the same kind as the famous Blackwood’s social and regional attack on “Cockaigne.” (40)
12There is sufficient evidence to believe that the recorded numbers passed down by Poe’s biographers are inflated. For a full account, see Terence Whalen’s book, Poe and the Masses, pp. 58-71.
15 Readers and academics predictably interpret the employment of these tactics as proof that Poe was prone to patterns of dramatic professional jealousy and bitterness. Indeed, having been described as “blatantly competitive, ‘eager for distinction,’ ‘ambitious to excel,’ and ‘inclined to be imperious,’” (Silverman 24) some of this jealousy might have, indeed, been genuine. But failure to recognize the unique conventions of the magazine medium overlooks some of Poe’s intention. Not only does Allen’s work suggest that there was a legitimate professional context for
Poe’s sensationalism, it also indicates a conscious effort on Poe’s part to capture the reader’s attention and keep them as ongoing subscribers. This contextual piece demonstrates Poe’s keen awareness of what people wanted to read. Whether or not Poe was the most effective or the most successful editor is somewhat irrelevant, but we do know, at least, he had achieved a level of notoriety from the fact that he earned himself the epithet, “The Tomahawk Man.”
Conclusion
When put to the task of analyzing Poe’s aesthetic theories, these biographical facts should be given no small consideration. One might object to academically entertaining suppositions about how Poe desired to be viewed by the public, and caution is a necessity, but we can very naturally draw plausible conclusions based on the historical facts of his life. That Poe considered himself to be a poet and took pride in his ability to craft a poem from an early age demonstrates that this subject was close enough to his heart to have a powerful significance. That he should come from a particular economic background and pursue a gentleman’s lifestyle indicate why his mind was drawn to the intellectual and philosophical pursuit of aesthetic theory. And that Poe should have held an occupation that would make this aesthetic system useful in a number of
16 ways should tell us that this is more than simply a joke to be had at the expense of
“Frogpondium.”
For the casual Poe reader, Poe the Formalist Poet, Poe the Tomahawk Man, and Poe the
Southern Gentleman are part of a contextual narrative that seldom factors into understanding of the author’s work. When analyzing Poe’s aesthetics—his philosophy—even academics have overlooked their intensely personal significance to the author, or held them to be largely irrelevant to the analysis of themes in his writing. Seldom are they regarded as constituting their own theme in Poe’s fictional works. In examining these particular aspects of Poe’s life, I don’t mean to suggest that we disregard or minimize other circumstances in Poe’s life or his development as an artist. I do suggest that an articulated philosophical system, especially one so recurrent, is built upon a bedrock of personal identification with extant concepts. Poe derived his beliefs from the wisdom of Coleridge, the expression of Byron, and the vision of German idealism, and he assiduously reassembled this conglomeration of ideas to resonate with his unique circumstances—his being-in-the-world. Poe is an embodiment of contradiction: he existed, and continues to occupy a space between wealth and poverty, horror and humor, art and consumerism, formalism and innovation—the elitism of the North and the congeniality of the
South. The challenge of accessing a genuine conception of Poe resides in understanding how he derived significance from that cavalcade of contradictions, not by merely excusing it and putting it to the side. Poe’s lifelong struggle to exert control over the contradictory forces within his life form the basis of his deeply personal, obsessional quest for Unity in art and in existence. Poe’s art was, to put it bluntly, Poe’s raison d’être.
17 Chapter II.
The Development of Poe’s Artistic Theory
“A poem, in my opinion,” Poe wrote in his 1836 “Letter to B—,” “is opposed to a work of science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having for its object an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained” (Essays 11). Poe would, years later, reiterate these ideas in his 1842 reviews of
Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales and Longfellow’s Ballads and Other Poems, his 1846 essay “The
Philosophy of Composition,” and the posthumously published lecture “The Poetic Principle”
(1850). Over the course of Poe’s career, notably from 1845 until the end of his life, he had devoted much of his effort to expounding upon the writing craft, particularly in “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Rationale of Verse,” and “The Poetic Principle.” These essays and lectures, taken in conjunction with Poe’s body of work, provide valuable insight into the artist’s perspective on the creative process. Naturally, Poe’s essays were primarily concerned with his preferred methods of artistic expression—poetry first, then prose—but he often referenced other art forms analogously, demonstrating that his aesthetic maxims were applicable to art across all genres.
There has long been an academic interest in reconciling the content of these essays with
Poe’s poetry and fiction as a barometer for assessing, not only the literary strength of his work, but also the robustness of the aesthetic ideas themselves. Poe was a revisionist—across successive publications, he would often gently revise his poems and stories more appropriately and to convey the effects he intended to produce. Likewise, his aesthetic philosophy underwent similar modification as Poe’s focus switched from poetry to fiction, from editing to magazine
18 proprietorship. Modern readers are at a distinct disadvantage. A 19th century reader of Poe’s periodicals would have had the benefit of continuity—that is, the ability to follow Poe’s thought process as it developed from one publication to the next. Our experience of Poe occurs in the opposite direction; it begins with exposure to fragments of his thought that we must then struggle to put back into appropriate context. This difficulty, coupled with the nuanced meanings and abstract terms he uses has sometimes resulted in what appears, upon first glance, as contradiction, which textual analysis is then obligated to reconcile. Regarding this irregularity, I propose we pay special attention to those themes and those ideas that remain fixed throughout, and devote our effort toward building a better understanding of those ideas. Once a comprehensive groundwork has been established, then we might address any perceived irregularities from a more informed angle. In this chapter, I commence with an examination of selected texts on the subject of composition better to deconstruct these themes and their associated terms.
“Letter to B—”
Poe composed the “Letter to B—” in 1831 and published it as the preface to his third book, Poems. Five years later, in 1836, he re-published it in the Southern Literary Messenger after removing the opening paragraph.13 Between the 1831 and 1836 versions, there is very little alteration other than that inconsequential omission. By using this piece as a preface, presented in epistolary form addressed to the mysterious Mr. B—,14 Poe’s objective is threefold: to distinguish his poetry from the work of his Lake School predecessors and their Transcendentalist
13 The paragraph in question was a self-deprecating apology that offered some background on the poems that is only applicable to that published collection, but provides irrelevant context as a stand-alone piece. 14 There has been much debate about Mr. B’s identity, but it is generally accepted that it refers to Poe’s editor of Poems, Elam Bliss (Levine 12).
19 progeny, to establish himself as having an informed perspective on the subject of poetry and to
“project sophistication,” and also to insulate himself from anticipated criticism.15 He accomplishes this by first declaring that, between readers of poetry and writers of poetry, it is the poet who is more appropriately suited to the task of evaluating and criticizing poetry. Following from this premise, the letter becomes a condemnation of William Wordsworth, and a polemic on the ineffectiveness of metaphysical poetry. By way of this criticism, Poe is able to contrast his artistic principles with those of the Lake School poets.
Poe commences by conspicuously indicating that he and B are in agreement regarding the ability of poets to be proper judges of poetry—a stratagem meant to increase his credibility by convincing readers that the ideas conveyed already have support.16 The discussion that follows builds the foundation for his criticism of Wordsworth. First, Poe draws a distinction between
“judgment” and “opinion,” and submits that the average readership, being predominantly comprised of laymen, is incapable of forming opinions that are uniquely their own. Opinion, he explains, is a co-opted belief—one that requires no direct knowledge of the subject for which it professes to know, but remains a step removed and is entirely dependent upon the judgments of other, purportedly knowledgeable individuals: “The opinion is the world’s truly, but it may be called theirs as a man would call a book his; they did not originate the opinion, but it is theirs. A fool… thinks Shakspeare [sic] a great poet — yet the fool has never read Shakspeare [sic]”
(Essays 5). Judgment, by comparison, requires rational capability in conjunction with direct familiarity of the subject. In this manner, the judgments of ostensibly knowledgeable individuals are accepted by the less-informed masses, who claim ownership of the belief despite not having
15 “Poe said that his poems were not of great value and wanted the reader to know that he had the “taste” to see that himself” (Levine, 51). 16 There is insufficient proof to believe this was an actual correspondence with his publisher, Elam Bliss. More likely, Poe’s motivation for writing it is to persuade his readership, not, as it would appear to suggest, his publisher.
20 originating it. Opinion, then, is fixed in the collective consciousness, regardless of whether or not it is necessarily valid.
In addition to Poe’s suggestion that poets make suitable poetry critics and are even capable of impartially judging their own work, he is careful to stipulate that the quality of their judgment and their ability to be impartial are proportional to their capabilities (6). He explains,
“we have more instances of false criticism than of just, where one’s own writings are the test, simply because we have more bad poets than good” (6). This is directed at Wordsworth, whose lengthy preface to Lyrical Ballads was provoking in its defense of what Poe must have viewed as the bastardization of poetic language. By emphasizing this point, he is undermining Wordsworth by challenging the quality and caliber of his poetry, and consequently the robustness of his poetic claims. It is a direct challenge to Wordsworth’s poetic authority, which Poe believes derives more from the fact that Wordsworth is European and associated with Coleridge and Southey— two established poets for whom Poe possesses a modicum of admiration.
Wordsworth’s popularity and the consideration given to his poetic theories exemplifies, in Poe’s view, a major problem in the United States—the American bias toward European sources with regard to matters of taste. For the American writer who was the newcomer on the world stage and deserving of consideration, partiality toward European artists was yet another obstacle in the path to defining a truly American literature: “our very fops glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystical characters spell London, Paris or
Genoa, are precisely so many letters of recommendation” (6). Ridiculing the American inclination to assume that European work is of the highest artistic order is a subversive maneuver—a snide challenge, not only to the authority of those established poets, but also a challenge to American audiences to curtail this habit born of intellectual slothfulness. This,
21 however, does not signify that Poe holds European work or the Lake School to be absolutely meritless. On the contrary, we know this to be the opposite.17 Moreover, when Poe speaks critically of Coleridge, it is usually qualified with an appropriate degree of deference to
Coleridge’s wisdom and intellect. Poe’s problem is not with a poet engaging in philosophical exercise; his problem lies in the poet re-imagining the nature of the poetic exercise to be chiefly philosophical: “I have… for the metaphysical poets, as poets, the sovereign contempt” (11). This is “the heresy of the Lake School” (6) to which he refers, also known as “the heresy of the didactic” (75). That poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge should scorn poetry deemed, in their estimation, idly or luxuriously pleasurable, stands as a direct affront to Poe’s poetic vision.
It also contradicts something he deeply and passionately felt to be true: “The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their authority, would be overwhelming, did I not feel, from the bottom of my heart, that learning has little to do with the imagination—intellect with the passions—or age with poetry” (8). That Poe should have been motivated to defend his own poetic vision in the face of such attitudes should be unsurprising.
One of the ways Poe undermines Wordsworth and the belief system he represents is by exposing a vulnerability at the heart of Wordsworth’s arguments. When Wordsworth appeals to
Aristotelianism to buttress his claims that poetry expresses truths, he has erred by misrepresenting Aristotle’s statement that “poetry is the most philosophical of all writing”18
Most of Wordsworth’s philosophy is built upon the notion that poetry reveals truth more passionately than science, and Poe rightly concludes: “He seems to think that the end of poetry
17 Stovall, Floyd. “Poe’s Debt to Coleridge.” 18 (Lyrical Ballads 751): It should be noted that Poe also misinterprets Aristotle’s original claim: “Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular” (Poetics XI).
22 is, or should be, instruction” (7). This view, Poe argues, does not take proper account of
Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia (commonly translated as “happiness”). Eudaimonia is determined to be the terminal objective of all human activity. Therefore, Poe argues:
… the end of instruction should be happiness; and happiness is another name for pleasure;—therefore the end of instruction should be pleasure: yet we the above mentioned opinion implies precisely the reverse… He who pleases, is of more importance to his fellow man than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means of obtaining. (7)
It is worth pointing out that Poe did not necessarily subscribe to Aristotelianism, nor did he equate pleasure with happiness, as we shall see later; rather, he makes these arguments in order to draw attention to Wordsworth’s inconsistent logic. The poet who efficaciously produces immediate pleasure with that purpose in view would be the better poet when compared to the poet whose goal is instruction; even though they have achieved the same ultimate goal, the former has done so more directly, and with less complexity obscuring the ultimate product.
Instruction is subsidiary if not entirely superfluous to the poetic endeavor of producing pleasure.
Moreover, it is often a hindrance.
The final passages of this letter, are a very clear articulation of Poe’s stance in relation to the Lake School of poets. I opened this chapter by quoting the final passage of “Letter to B—":
A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance by having for its object an indefinite instead of definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness. (11)
This provides a point of contrast with Wordsworth’s contention that “Poetry is the breadth and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all
23 Science” (Lyrical Ballads 752). Special attention should be given to the words Poe italicizes:
“immediate,” “definite,” and “indefinite.” Poe’s use of these abstract terms to create the meaningful boundaries between art forms (which are concrete modes of expression) makes a precise understanding of Poe’s thought process challenging. Nevertheless, it behooves us to examine these abstract terms since they are integral to Poe’s aesthetics.
Poe’s distinction of immediacy refers to rank, not time. When he speaks of pleasure being immediate, he does not mean instantaneous, but that it occupies the highest and most important role. What this implies is that a poem may have other subsidiary aims beyond producing pleasure, but that pleasure must be the end result of the poetic exercise. This idea is simple enough, but then Poe proceeds to split pleasure into two distinct kinds: the definite and the indefinite. By way of illustration, he submits that the poem and the romance differ according to the kind of pleasure they produce: poetry produces indefinite pleasure, while romance produces definite pleasure. We may think of definite and concrete, and indefinite and abstract as synonymous terms. In this way, definite pleasure would be the pleasure experienced upon stimulating our perceptions of reality by relying on facts and situations derived from conceivable experience. Definite pleasure has a grounding effect. Indefinite pleasure, by contrast, is fantastical and transcends our experience of reality. It transports. The creation of indefinite pleasure is dependent upon musicality, rhythmicality, and suggestiveness—it has form and structure; it follows its own set of rules but never seeks faithful reproduction. It must necessarily involve original, unexpected elements to awaken our senses to the contrast between what is comfortably familiar and where we have never been. To give an example: an abstract painting of a house might bear no physical resemblance to the actual structure of a house, but its color, form, and movement are meant to provoke the same feelings one may associate with the contemplation
24 of their literal home. Therefore, the language and the imagery used in a poem must embrace, first and foremost, the abstract quality of music to achieve its terminal pleasurable effect. All of the poet’s choices should be guided by whether or not this can be achieved.
In closing, Poe’s “Letter to B—” is as much a defense against the Wordsworthian poetic ethic as it is a calculated attack against its growing acceptance. The principles that Wordsworth espouses in his preface to Lyrical Ballads were gradually being adopted by American poets with little resistance. Poe was greatly incensed by this heedless American capitulation to European influence. The fact remains that, in the broadest terms, the artistic ideas of the two poets were sometimes in agreement. Wordsworth states: “We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone” (752). Both he and Poe agree the poet’s calling is an exalted occupation, and that pleasure plays an integral role in both the genuine experience of poetry and in the improvement of the human condition. But they fundamentally disagree on how the poet should impart this pleasure, and the nature and purpose of the pleasure itself. Because of the superficial similarity between both poets’ ideas, and because of Poe’s tone of spirited dissention, the concepts Poe articulates are often ascribed to his jealousy and his sense of unfairness. But this is misleading. We should only allow their similarities to exist in the broadest, most superficial terms.
The “Letter to B—,” in particular, remains highly significant to the study of Poe’s aesthetics because it demonstrates Poe’s earliest concerted attempt to organize his ideas about art. First, it shows us that, at least as early as 1831, Poe had already established basic aesthetic principles. Quinn observes, “it is seldom that a poet of twenty-two his own special field of creative art, and was able to express his fundamental conception in such definite words” (Essays
25 177). In this sense, it is remarkable. His vigorous defense betrays a highly personal connection to the poetic calling, and stands as a testament to his earliest ambitions. By offering these challenges to Wordsworth, he displays a sense of personal responsibility to the preservation of formalism, which he believes is being threatened by the Lake School. And yet, this undertaking is not purely altruistic, because in identifying as a formalist poet, he has a personal stake in the consequences: his own critical reception as a poet is jeopardized if poetic trends diverge from formalism. In addition to these valuable considerations, the “Letter to B—” also demonstrates
Poe’s early awareness of debate strategy and persuasive writing. By understanding what Poe was in opposition to, we are better situated to extrapolate upon the distinctions he creates between definite and indefinites pleasures. This is a differentiation that carries straight through to the
“The Poetic Principle.”
“Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales”
Poe’s criticism of “Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales” first appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1842. Although its primary purpose was to evaluate Hawthorne’s book, which was in its third printing by this time, Poe devotes a portion of it to reiterating and expanding upon some of the key elements introduced in the “Letter to B—.” By the time of this criticism’s publication, Poe’s circumstances had shifted considerably. Poe had been working editorial jobs for the last seven years—his first position being secured at The Southern Literary Messenger in 1835. Within a month of securing his position, he obtained a license to marry Virginia Clemm.19 As the head of a family and as its primary breadwinner, the personal financial stakes for Poe were now somewhat higher than when he originally published the “Letter.” While he initially employed the
19 It is unknown whether Poe married Virginia at this point in time, but they did hold a ceremony the following year (Quinn 227).
26 missive, in part, as a preemptory defense (or an apology) to a collection of his earliest poetry, he had republished it in the Messenger in 1836 with slightly different intentions. Where his original design had been to establish himself as a conscientious formalist, familiar with but distinct from the Lake School of poets, his modified intention was to recommend himself as a critic—to set himself up in his new professional capacity. In order to accomplish this, Poe sought to convey to his readership that he possessed a sound set of principles that formed the basis of his critical judgments. Maintaining the difference between judgment and opinion was one such point from the “Letter to B—” that helped support Poe in his new occupation. He expands upon this idea in his “Exordium to Critical Notices” in Graham’s January 1942 edition:
A book is written — and it is only as the book that we subject it to review. With the opinions of the work, considered otherwise than in their relation to the work itself, the critic has really nothing to do. It is his part simply to decide upon the mode in which these opinions are brought to bear. Criticism is thus no “test of opinion.” For this test, the work, divested of its pretensions as an art-product, is turned over for discussion to the world at large — and first, to that class which it especially addresses — if a history, to the historian — if a metaphysical treatise, to the moralist. (Essays 1032)
Poe’s time at The Messenger established him as an outspoken critic, but by the time he eventually publishes the Hawthorne criticism, he has fully embraced his sobriquet, “The
Tomahawk Man.” In selecting Poe’s criticism of Hawthorne, I caution that it provides just one example of his criticism, and is perhaps not adequately indicative of his style of criticism; however, it is one in which his aesthetic premises are strongly stated, and therefore, is valuable within the context of this examination.
Once Poe embraced his editorial authority and his creative priorities shifted to include tale writing and securing readership, his concern became how to best achieve this pleasure within prescribed limits—limits created around what he conceived of as an average attention span. In the hierarchy of artistic forms, Poe always remains partial to poetry: “Were we bidden to say
27 how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, we should answer, without hesitation—in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour” (571). But, having experienced a measure of success writing and publishing short stories, he must allow that tales occupy their own special sphere of significance, and are also capable of creating their own brand of pleasure. For Poe, this means having a set of guidelines to operate within, defining its appropriate form. Anything less would reflect an “imperfect sense of Art” (571). Poe’s prose theories are structured around
Hawthorne’s tales because, in this instance, they satisfy Poe’s requirements for successful,
American story writing: “As Americans, we feel proud of the book” (574).
In the previous examination of the “Letter to B—,” Poe had already established that pleasure is the sole aim of the poem, stipulating that the nature of that pleasure should be of an abstract character. Now, conspicuously, the consideration of time has entered Poe’s purview: “in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting” (571). With this development, we see a renewed emphasis on the importance of the deliverable impression upon the audience, or the effect. Poe devotes several paragraphs to the importance of appropriate length to the preservation of unity, or totality, of the intended effect; for prose, he has determined this to be between a half hour to two hours (571). The relative impact of an impression will decrease as the length of a work increases. In regards to the “short prose narrative,” that length of time is of longer duration:
We may continue the reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can persevere, to any good purpose, the perusal of a poem. This latter, if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an exultation of the soul which cannot be sustained. All high excitements are necessarily transient. (571)
28 If the poem is too short, the effect will evanesce, but if it too long, the effect cannot be sustained and loses its impact. To have a pure and meaningful experience, it needs to be long enough for a reader to be sufficiently engrossed: “During the hour of perusal, the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control. There are no external or extrinsic influences – resulting from weariness or interruption” (571). Even by modern standards, when we consider contemporary entertainment formats—magazines, television shows, movies, video games—we comprehend the truth of this concept. It demonstrates Poe’s understanding of the human attention span, which is well-adapted to the task of providing marketable entertainment. Throughout Poe’s body of criticism, he has been establishing this premise, and by this point in his career the consideration of effect has become a central tenet of his aesthetics.
Poe’s criticism of Hawthorne occurs in two parts: Poe initially pens a cursory assessment of Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales in the April volume of Graham’s Magazine, and then revisits it in greater detail in Graham’s May edition. Poe indicates—not once, but twice—that the book’s title is a misnomer; many of Hawthorne’s tales are, in fact, essays—essays for which Poe is initially unimpressed, but later thoughtfully complimentary. Of Hawthorne’s essays, Poe declares, “A painter would at once note their leading or predominant feature, and style is repose”
(570). According to the OED definition, repose signifies: “The state of being quietly inactive or relaxed, or of being free from care, anxiety, or other disturbances; ease, serenity.” But it also bears a special significance to visual art, as it refers to: “Arrangement of elements (of a picture, building, etc.) having a restful effect on the eye; simplicity, balance, harmony.”20 That Poe makes this observation from the perspective of an artist would suggest the inclusion of the latter
20 "repose, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, January 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/162937. Accessed 22 January 2018.
29 definition. This adaptation of terminology begins to reveal an interconnectedness between Poe’s literary forms and the visual arts.
The idea that prose is connected to visual art, and poetry to music, is a reiteration of
Poe’s distinction between definite and indefinite pleasure in the “Letter to B—.” In describing the process of composing a tale, Poe uses painting as a metaphor: “with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction” (Essays 572). Using painting analogously with prose, Poe falls back on his premise that prose is more suitable a vehicle for the expression of definitive or concrete truth. Therefore, there exists a visual component connected with prose’s intended effect that poetry does not necessarily require—the pleasure derived from poetry is more of an abstract feeling:
We have said that the tale has a point of superiority even over the poem. In fact, while the rhythm of this latter is an essential aid in the development of the poem’s highest idea — the idea of the Beautiful — the artificialities of this rhythm are an inseparable bar to the development of all points of thought or expression which have their basis in Truth. (573)
In prose, however, the satisfaction is derived from the successful and vivid projection of events and imagery upon the mind of the reader. Intellectual engagement is a necessary component of this process in which comprehension is required to interpret and reconstruct a mental image. On the other hand, Poe does not maintain that verbal accessibility is required in the creation and enjoyment of a pleasurable poem. It seems a curious distinction to make, but it possibly derives from his refusal to accept Wordsworth’s use of ordinary language within a poetic exercise. The use of colloquial language is a characteristic of Wordsworth’s style; he employs it to faithfully render the winsome simplicity of his pastoral scenes. But in seeking ordinary intelligibility, the resulting verses lack musicality and transcendent spirit. By removing the requirement of average
30 comprehensibility from the poetic exercise, Poe seeks direct communication with the soul. But the idea that poetry be verbally accessible and intelligible to the average reader is not a requirement to the stimulation of poetic pleasure. is an idea that preserves the distinction between poetic that underlies Poe’s work. Readers are able to derive significance from the suggestiveness of the sounds the words produce upon the imagination. This is helpful in understanding Poe’s contention that it is not required that the average reader understand every discrete element of the poem—every literary or classical allusion, every reference, or even understand the meaning of every word—to be able to experience the pleasurable and suggestive musicality of the poem and appreciate it that capacity. Those who are educated will of course comprehend those elements and form a more accurate judgment of the work’s strength and merit.
Those who do not will enjoy it somewhat in ignorance, but with the same pleasurable outcome.
This is part of what Poe strives to achieve in creating art “not above the popular, while not below the critical, taste” (16). Achieving this balance does not signify that the language and the expressions of poetry should descend to the level of common understanding and common parlance; on the contrary, it should elevate and transcend common understanding. It should reflect the mystery of the soul. To employ colloquial speech in the poetic endeavor is to debase it.
“The Philosophy of Composition”
More than 17 years after the initial publication of Poe’s “Letter to B—,” Poe completed
“The Philosophy of Composition” and published it in the 1846 edition of Graham’s Magazine, at which time Poe was employed as an editor. With the publication of “The Raven,” Poe had finally achieved a degree of recognition that he had not previously experienced with earlier poems.
31 Seizing the opportunity to capitalize upon the newfound interest garnered by “The Raven,” Poe wrote the essay “The Philosophy of Composition” with the view of advancing his aesthetic agenda—an agenda characterized by its radical adherence to formal literary structures. The essay, once again, reiterates the principles he describes in his initial criticisms of Hawthorne, this time reframing them around his own work to demonstrate their personal relevance, their artistic benefit, and his own masterful grasp of these principles. In a way, Poe is also coming to terms with his poem’s popularity, and by crediting his artistic principles with its success is validating these ideas. With this in mind, his goal is to accurately describe, in essay format (which, by his reckoning, is one of the appropriate fields for the exploration of truth), his personal writing process (which also satisfies his requirement of originality), with the intention of demystifying this process to a curious magazine audience. However, it is not instructional; he has no intention of teaching people how to write. In revealing the inner workings of poetic composition, he provides valuable insight so that people will be able to make more informed judgments about art.
It is part of Poe’s lifelong struggle to guide and inform American taste.
Poe’s opening move is reminiscent of the stratagem utilized in the “Letter to B—,” but with slight modification. He quotes an exchange he claims to have taken place through correspondence with Charles Dickens. Poe had reviewed Dickens’ work on several occasions, usually with favorable remarks. Dickens was an author that Poe not only professionally admired, but had also sought assistance from while trying to publish his work overseas.21 In reference to
Poe’s assessment of the plot devices in Barnaby Rudge, Dickens remarks that Godwin wrote
Caleb Williams backwards: “He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties… and then cast about him for some mode of accounting for what he had done” (Essays 13). Poe admits this is
21 Moss, Sidney P. “Poe’s ‘Two Long Interviews’ with Dickens.”
32 likely light-hearted exaggeration on Dickens’ part—arising from the affable character of the exchange—but uses the example to introduce the formal discussion of the creative process. By establishing an association and a sympathy with Charles Dickens, Poe is most certainly posturing—first, to be considered on the same authorial level, and second, to lend more credence to assertions he is about to make. Having thus been afforded a small amount of intellectual assurance through his reference to Dickens, Poe is free to advance his theory.
In response to Dicken’s suggestion, Poe declares, “It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention” (13). The denouement Poe speaks of is the same as what he calls the effect. To determine the character of the effect, Poe maintains that he relies on the dual considerations of originality and universal importance, in that order. Naturally, the effect Poe selects is Beauty. In his criticism of Hawthorne, Poe professes that “the poem’s highest idea” is “the idea of the
Beautiful” (573), but given the limits of the critical exercise, he does not explicitly detail the relationship between the idea of beauty and the indefinite sense of pleasure afforded by poetry— it is communicated as a fact. In that criticism, the terms appear interchangeable. In the current essay, Poe would confirm this:
That pleasure which is the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect — they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul — not of intellect, or of heart — upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating “the beautiful.” (16)
The concept of Beauty and the experience of beauty are one in the same: the idea is predicated on its experienced effect, and that effect is universally pleasurable. This is not the case with concepts like Truth or Passion:
33 Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, a excitement of the heart, although attainable, are, to a certain extent in poetry, far more attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion, a homeliness…which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul. (16)
It is our common understanding that certain truths can be unpleasant, and that passion, by its definition, is a barely controllable state. Beauty is not so indelicate. Therefore, it logically follows that Beauty requires its own literary style to manifest beauty’s pleasurable effect.
The dimension of temporality had been previously introduced in Poe’s Hawthorne review and a general sketch of its formula had been provided. In the case of “The Raven,” Poe claims to have first decided upon its length before proceeding to the consideration of effect; and since Poe has already determined that Beauty is the rightful province of the poem, he already has a sense of what the appropriate length should be in order to develop this effect intensely. Poe repeats this premise from the Hawthorne criticism, but now the character of this determination assumes an overtly mathematical identity:
Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit—in other words, to the excitement or elevation… to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio to the intensity of the intended effect:—this, with one proviso—that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. (15)
In fact, within this essay, Poe twice refers to this process as “mathematical.” Certainly, with this insistence, we can begin to see a contradiction emerge. On the one hand, Poe insists upon
“mathematical” adherence to form, to structure, and to process. And yet, he often chases abstractions—values that exist in the realm of ideas but defy precise definition. His dogged pursuit of indefinite pleasure, his distaste for realism, his claims that the poetic temperament is intuitive rather than intellectual—this evidence certainly seems to be incompatible with his strict view of composition. However, these concepts are not incompatible when put to the study of art.
34 For evidence, I need only appeal to Poe’s frequent references to music and musicality. Poetry and music, in Poe’s mind, are inextricably connected. A musical composition and its rhythms are fundamentally mathematical constructs—intervals, chord structures, sound frequencies all have a foundation in mathematics. Even so, while music theory and composition can be mathematically accounted for, the pleasure we experience upon listening to a certain arrangement of sounds cannot be accounted for in the same terms. The responsibility falls upon the musician to utilize this knowledge toward the arrangement of sounds capable of evincing pleasure. A bit of mystery will always exist somewhere between the mathematical logic of music and the emotional effects it produces; a good musician intuitively navigates this. In precisely this way, the composition of poetry requires the same combination of specialized knowledge and intuitive feeling. This artistic intuition is what Poe refers to as the “poetic temperament.”
In the study of Poe’s aesthetics, the ability to build and sustain an effect for an appropriate length of time is what we understand as constituting the “unity of effect.” It is the single most important aspect to his theories that all other concepts are built around. Unity of effect does not insinuate a plodding, unvaried adherence to the creation of an end result, but the commitment to thoughtfully constructing and sustaining a feeling from start to finish using all of the tools at one’s disposal. This includes the utilization of disparate concepts in service to the ultimate effect. In regard to poetry composition:
It by no means follows from anything here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem—for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music, by contrast—but the true artist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem. (Essays 16)
35 In this way, a poem might contain a moral or some truth value, but that should not overwhelm the poem’s primary function of stimulating the indefinite pleasurable sensation of Beauty.
Conversely, prose may make use of Beauty in a similar fashion in service to its truth function. It is the job of the artist, being guided by their poetic temperament, to combine and arrange these elements appropriately and within the prescribed methods of their chosen format. If the artist is truly adept, then the result is memorable; if they be genius, then the result is both impactful and original.
That “The Philosophy of Composition” should so frequently be dismissed as a false narrative of Poe’s artistic process is understandable, but also detrimental to a complete understanding of Poe’s work. It might not be wholly accurate in its depiction of process, but it is entirely probable that some sequence of the method described was utilized. It is likely that Poe sacrificed authenticity for the sake of cogency; if that is the case, this crime is insignificant. We cannot deny the truth of Poe’s system. Most of Poe’s more idiosyncratic philosophical ideas tend to develop from his experience as a working editor. When put in this context, it is not at all unusual that he should concern himself intensely with considerations so wholly dependent upon the human attention span. It was Poe’s job to sell entertainment, but this did not have to be undignified. Indeed, Poe took it to a very exalted place. In turning now to “The Poetic Principle,” one of the final expressions of Poe’s aesthetics, we begin to see how these principles of writing begin to take on spiritual significance.
“The Poetic Principle”
In the final years of his life, especially following the loss of his wife Virginia, Poe turned increasingly to lecturing to supplement his income. Poe had been feverishly engaged in trying to
36 raise enough capital to launch his magazine, The Stylus, and lecturing provided money and generated interest. He presented this lecture “The Poetic Principle” on numerous occasions, drawing “fashionable audience[s]” (Quinn 634), his first appearance drawing a crowd of 2,000 people at the Franklin Lyceum in Rhode Island (Silverman 384). The popularity of “The Raven” contributed a great deal to the general interest in his lectures, and was often used to promote these events. The cost of seeing the author of “The Raven” was twenty-five cents a ticket (Quinn
624). Poe attempted to have the lecture published during his lifetime, and in fact lost the original manuscript, but it did eventually appear in print nearly a year after his death, in the August 1850 edition of the Home Journal. Unfortunately, the only copy of “The Poetic Principle” comes to us through Rufus Griswold, but it has been authenticated through various epistolary sources. Quinn calls the lecture Poe’s “last constructive criticism of importance” (607).
“The Poetic Principle,” being our last example of Poe’s theoretical works, presents the highest and best articulated statement of the theories he had been formulating throughout his entire career. Much of the contents of the lecture are expanded descriptions of statements derived from his previous essay, “The Philosophy of Composition.” To summarize as briefly as possible the topics that have previously been discussed, he commences with the consideration of length, decrying, once again, the “heresy of the Didactic,” and the epic poem. Then he proceeds to show, with examples, the reverse—how a poem that is too brief fails to impress upon the imagination the full force of its imagery. His choice of Longfellow is a calculated one. But it is not these topics I wish to consider.
The true breakthrough of this lecture is in the reframing of Poe’s concept of Beauty22. We have seen in the previous essay how Poe likens Beauty to an experienced feeling rather than a
22 A more thorough examination of this concept can be found in George Kelly’s essay, “Poe’s Theory of Beauty.”
37 disconnected idea, and the experience is always pleasurable. Poe takes this concept much farther in “The Poetic Principle”: “An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly a sense of the Beautiful. This is what administers to his delight in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments amid which he exists” (Essays 76). Poe, seizing upon the philosophy of the day, divides the faculties of the mind in a manner inspired by Kantian philosophy23 into categories of Pure Intellect, Taste, and Moral Sense—Taste being the arbiter of the other two categories. Taste is linked to our instinctual perception of Beauty, and as Poe believes, is barely separated from our Moral Sense. Truly, our ability to grasp beauty informs our understanding and capacity to make moral judgments.
In the previous essay, Poe professes quite assuredly that the most appropriate way to express the loftiest kind of Beauty is with a tone of sadness or melancholy; he speaks of “being melted into tears” (77). He mentions this without duly explaining the reason for this particular choice. It seems a strange contradiction to attempt to elevate the soul while depressing the emotions. But, in this lecture, he explains this connection between beauty and sadness as representing the complicated relationship humans have with the limitations of mortal existence:
This thirst [for beauty] belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. … It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us – but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry, —or when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic moods – we find ourselves melted into tears – we weep then – not as Abbaté Gravina supposes – through an excess of pleasure, but through a certain, petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. (77)
23 Omans, Glen A. “Intellect, Taste, and Moral Sense: Poe’s Debt to Kant.”
38 Every experience humans have with terrestrial beauty impresses us with its transience. It is a tacit reminder that our lives are fleeting and our forms are corruptible. But it also suggests the hope of something better, and there is a distinct melancholy quality to the nature of this unspoken exchange.
This is the underlying theoretical basis that was absent from “The Philosophy of
Composition,” and this is a theme that Poe frequently touches upon in his tales. The mystery regarding Poe’s preferred choice of tone is resolved. When taken within the context of his previous statements regarding poetic form and length, and the consideration of effect, Poe’s system strives to account for and is established upon our most fundamental urges. Again, the occupation of poet or musician is the most exalted because they navigate the space between mortality and immortality. And yet, Poe, having more experience with modern poetry than most by virtue of being an editor, is not convinced that artists fully comprehend these truths, or feel the full extent of their calling. It is not enough to inculcate a moral. It is not enough faithfully to represent something in words or images. What speaks to our human nature on a most basic level is the struggle with our divine self: “The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness – this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted – has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic” (77). In speaking in these broad terms, Poe allows that we are all capable of experiencing and perhaps even being capable of recreating poetic feelings in our lives. One can even grasp, on some level, true poetry when it is encountered. But the true artist, or genius, is not of this common variety—they occupy an exalted space. Their heightened sensitivity to poetic feelings is innate. The specialized knowledge Poe so frequently sermonizes may be difficult for the layman to grasp, but the artist will immediately possess. Should we struggle to catch his meaning, then our ignorance betrays
39 our lack of poetic nature and aptitude. A poet would immediately understand. That an abundance of skill and intuitive knowledge are required to bring forth these ideas in a universally appreciable way separates artists from hobbyists and hacks. In Poe’s estimation, many Europeans holding the title of artist, as well as the vast majority of Americans who aspire to that designation, have not proven to be successful in demonstrating this intuitive capability in conjunction with technical understanding. Simply stated, Poe insists that not everyone can be an artist.
There is one final consideration that invites further analysis. Poe had previously stated in
“The Philosophy of Composition” that Beauty, Truth and Passion would necessarily overlap. He never suggested that they remain in separate spheres. However, he does allow that the extent of that interconnectivity would have to depend on what is required to bring about an intended effect. Previously, he compared truth in a poem to dissonance in a musical composition— claiming that even though it is antithetical to Beauty, the contrast could assist in bringing about
Beauty’s highest expression. In this lecture, his tone has notably softened:
And in regard to Truth – if to be sure, through the attainment of a truth, we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience, at once, the true poetical effect – but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest. (93)
In comparing truth now to harmony, we get the sense that perhaps truth is not quite so antithetical as previously supposed. Indeed, if we accept the logic of Poe’s prior statements on
Beauty, then what Beauty is essentially communicating to us is, in fact, a kind of Truth. That our souls are immortal would represent to Poe one of the highest truths. These metaphysical truths must necessarily enter into the poem because of their connection to that Beauty that Poe extolls.
What we can understand from this is that those truths must be secondary in the poem. When they
40 are primary, we are being educated, not elevated. Poe is never fully able to effectively communicate precisely how a person is to know how to accomplish this harmonious arrangement of effects toward the expression of a single, unified impression, because it is plainly intuitive. A person either possesses the intuitive understanding of poetic Beauty, or they do not.
Prior to giving this lecture, Poe had written in a letter to Helen Whitman (one of the several women he had courted after the death of his wife) that his intention was “to establish in
America the sole unquestionable aristocracy—that of intellect” (Quinn 581). Being of the opinion that artists are born rather than made, it seems rather superfluous to lecture the masses on the appropriate provinces of poetry when only an elite class of genius can actually understand and achieve it. But, in the capacity of editor, Poe thoroughly embraced his role as a taste-maker.
In giving these lectures, he doesn’t only advance his own standing in the world, he seeks to inform an eager American public. He seeks to inculcate matters of taste.
“The Philosophy of Furniture”
While on the subject of taste, I conclude my chapter on Poe’s composition essays with a controversial piece that deserves more serious consideration—"The Philosophy of Furniture.” In the spring of 1840, Poe devised a curious piece for Burton’s Gentlemen’s Magazine on the subject of furniture arrangement, or what we now consider interior design. Burton’s was a magazine that courted a particular audience. In analyzing the engravings that comprise the magazine’s frontispiece, Thomas Marvin notes that they “illustrate what Burton meant by a
‘gentleman’: someone with wealth to afford him leisure for…expensive pursuits, the taste to choose his clothes and furnishings with discretion, the intellect to appreciate good books, and the vanity to be flattered by such a picture of himself” (82). In reality, there were few that could
41 claim this lifestyle, but many who aspired to it. A subscription to Burton’s “issued a flattering invitation to middle-class Philadelphians, to those who had become prosperous in the boom years of the 1830s and aspired to gentle status” (86). The kinds of items that were generally published in Burton’s Gentlemen’s Magazine conformed to this ideal.
“The Philosophy of Furniture” is unquestionably written in a mocking tone and stands as a contemptuous commentary on the lack of American taste. This tone has lead many scholars to conclude that Poe devised this purely as a farce, and as such, it tends to be overlooked in Poe scholarship. In fact, it does not even appear in many collections of Poe’s essays. While the tone may be excessively sarcastic, that fact alone does not, in any way, undermine its message. When considered next to Poe’s composition essays, the ideas represented in this piece are consistent with those later outlined in Poe’s aesthetic theories, and even manifest in his tales. This correlation is too convenient to be coincidental, and that should inspire us to keep an open mind when considering the theme of this essay and how it factors into the philosophical system Poe devoted the bulk of his professional life developing.
There are two important ideas that can be distilled from this essay and connected to Poe’s aesthetics. The first is Poe’s aversion to the superfluity of excesses. We first encounter this in
Poe’s treatment of epic poetry, which he briefly describes in his criticism of Hawthorne. “The
Philosophy of Furniture” piece predates that criticism. However, in issuing this harsh critique of new American wealth, he has identified the source of his consternation:
… in America, dollars being the being the supreme insignia of aristocracy, their display may be said, in general terms, to be the sole means of aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking up for models, are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has, at length, come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view. (The Annotated Poe 156)
42 The populace Poe refers to is the same audience that is awed into believing that the length of a poem is a reflection of its artistic value. In this respect, Europeans have a distinct point of superiority:
In England … no mere parade of costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us to create an impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves, or of taste as respects the proprietor – for this reason, first, that wealth is not in England the, the loftiest object of ambition, as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there the true nobility of blood rather avoids than affects costliness in which a parvenu rivalry may be successfully attempted, confining itself within the rigorous limits, and to the analytical investigation, of legitimate taste. (156)
The link between privileged classes and taste was likely introduced to Poe during his time spent at school in England, and we see this idea repeated in Poe’s fiction, most notably in “The
Assignation,” and “The Domain of Arnheim.” The increasing drive of consumerism in American society, Poe asserts, is corrupting our nation’s artistic sensibilities. Poe’s criticism is that it is the fault of our cultural position: for those who were born into wealth, who inherit it, they understand how to best use their resources by actively pursuing refinement; but for the rising middle class, who have only just begun to experience and enjoy disposable income and leisure time, they collect objects for the sake of displaying wealth, not out of any measured consideration for the beauty those objects possess. The careless and haphazard way these hoarded objects are displayed in American parlors—“the preposterous want of keeping” (156)— is proof that there is little regard paid to the artistry, merit, or significance of the objects themselves or the space they occupy. They are prized for their monetary value alone:
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion and a pendant of the dollar-manufacture. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. (159)
In the absence of a blooded noble class to inform the development of our faculty of taste, instruction is a requirement. The class of people who subscribed to Burton’s magazine were
43 deliberately seeking this type of guidance—they were seeking to embody those qualities depicted by the Burton’s frontispiece. As an editor for this variety of publication, and as an arbiter of taste writing to an audience comprised of an emergent middle class, Poe’s sarcasm in this essay seems more of an attempt to shame them into acknowledging the truth he is espousing, rather than unadulterated mockery. It is, at its core, meant to be informative in spite of being markedly flippant.
The second idea that Poe introduces in this essay, which recurs in subsequent work, is his concept of repose. Poe remarks that “there could be scarcely be anything more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed, in the United States, a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a preposterous want of keeping” (156). He devotes the remainder of the essay to cataloging the common errors people make in the selection of lampshades and area rugs, then concludes this opprobrium with a sketch of his ideal room. Poe describes, in painstaking detail, an oblong room that is thirty-feet long by twenty-five feet wide; the room has one door and two large windows on opposite sides, two couches positioned across from each other, crimson lamps that cast a mellow light, a borderless carpet adorned with a delicate Arabesque motif, several large paintings set in rosewood frames, vases of flowers that occupy each of the room’s corners, and a consistent color palette that embraces the warmth of the room’s congenial, unpretentious character. The artwork that Poe selects to adorn the walls of this ideal room exude tranquility. He chooses “the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the
Dismal Swamp of Chapman,” and “portraits in the manner of Sully” (160). His choice of landscape artists reflects Poe’s preference for scenes of soft, composed ideality, and melancholy splendor. Thomas Sully was portrait artist known for his idealized, ethereal depictions of beautiful women (Cantalupo 64). None of the artworks mentioned render the hardness of
44 realism, but portray idealized subjects in order to preserve the serene character of the chamber.
The “character” of this room is reflected in the disposition of its proprietor, who is comfortably asleep on the sofa. Between our slumbering inhabitant and the space he occupies, an effortless harmony prevails. This scene is meant to impress upon a reader’s imagination the sense of peace and tranquility that are natural accompaniments to harmoniousness—the feeling of “repose.”
In Poe’s discussion of Hawthorne’s essays, while he believes them to be inferior to the tales, Poe admires them for the tone of their expression, which he identifies as repose (Essays
570). He claims this expression would be immediately apparent to the visual artist, and later revisits this concept in his landscape fiction, “The Domain of Arnheim” and “Landor’s Cottage.”
Poe often links the quality of repose to the unique arrangement of objects in a physical space and the effect this produces upon the viewer. In the arrangement of spaces, this can have a profound effect on behavior and perception. The concept of “keeping” is akin to Poe’s conception of poetic temperament in that is relies heavily upon intuitive understanding to elicit a pre- determined effect. Additionally, it requires an artist’s eye: “We speak of the keeping of a room as we would the keeping of a picture; for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art” (156) While poetry is the realm of
Beauty and prose the domain of Truth, the primary effect or the end result of good interior design is Repose. The effect of repose also performs a valuable function within Poe’s aesthetic theories and within Poe’s poetry and fiction—it prepares and opens the mind to suggestiveness. It is entirely likely that Poe derived this belief from his interest in mesmerism.24
Poe warns that the gilded trappings of ostentation produce an unpleasant effect upon those who look upon them; excessively gilded carvings, gaudy embellishment, a profusion of
24 Lind, Sidney E. “Poe and Mesmerism.”
45 mirrors and glass, harsh lighting and chandeliers—Poe displays a blatant aversion to all of these things. Such extravagance in design overstimulates and overwhelms the senses. However, within the context of his tales, he often exploits this knowledge to bolster his chosen effect, especially when he seeks to disorient the reader. Often, Poe devises the arrangement of fictional internal spaces to mirror the mental state of his protagonists. If we dismiss “The Philosophy of Furniture” essay as a hoax, then we are dismissing an angle of context that reinforces Poe’s aesthetic theory.
It demonstrates, even if its tone is condescending, that Poe devoted much attention to the details of surroundings and the effects they produce upon the mind and the attention span.
Conclusion
Poe’s criticism and composition essays, including the oddity the “Philosophy of
Furniture,” constitute their own Unity, their own “continuity of effort,” or their own “water upon the rock” (Essays 571). They represent a consistently applied set of ideas that we can trace back to Poe’s earliest writing, and these ideas seldom deviate from their original message or their philosophical implications. They reiterate the same principles often verbatim. In his “Exordium,”
Poe emphatically declares that “Criticism is not, we think, an essay, nor a sermon, nor an oration, nor a chapter in history, nor a philosophical speculation, nor a prose-poem, nor an art-novel, nor a dialogue. In fact, it can be nothing in the world but — a criticism” (1031). One might immediately notice the presence of the word “philosophy” in this list; based on our experience of his Hawthorne criticism, it might appear that Poe is contradicting himself. Many times has he brought the discussion of his aesthetic principles into his criticism. But Poe does not view his aesthetic rules as philosophy or speculation—he views them as a Truth. The assuredness with which he pronounces these ideas gives them the air of objective fact. At no point does he allow
46 that his pronouncements are up for debate. They are not an opinion nor are they a judgment. His artistic principles are the basis of objective, factual knowledge by which Poe operates in all of his human faculties. Through the examination of these criticisms and essays, we are examining, according to what Poe would have us believe, his Truth.
47
Chapter III.
Examination of the Textual Examples of Art
Jill Sgro wrote a creditable thesis analyzing Poe’s consistent application of the dying woman motif throughout his short stories. The morbidity and recurrence of the theme have often drawn the attention of Poe scholarship, and the motif has been analyzed from a number of perspectives, all equally compelling, but all conclusively problematic. What these other interpretations lack is a full account or a serious regard for Poe’s process and his creative intentionality—these considerations remain compartmentalized from most meaningful analysis.
Where Sgro’s thesis succeeds is in her effort to incorporate some of Poe’s philosophical intention into the analysis of Poe’s symbolism. The result of these labors brings her to a considerably different conclusion than the leading interpretations of this theme—rather than reflecting a moral defect in the author or being a vehicle for the expression of Poe’s anxieties, Sgro determines that the symbolism demonstrates “[Poe’s] exultant belief in the inseparability of spirit and matter, the omnipresence of consciousness, and the eternal existence of spirit” (Sgro 5). This type of conclusion would have been impossible had she not properly accounted for Poe’s philosophical outlook as evinced throughout his body of non-fiction.
In turning now to the analysis of Poe’s tales, it is my hope to demonstrate the extent of the connection between Poe’s process, his philosophy, and the ways in which he applies this to his fiction. This requires more than mere application of clearly-defined categorical concepts to his compositions; such an attempt is insufficient and destined to fail. It requires a complete understanding of the philosophical ideas that constitute these categories, how these categories function together, and the intimate significance these concepts possessed for the author. Having
48 established how internalized Poe’s aesthetic system actually was, and having demonstrated how his aesthetic principles derive from metaphysical sources, these ideas add a new layer of significance to the study and analysis of his work. In keeping with the aesthetic theme of this project, I have selected short stories that utilize art as a central motif to convey their intended effect, bearing in mind, in accordance with Poe’s theory of art, that the primary aim of each of these fictional works is Truth.
“The Assignation”
The first and most obvious depiction of visual arts in Poe’s work occurs in his short story,
“The Assignation,” which first appeared in Godey’s Lady Book in 1834 under its original title
“The Visionary.” Following the initial publication, Poe revised the tale several times for subsequent publications with its final incarnation appearing in the January 1845 edition of The
Broadway Journal. It was initially written for submission to a women’s periodical, the contents of which were often tailored to suit the tastes of a largely female readership (Allen 131). The acute awareness of his intended audience may account for why Poe chose the tale’s particular style: a gothic romance written in a Byronic vein25 and inspired by the story of Lord Byron and his mistress, the Countess Gioccoli.
The tale opens with an unnamed narrator’s reminiscence of a man, a “stranger” from
Venice, with whom he had shared a brief acquaintance. In this recollection, a scream pierces the night, causing the narrator’s gondolier to lose his oar and set them adrift on the current of the
Grand Canal. As they drift down the canal, our narrator witnesses a harrowing event unfold
25 Byron’s influence on Poe’s work has been examined by scholars like Roy P. Basler (“Byronism in Poe’s ‘To One in Paradise,’” American Literature, 9 [1937]); and Dennis Pahl (“Recovering Byron: Poe’s ‘The Assignation,’” Criticism, Vol. 26, No. 3 [summer 1984]).
49 before the Ducal Palace: from his unmoored vantage point, he is able to determine that a young child has fallen from his mother’s arms and into the black waters beneath them. The mother of this child was none other than the Marchesa di Mentoni (also referred to as the Marchesa
Aphrodite)—a woman renowned for her exquisite beauty. Our narrator then observes, by the glare of “a thousand flambeaux” (Complete Tales 257), the appearance of the young stranger, who dives heroically into the abyssal waters to retrieve the drowning child. Upon returning the child to its mother’s arms, a curious exchange occurs between the stranger and the Marchesa, in which she states: “Thou hast conquered” (259); the meaning of this mysterious utterance is lost on our narrator.
The following morning, the narrator visits the stranger’s palazzo having received an invitation the day prior. Naturally, he entertained a substantial amount of curiosity in the stranger and his dwellings, to which no one ever before had gained admittance. What follows is a lengthy catalog of descriptive elements regarding the character of the apartment: the “bedizened” decora, the “mingled and conflicting perfumes,” and “the rays of the newly risen sun” intermixing with artificial light sources of “flaring and flickering tongues of emerald and violet fire” (260). He is led up a “broad winding staircase of mosaics” into the stranger’s apartment, which overwhelms and blinds him at first glance with “an actual glare.” The chamber contains “grotesques of Greek painting,” “sculptures of the best Italian days,” and “huge carvings of untutored Egypt” along with “rich draperies,” all displayed without the “decora of what is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of nationality” (260). The narrator becomes aware of a “low melancholy music” that causes the scene to stir, imbuing it with tremulous motion. This depiction of a heterogeneous collection of objects is intended to overwhelm the reader’s senses: “In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had been to dazzle and
50 astound” (260). Each conflicting element lends itself to the disorienting chaos which permeates the scene, and mirrors the sweet, terrifying confusion of the previous evening’s events. Taken individually and in groupings, none of the arrangements of artwork adhere to any logical sense of organization, nor are they intended to be understood in any intelligible way, but parallel the mixture of idiosyncrasy and anxiety that define the nature of the stranger’s character. When we meet the stranger again, he has not slept, and now, by the mixed effulgence of the rising sun and the aggressive glare of candelabrum, the exhaustion on his face is not only visible, but augmented.
It is revealed, when the narrator discovers a peculiar, tear-stained love poem handwritten in the leaves of “The Orfeo,” that the Marchesa and the stranger were together in London prior to her marriage to the “satyr-like” (258) Mentoni. The stranger reveals to the narrator that he is in possession of a life-sized portrait of the Marchesa, which he keeps hidden from view and apart from the rest of his collection. The introduction of these facts suggests that the stranger and the
Marchesa have been lovers for an undisclosed period of time, and have been kept apart by circumstance. This revelation gives way to the stranger partaking in several glasses of wine, eventually passing out on an ottoman. Shortly thereafter, a servant arrives to announce that the
Marchesa has died from poisoning, and when the narrator attempts to rouse his romantic friend, discovers that he, too, is deceased, having imbibed poisoned wine.
The stranger’s first utterances to the narrator are peculiar: strange laughter, followed by an acknowledgement of the room’s overwhelming strangeness. He is entirely cognizant of how this collection of objects and their peculiar arrangement affects his visitor, despite never having received visitors before. He remarks, with mocking insinuation, “‘I see you are astonished at my apartment—at my statues—my pictures—my originality of conception in architecture and
51 upholstery. Absolutely drunk, eh? With my magnificence?’” (261). The stranger knows that the arrangement of his chamber is peculiar, and that its perceived “magnificence” is only proportional to its display of extravagance to the ignorant and the uninitiated. His frequent laughter betrays this air of ridicule, it comprehends the absurdity—the stranger knows that true beauty is not of this variety, but he also knows that our narrator is not privy to this knowledge.
The narrator is ignorant in many respects.
The stranger, having possession of a vast fortune, has been able to amass a private collection of the most beautiful, appreciable objects and keep them sequestered for his personal delectation; yet, he remains a tortured man. The narrator remarks:
I could not help, however, repeatedly observing through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation—a degree of nervous unction in action and in speech—an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at all time unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm. (262)
This profusion of beautiful objects our stranger has entombed himself with does not assuage his constant yearning for beauty. They are static, ancient, and dead; they are sometimes not originals, but convincing copies. Most importantly, they fail to stir his soul. Still, he remains surrounded by these objects because he cannot unite with the object that expresses the highest, most supernal form of beauty—the Marchesa Aphrodite and the shared love she represents. The collection of art objects is an imperfect substitute for what he yearns for. The crowning jewel of the stranger’s mad collection is, of course, his portrait of the Marchesa (that we might assume the stranger himself had painted), which the narrator describes in terms of its utter resistance to description, for “human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty” (205).
52 The unnamed stranger in this tale is presumed to be modeled after Byron, yet Poe is intentionally evasive—he never directly states this is the case, but Dennis Pahl maintains in his essay, “Recovering Byron: Poe’s ‘The Assignation,’” the parallels are impossible to overlook.
Our first clue is the plot’s similarity to Byron’s affair with Countess Gioccoli, and the second is the story’s European setting, which is reminiscent of Byron’s poem “Childe Harolde’s
Pilgrimage.” The characterization of Byron is particularly symbolic. He is representative of a kind of effete Romanticism characterized by intense passion punctuated by perverseness. He was, in dramatic terms, the embodiment of the old Romantic ideal (Pahl 224). It’s clear, from an artistic perspective, that Poe admired Byron’s work, but in the end, Poe has him die by his own hand. Poe is creating a new Romantic ideal by killing the old.
Other than the obvious Byronic parallels, the reader is provided very little concrete information about the stranger. Pahl rightly observes how the stranger is reclusive and frequently
“covered-up,” so as to purposefully obscure his identity (215). When Poe describes his features, he does so in classic, sculptural terms: “with the mouth and chin of a deity,” “a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory,” “features than which I have seen none more classically regular, except perhaps the marble ones of the Emperor Commodeus”
(Complete Tales 260). Nevertheless, the stranger’s appearance remains vague and forgettable:
It had no peculiar, it had no settled predominant expression to be fastened upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten, but forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed. (260)
Even though the format of the tale is devised to engender truth, those truths are not to be determined by obvious means: they must be sought. One can safely assume that the stranger is a thinly veiled representation of Byron. But, if the stranger is indeed the symbolic embodiment of
53 art as Poe conceives of it, then it should be unsurprising that the stranger should be portrayed with intentional, vague suggestiveness. It should also be unsurprising that passion motivates him, but does not define his character—he possesses all the qualities aligned with Poe’s idea of indefiniteness. The stranger is Poe’s bold attempt at portraying an indefinite artistic ideal through the vehicle of a truth-driven artistic medium.
While the stranger’s relationship with the Marchesa is shrouded in mystery, it contains many mythic parallels. The parentage of the Marchesa’s child is one particularly mysterious aspect of this relationship. However, Poe’s controlled use of classical myth throughout the tale is strongly suggestive of his intention. It can be observed in the Marchesa’s portrayal the same sculptural descriptions and references to classicism: her “silvery feet,” and “gauze-like drapery” that hung “as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe,” the “statue-like form” with its eyes
“riveted” in the direction of the prison of the Old Republic (258). To the narrator, she appears a statue, petrified in time. It is only when the stranger appears before her, delivering up the still- breathing infant, that “the statue has started into life”: “The pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed with a tide of ungovernable crimson” (259). She is the likeness of Aphrodite, representative of divine, supernal beauty. However, in her current incarnation, she is just a statue, lovely but cold and dead.
If the Marchesa represents Aphrodite, the goddess of love—the highest idea of beauty— then it would follow that her child represents Eros, the god of desire. Regardless of the child’s parentage, it forms the bond between the stranger and the Marchesa—it symbolizes the desire or yearning that draws them together, but simultaneously reinforces the knowledge that they must always remain apart. Mentoni is compared to a satyr—a bestial creature in service to Dionysius,
54 the god of wine, frivolity, and other crude, physical pleasures. That Mentoni should look upon the distress of his wife and child with ennuyé (258), that he feels nothing of desire (that the child represents) is indicative of Poe’s insistence that beauty cannot be truly appreciated or genuinely experienced by the mere impulse of seeking physical pleasure. On the other hand, the stranger is figuratively Apollonian, representing classical ideas of truth, music, and poetry. He embodies a thirst for unification with Beauty. In rescuing her child and in imperiling his own life, he demonstrates that the closest attainment of Beauty is found in the precarious space between life and death. Delivering this child (who functions as both symbol and offering) to its mother, our stranger has signaled his intention to sacrifice himself to achieve complete unification with
Beauty. To achieve this experience of supernal beauty, they must destroy the physical barrier that exists between them—the must destroy their corporeal forms. Upon her child’s rescue, the
Marchesa tells the stranger that she has been conquered, and she becomes “flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson” (259). In this offering of desire and the signaling of this intention, the Beauty she represents has been liberated from Mentoni’s callous objectification and has been given life anew.
Pahl’s theory is that through Poe’s characteristic bag of narrative tricks (i.e., unreliable narrators, layered allusions, subtle mockery, lack of concrete facts, confusing settings, etc.) he is demonstrating “how dramatizing makes impossible the reclaiming of origins” (212). In obscuring origins, Poe is downplaying facts and their relevance to the truthful idea he is trying to convey: the interconnectedness of Truth and Beauty, and the human impulse to attain it. Facts such as personal histories and character identities are immaterial to deriving this moral—a moral built from layers of suggestiveness around the tale’s ultimate idea. In his description of the
Marchesa’s portrait, he remarks: “The expression of the countenance, which was beaming all
55 over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful” (263). This idea derives from Poe’s insistence that our instinctual yearning for supernal beauty derives from the knowledge that our mortal forms can never fully experience it. In spite of its early publication date, this tale relays many points that directly correspond with the assertions he makes in his later composition essays.
Many scholars, most notably Richard Benton and G. R. Thompson26, have noted that this tale contains all the hallmarks of a satire, spoofing the conventions of gothic literature, and parodying Lord Byron through this characterization of the stranger. From this perspective, it becomes easy to dismiss or understate the tale’s notably strong qualities—first, that it is a fine example of a gothic tale, arguably Poe’s finest; and second, that it relates Poe’s aesthetic principles admirably. Thompson27 has noted that romantic irony simultaneously means and does not mean what it mocks. Even if we look upon the stranger and the Marchesa as caricatures, this does not change the fundamental message Poe relates. Of Poe’s many tones considered in the pursuit of an effect, satire and sarcasm are frequently employed in the service of Truth; just as
Passion involves a certain “homeliness,” it is understood that Truth involves a degree of absurdity and perversity. Sarcasm and humor are the tones Poe uses to circumvent the crime of
“didacticism” because they partially obscure the morals of his tales—the full extent of which demand searching, intellectual vigor, and engagement. Furthermore, the detection of sarcasm requires a certain amount of intelligence on the part of the reader, adding complexity to the story that would be inaccessible to the uneducated. And yet, to the average reader and to the experienced critic alike, a manifestation of this moral emerges. “The Assignation,” in this way, is
26 Pitcher, Edward. W. “Poe’s ‘The Assignation’: A Reconsideration.” 27 Thompson, G. R. Poe’s Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales.
56 a parable about the nature of art and its supreme deity, Supernal Beauty.
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“The Fall of the House of Usher” was first published in 1839, appearing initially in
Burton’s Magazine’s September edition, only to reappear a year later in Poe’s collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Presumably, this was done to generate some interest in the book’s release. In brief, it is the story of Roderick Usher—an ailing, aristocratic hypochondriac—and his cataleptic sister Madeline, their decrepit family abode, and a terrible mistake that, given
Roderick’s unusual condition, may or may not have been not a mistake after all, culminating in the destruction of both siblings, the house, and the Usher line. Between “The Fall of the House of
Usher” and “The Assignation,” there are notable similarities: the narrator is unnamed and the protagonist, mysterious. Again, Poe employs these tactics to ensure that the audience is never able to achieve certainty with regard to the information imparted—a tactic intended to disorient and to compel the reader to actively seek the anchoring idea of whatever manifestation of truth
Poe renders most prominent.
Where the stranger could be theorized to represent art itself, Roderick Usher represents the artist—the mortal vessel through which Beauty finds expression. Unlike the stranger, Usher’s physical description is “remarkable” and “not easily to be forgotten”: “A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison… a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, a want of moral energy” (Complete Tales 173). These qualities are amplified in Usher’s illness, a madness that carries him further from any conception of reality—the pallor becomes ghastly, the luminosity of the eye, “miraculous.” He is a man on the precipice of that ultimate experience—he occupies a space between life and death and has
57 perceived with wild sensibility a vision of beauty that exists beyond reality, and yet he is full of anxiety. His fear is driving him insane. He prophetically states: “‘I shall perish… I must perish in this deplorable folly… I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results… In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR’” (174).
We are told that Usher believes this strange, undiagnosed malady to be hereditary and ultimately fatal, its symptoms present as hyper-sensitivity of all of the sensory organs, accompanied by acute anxiety. His malady, or his “pitiable condition” is, in a word, mortality.
Usher’s condition is exacerbated by the deterioration of his sister, who also suffers from a similar, but enervated malady. Women, as it has been demonstrated throughout Poe’s work, tend to symbolize Supernal Beauty. With Madaline’s loss of vitality, Usher’s vitality increases in the form of unbearable nervous agitation; the mortal fear that characterizes Usher and undermines him as an artist is actually killing her, and this act of psychical murder is simultaneously killing him. The more of her energy he consumes, the closer he comes to death, and the more frantically he creates, the more she wastes away. In fact, for the several days the narrator spends with
Usher—painting, playing music, reading—she is conspicuously absent, but Usher’s artwork becomes the focal point of examination. It is as if Usher and his artwork utterly absorb her qualities and assume her presence in the narrative. As a representation of the artistic temperament, Roderick Usher derives his creative energy from the oppressive melancholy of his sister’s impending demise. They are both perpetually dying, which feeds his thirst for beauty without ever quenching it—they are each locked in a state of almost communing with divine beauty. He does not fear the moment of death, but he fears the unknown, and he fears the dissolution of self that perfect unity with supernal beauty entails. His artistic essence—his very
58 selfhood—is defined by dying, and while he subsists on this, his anxiety arises from the knowledge that death must eventually come.
On the subject of creation, Poe devotes a fair amount of description to the products of
Usher’s bizarre talents: from the “wild improvisations of his speaking guitar” to the “paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded” (175). And yet, even with this description, a solid visualization eludes us. Poe writes: “I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words … if ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher” (176). In her study of Poe’s use of visual art, Barbara
Cantalupo observes that Roderick’s artistic style is characterized by vagueness and abstraction that defy accurate description. But Poe is able to convey an impression of Usher’s art to the reader vis-à-vis the reported sensations of the narrator (56). This would appear to reflect Poe’s ideas about what constitutes true and successful art, however, the effects that Usher’s work produces are disturbing. It can be concluded that Usher’s fear, which keeps him trapped in his mortal, purgatorial existence, is a poison to the artistic temperament. It consumes and corrupts that Beauty which his temperament allows him so easily to access. The result of this struggle with the absolute, this failure to exist in harmonious relation to Supernal Beauty, is the destruction of the artist.
“The Oval Portrait”
“The Oval Portrait” was a short story first appearing in an 1842 edition of Graham’s
Magazine, under the original title “Life and Death.” The story begins with the introduction of yet another example of Poe’s mysterious, unnamed narrators who is on a journey, accompanied only by his valet. We are never told why they are traveling in the mountains, but the pair have been
59 driven by circumstance to gain entry to an abandoned chalet that they happen upon: the narrator has sustained an injury that made seeking shelter more desirable than spending the night out of doors. Thus, the pair settle into one of the chalet’s remote turrets and prepare to spend the night.
The bedroom that the narrator occupies is hung all around with paintings, of which he takes a peculiar interest. By his bed, he discovers a guide, or perhaps a journal, detailing each of the paintings that adorn the walls. As the night progresses, the narrator avidly reads the journal until he is compelled to adjust the candelabra at his bedside, which reveals the presence of a portrait that had previously escaped his notice, it having been obscured by the darkness of the corner it inhabited. This oval portrait is of a young woman. Equally disturbed and fixated, the narrator analyzes the work, noting its supernatural, life-like quality. His curiosity and fixation on the portrait compel him to look up the description in the book, where the painting’s story is relayed by the book’s mysterious author. In it is described the wife of the artist—a woman of superior beauty. The marriage is portrayed as a lonely one, as the woman is forced to compete with his art for his love and for his attention. In an attempt to be closer to her husband and a part of his world, she submits to modeling for him, but the long hours of sitting to be painted begin to drain her of vitality. She sickens, while all her husband is only capable of seeing the painting before him. After devoting all of his passion and talent to capturing the wife he so admired on the canvas, at last he finishes, and in that moment of completion, his wife dies.
In the previous examination of the Roderick/Madeline Usher relationship, the artist drains the life from his source of inspiration until she expires. This situation is superficially similar, but with one notable difference: the artist in “The Oval Portrait” is a realist painter, whereas Usher is an abstract artist. The oval portrait disturbed the narrator because it was so life-like in its execution: “I had found the spell of the picture in its absolute life-likeness of expression, which
60 at first startling, finally confounded, subdued and astounded me” (Complete Tales, 248).
Originally, he had mistaken it for a real person occupying the corner of his chamber, and after that jarring experience, could not derive any comfort from its presence in the room; it agitated him and kept him awake: “I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, with my vision riveted upon the portrait” (248) The stark realism of the face, contrasted poorly with the visibly soft edges of the vignette and the “Moresque” filigree of the frame creating a visual conflict that
“prevented even its momentary entertainment” (248). This visual incongruity inspired more questions that compelled the narrator to seek more information; it offered him no repose.
As our narrator reads the vague description, a crude parable begins to emerge (possibly
Poe’s most obvious) in service to a greater parable. The subject of the painting is known only as
“she,” and the painter, “he.” Once again, the characters remain nameless. Poe persists in omitting this information because names and other such concrete details are irrelevant to understanding the story’s moral. Realism is not a consideration in the creation of these characters; they must only represent abstract ideas. She, the subject, is described to us as:
A maiden of rarest beauty, not more lovely than full of glee: all light and smiles and frolicksome as the young fawn: loving and cherishing all things: hating only the Art which was her rival: dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments that deprived her of the countenance of her lover. (248)
Again, the female is the quintessence of Beauty. He, on the other hand, is described as
“passionate, studious, austere, having already a bride in his Art” (248). These qualities, as Poe has often reiterated, are antithetical to Beauty; their overuse erodes the beauty they seek to attain.
Despite her aversion to his occupation, the young woman sits for the artist out of love, because she is the embodiment of Supernal Beauty and this is what her nature dictates. But she is a prisoner in this turret, and day by day, she withers away as her husband exercises his mastery and technical skill. Still, as it is twice repeated, “he would not see” (248) the obvious fact that his
61 rigid austerity and strict adherence to formal realism was killing his wife, destroying the essence of her beauty. Finally, in the artist’s moment of triumph, when he exclaims “‘This is indeed Life itself!’” (249) she dies.
This is perhaps Poe’s most transparent use of allegory, but he attempts to obscure the
obvious moral by employing a framed narrative structure—a technique utilized in other great
gothic novels like Frankenstein, and much later, Dracula. In fact, Poe often produces a similar effect in his other tales by embedding poems within the framework of the narrative. By inserting this story within another story, the audience is required to evaluate this new information through the context of the previous story. The obvious moral of this passage would be that verisimilitude destroys beauty—and we already know that Poe disliked verisimilitude in art based on his essays
on composition, preferring that art should impart a more visceral reaction. This moral is to be understood by our narrator’s unfavorable reaction to the painting, because reflecting back on the first half of the tale, the artist’s intent to reproduce the true beauty of his wife certainly failed to be effectively communicated. The artist was trying, with the punishing force of all of his talent,
to capture Beauty on the canvas, but the unintended result was to elicit fear, discomfort, and nervous agitation. The art product was incapable of transporting the viewer, or achieving artistic
transcendence; indeed its effect kept the narrator grounded in a state of oppressive unease and nervous fixation. The narrator, who is the artist’s audience, cannot enjoy this painting because it is simply too realistic. It is too much like having someone in his chamber watching him from the shadows. As such, it only leads him on a quest for more information and more truth; it offers no
respite from his troubles and his injuries—it offers him no healing, no respite, and no repose.
“The Domain of Arnheim”
62 First published in the Ladies Companion in 1842 as “The Landscape Garden,” this tale marks a shift in Poe’s aesthetic ideology. Rather than attempt another veiled allegory, Poe uses the tale to advance the material application of his artistic theories toward personal spiritual enrichment. The art of landscape design was gaining popularity in the United States, where it derived most of its inspiration from European sources. An American architect by the name of
Andrew Jackson Downing published A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape
Gardening in 1841 to popular acclaim. It is theorized that this work inspired Poe’s own writing on the subject, but most likely through indirect sources such as criticisms and reviews of the work (Kehler 173). Nevertheless, Poe was moved to take up the subject not only because it provided fertile ground to advance and expand upon his aesthetic theories, but also because there was increasing popular interest in the subject, which satisfied his editorial view toward marketability. That the tale was initially published with a female audience in mind would appear to indicate this editorial consideration.
The story centers on the prosperous Ellison—a descendent of a noble family who enjoys uncanny good fortune. He is described as possessing universally desirable qualities: physical attractiveness, a blissful marriage, nobility, and intelligence. Ellison is in possession of an enormous fortune that he inherited from a deceased relative (the sum of four hundred and fifty million dollars, which was an astronomical amount by 19th century standards). He maintains four conditions for happiness that he imparts to our unnamed narrator: Outdoor exercise for good health, “the love of a woman,” the “contempt of ambition,” and lastly, “an object of unceasing pursuit… the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the spirituality of this object”
(Complete Tales, 537). If we suspend our disbelief beyond the unlikelihood of Ellison’s circumstances, if we allow ourselves to indulge the idea that he is a man who enjoys singular
63 bliss, then we can look upon Ellison as being an authority on the subject of happiness who possesses special insight. These principles, therefore, should be carefully weighted as they contribute greatly to Poe’s thought-experiment.
In addition to Ellison’s fortunate circumstances and his philosophy for the attainment of happiness, Poe also has added the boon of “poetic temperament”:
In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended… the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole proper satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the creation of novel forms of Beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it was this bias, perhaps, which led him to believe that the most advantageous at least, if not the sole legitimate field for the poetic exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness. (539)
Even though Ellison possesses the soul of a poet, he lacks the particular expertise for poetry or other art forms because he has devoted no time to formal education in those fields, nor does he feel moved to do so. Given his wealth, and presumably time for leisure pursuits, he could have conceivably studied an art—our narrator singles out landscape painting as being the most likely choice—but it is surmised that he avoided them due to their connection with ambition.28 His talent for art is primarily instinctual, deriving from his fondness of those forms of expression.
Indeed, the traditional arts, and even supporting the arts through financial means, while pleasurable, seemed too limiting for a man of Ellison’s enormous wealth. The scope of his art must be proportionate to his resources. Therefore, instead of taking up the quill, brush, or instrument, Ellison is inspired to devote his artistic eye and talent for the arrangement of physical objects to the creation of Beauty in the natural world.
28 “…It might have been that he neglected to become either [musician or poet], merely in pursuance of his idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the essential principles of happiness on Earth. Is it not, indeed, possible that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition?” (742).
64 Most visual artists, especially artists that Poe has shown a preference,29 derive inspiration from nature and create an artificial object (i.e., a painting) that reflects the natural world, but with improvements in form, in color, and in composition. These improvements lead to the creation of something unique—a fantasy world:
… Mr. Ellison did much toward solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:—I mean the fact (which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combinations of scenery exists in Nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such Paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the canvas of Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscape there will always be found a defect or an excess – many excesses and defects. While the component parts may defy, individually, the highest skill of the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on the wide surface of the natural Earth, from which an artistical eye, looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed the “composition” of the landscape. (540)
But works on canvas are merely representations, and as representations, they will never fully achieve the beauty of real, natural objects—nor should they attempt it. Ellison uses beautiful physical objects to their best advantage, augmenting them by using artistic principles to deliver a fantastic result. In selecting the arrangement of nature as his chosen medium, Ellison is a visionary because this conception of landscape arrangement is original: “No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the landscape garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of opportunities” (539).
What Ellison creates from the world at his disposal reveals the true purpose—the true aim—of art, and pushes it into a new ethical sphere. The qualities Ellison possesses and these applications of his poetic and artistic principles to real world objects leads to the unequivocal conclusion that
Ellison represents Poe’s artistic ideal: one that keeps one eye directed toward the present, physical realm, and the other fixed on the incorporeal future. This encapsulates Poe’s singular
29 Cantaloupo, Barbara. Poe and the Visual Arts.
65 conception of the artistic temperament or the poetic soul that he had been steadily developing over the course of his career.
In this tale we are confronted with the difference between natural and artificial beauty:
Poe uses the concept of artificiality in the literal sense as that which was not already present in nature, but that which is created through human effort; natural beauty constituting what exists prior to human modification. Poe’s differentiation presents a point of contention with the
Transcendentalists despite having been derived from a the same spiritual, Christian source. For
Poe, what is in its extant form termed “natural Beauty,” is full of flaws and chaos:
In the most rugged of wildernesses – in the most savage of scenes of pure Nature – there is apparent the Art of the Creator; yet this art is apparent to reflection only; in no respect has it the obvious force of a feeling. Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty Design to be one step depressed – to be brought into harmony or consistency with the sense of human art – to form an intermedium between the two…” (542).
Perfect Beauty was only known in a prelapsarian world, before it was marred by death and decay that was the punishment for transgressing against the will of God. Now the world’s landscapes are cluttered with debris—fallen trees, dead plants, and the blemishes of “geological disturbances” (540). It is a constant reminder of our imperfection and our fallibility. But Poe maintains, through his mouthpiece Ellison, that it falls upon the landscape artist, or rather the artistic visionary, to modify the world around them—to recall the divine landscape that humanity has never truly experienced, but only glimpsed in dreams. The grandiosity of this claim is revealed through Poe’s statement of Ellison’s true artistic purpose: “he perceived that he should be employing the best means – laboring to the greatest advantage – in the fulfillment, not only of his own destiny as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had implanted the poetic sentiment in man” (540). Frequently in Poe’s work, specifically the tales I have chosen, there falls upon the artist a burden of responsibility that borders on spiritualism. Indeed, the act of
66 artistic creation is a reflection of God’s creative powers, and that Poe might earnestly believe this is consistent with his life’s work as a critic. That Poe should feel that artists have a responsibility to produce the best possible art to their talent’s best advantage is a solemn, almost divine duty.
But the designation of “visionary” also bears a spiritual significance; in essence, Ellison is a prophet, and prophets teach God’s will.
Beginning with the final passages of “The Domain of Arnheim” and working backward through the text, examples of Poe’s rules of composition are bluntly reiterated through his extended sketch of Ellison’s fantastic landscape, although Poe must adapt his rules to be applied to the scope of a physical vista, since it is considerably more expansive. His use of boundaries and enclosed spaces persists. Form and arrangement remain necessities. His insistence on novelty is unwavering—a virtue of the highest importance. Lastly, all of these considerations conform to the production of a unified effect. The appropriate effect of landscape design is discussed at length in the tale’s preamble, but to summarize, this effect should be transportive; the aim of landscape art should be an attempt to recreate an earthly paradise reminiscent of prelapsarian times, which humanity, in its corrupted state, has never experienced. Achieving this transportive, transcendent quality is the true function of art, which must be accomplished in order to be considered successful in its deployment of artistic talent.
Poe’s aesthetic insights always betray an element of grandiosity, and through the character of Ellison and his lofty endeavors, that grandiosity finds fuller expression: “Poe saw an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of art over phenomenal nature… For as Ellison points out, in landscape gardening nature’s most perfect efforts are the given, the point at which art begins” (Kehler 176). There is an earnest, spiritual element to how Poe conceives of the nature and purpose of art; one that demands responsibility. This is a consistent message throughout
67 Poe’s essays and in his criticisms that reveal the lofty standards to which he holds his fellow artists.
“The Domain of Arnheim” is a tale that, like the “Philosophy of Furniture,” tends to be overlooked because of the peculiarity of the subject matter in relation to the rest of Poe’s work. It doesn’t conform to the prescribed notion of Poe as a master of horror. This difference bears interpretive value: an obvious but remarkable difference between Ellison and Poe’s other protagonists in the stories that were previously examined is that Ellison is entirely sane. Poe does not employ his usual narrative tricks to lead us to question his sanity. While Ellison focuses with remarkable clarity on pursuing a single goal, there are no textual indications that his desire to do so is either unhinged or obsessional. In fact, it is quite the opposite—there is nothing at all amiss in his life. One clue that he is a well-adjusted person is the enduring success of his marriage.
Many times throughout Poe’s work, specifically in the tales discussed in this examination, the disunity between man and woman equate to the failure to achieve one’s artistic vision or unify with Supernal Beauty. The erosion of relationships and the death of female characters signify the tension arising between mortality and immortality. But Ellison has achieved something that
Poe’s previous protagonists could not—the realization of a harmonious unity between his physical and spiritual natures. Even though the tale concludes quite abruptly, nothing terrible ever befalls him. There are no negative consequences to his endeavors. In fact, the end of “The
Domain of Arnheim” is almost like a beginning—it concludes upon the approach to Ellison’s residence. It certainly has the feel of a story at its very beginning. In previous stories, we are left with ruin and annihilation of structures, and the destruction of the self. In “The Domain of
Arnheim,” we are left with a sense of glorious potential.
68 “Landor’s Cottage”
The concluding tale in my examination is also, tragically, one of the final works Poe published before his premature death. It was printed in the June 1949 edition of The Flag of our
Union, unambiguously subtitled “A Pendant to The Domain of Arnheim.” It is tragic because, in these last few vignettes, we might have glimpsed the beginning of a new direction for Poe’s work—a direction that would never be fully explored. These sketches are not the kind of tale that
Poe readers have been accustomed to reading. For all of its tedious description, “Landor’s
Cottage” is tightly packed with Poe’s peculiar aesthetic insights. More advanced Poe readers have noted the similarities between Poe’s fictional cottage and his residence in Fordham, New
York. In fact, the story is set in rural New York. The tone of the story betrays an air of wistful nostalgia, which remains consistent with Poe’s assertion that Beauty is most often best expressed in a melancholy tone.
“Landor’s Cottage” opens with an unnamed narrator and his valet, Ponto, continuing on a walking tour of rural New York. There is no stated aim to his journey besides amusement; however, one might recall Ellison’s first tenet of attaining bliss: the importance of outdoor exercise for good health. It is the narrator’s hope to reach the next stop on his journey, an unnamed town, by nightfall, but having been well-provisioned he is also content to spend the night in a makeshift camp. He is motivated to pursue the singular aim of appreciating and taking pleasure in the natural landscape, but not particularly ambitious and certainly not fearful, anxious, or distressed. Having spent the day wandering the countryside, he has become somewhat disoriented by the state of the trails. In fact, they are so meandering, he is unsure if they were meant to be trails at all, but following his intuition, he chose one that led to an unmistakable carriage track. He is arrested by the spectacle of this pathway: “Not a single
69 impediment lay in the wheel-route—not even a chip or a dead twig. The stones that had once obstructed the way had been carefully placed—not thrown—along the sides of the lane so as to define its boundaries at bottom with a kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque definition” (547). The care bestowed upon this road imbued it with what Poe calls
“strangeness.”30 This quality of strangeness, the order and artistry applied to the landscape is intriguing and comforting. It arrests the narrator’s attention and beckons him onward, eventually drawing him to Landor’s cottage. The source of this interest is precisely to be found in its artificial quality—there is nothing along this path that is, in Ellison’s words, “prognostic of death” (540). This recalls the earlier idea that Nature in its postlapsarian state is rife with imperfections that can and should be corrected.
The narrator advances, spurred on by the prospect of experiencing more of this Edenic spectacle. There are correlations between Poe’s depiction of his approach to Arnheim and the approach to the cottage. One such correlation is an initial confinement. In “The Domain of
Arheim,” it was the enclosure created by the ominous chasm; in “Landor’s Cottage,” it is a serpentine pathway that has turns that do not allow a clear vantage beyond the limits of the path.
Both of these approaches obscure the main spectacle, but prepare the observer for the impact of the perfect natural scene. This is the same maneuver Poe employs in his horror tales by utilizing structures to enclose and heighten the reader’s response to the intended emotional effect. The inability to see what lies beyond the preliminary paths gives rise to the anxiety of what is uncertain; it is not true fear, but a gentle and beguiling apprehensiveness that is soon overcome
30 “…United beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of care, or culture, or superintendence, on the part of being superior, yet akin to humanity – the sentiment of interest preserved, while the art involved is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary nature – a nature which is not God, nor an emanation from God, but which still is Nature in the sense of the handiwork of the Angels that hover between man and God” (Complete Tales 542).
70 and gives way to bliss and Beauty. In many ways, it mimics the process of dying, and being reborn.
Another notable similarity in Poe’s landscape treatment is the presence of water. It was remarked that bodies of water were actually common to contemporary landscape tastes, but
Poe’s use is also symbolically mythological. For the narrator of “The Domain of Arnheim,” it was the only available approach to Ellison’s residence. For the narrator of “Landor’s Cottage,” it forms a barrier that must be crossed to gain entry to the mysterious cottage of Landor. In “The
Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses the tarn that surrounds the house as a device to contain the world of the Usher family—it effectively forms a barrier that isolates them from the outside world. And when the house finally sinks into this tarn, it consumes all of the Usher’s secrets.
Poe’s rivers and lakes almost have their own sentience. They know. They obscure. The river in
“The Domain of Arnheim” has a current that moves the narrator’s boat toward the unknown. In
“Landor’s Cottage,” the river protects the private Eden that Landor has constructed. The canal in
“The Assignation” swallows the child, Desire. Poe uses bodies of water recurrently to evoke the classical conception of the river Styx—the barrier between life and death.
Poe devotes most of the tale to the development of the ideal landscape—an impossible landscape. The construction of these ideals is Poe’s deliberate effort to illustrate how artificial style is to be considered superior to natural style (Hess 179). This is the continuation of what he began to describe in “The Domain of Arnheim”: that the beauty of the natural world and all its phenomena the Romantics termed “sublime” is rather a tarnished version of the world’s former
Edenic state. True art is the sustained effort to rediscover and the attempt to access that Edenic state—the highest manifestation of Beauty—before humans were corrupted, before we knew pain, shame, and discomfort, and before we were forever sundered from intimate knowledge of
71 divinity. The quest for Supernal Beauty is a profoundly spiritual quest, and therefore, Poe’s aesthetics and metaphysics are most assuredly connected.
72 Chapter IV
Conclusion
With these concluding tales, “The Domain of Arnheim” and “Landor’s Cottage,” Poe’s insistence that melancholy is the appropriate mood for the expression of Beauty undergoes slight modification. There exists, throughout each of the tales I have termed Poe’s “aesthetic parables,” variant tones and degrees of sadness which arise from the constant striving toward ideal Beauty, which can never be achieved in mortal existence—only glimpsed. This separation is deeply ingrained in the human condition; it is a separation that began with the biblical Fall of Man and continually manifests as wistful, subconscious yearning for a world before death became a barrier that severed our connection to divinity. Some of Poe’s characters, such as the stranger in
“The Assignation” and Roderick Usher, struggle to achieve balance within their dual, spiritual and physical natures, and this struggle makes them prone to more extreme fits of melancholy.
They are ultimately destroyed by it. In Poe’s landscape fiction, the tone of melancholy is more subdued, and its presence diminished because the characters of Ellison and Landor have achieved the balance that escaped Poe’s other protagonists. They possess an acutely developed faculty of taste that helps them create and maintain harmoniousness in their surroundings and regulate this balance within themselves. This refinement of taste has allowed Ellison and Landor to attain the highest state of Earthly bliss, therefore their melancholy is of a reflective and tranquil nature; their melancholy arises from a deep understanding that, despite their best efforts, these earthly paradises they have created are still mere shadows of a time before death shaped mortal existence.
73 As Jill Sgro astutely theorized, the recurring motif of dying women throughout Poe’s work is the symbolic representation of his metaphysical beliefs. The image of the dying woman divulges the consequences of estrangement between body and soul (64), between our physical and divine natures. It not only signifies the disunity between male and female, body and soul, and truth and beauty, but also represents the longing for a time before these things were forever sundered, before Paradise was lost. When a man is attracted to a beautiful woman, he is moved by the instinctual trace or distant remembrance of this longing for reunification, and the loss of a beautiful woman is a constant reminder of his failure and his fallen condition. What Poe proposes in his aesthetic system is that the closest experience of the reunification of body and soul, between the physical and incorporeal, can be achieved by artistic means. Humanity may never truly comprehend Supernal Beauty or achieve it through physical existence, but it can be intuitively and instinctually felt through the power of a poem. Eden will never be rebuilt, but through art one can fashion glimpses of paradise in their backyards and in their drawing rooms— in their daily, terrestrial existence. This understanding of art’s true function in combination with a refined faculty of taste provide a sense of tranquility, or repose as Poe calls it—respite from the persistent anxiety arising from the conflict between our physical natures and the needs of our immortal souls.
In Poe scholarship, it would behoove us to try not to think in such staunchly categorical terms when seeking insight into Poe’s aesthetic system. Poe reduced complicated ideas into existing metaphysical categories for the sake of intelligibility and to provide the reader with enough clues to comprehend his work through the lens of his philosophical beliefs. But none of these previously-outlined concepts can function in strict isolation from one another—they must be taken holistically to approach a more accurate understanding of what Poe sought to convey.
74 When too much interpretive weight is placed on individual values like Truth or Beauty—when we, as analysts, fail to see how Poe wields these values in service to each other—then Poe’s meaning remains half-realized. Despite the narrative trickery Poe employs throughout his body of work by way of unreliable narrators, disorienting settings, and all of those other devices used to prevent the reader from getting a solid grounding in objective reality, they are devised to break the reader’s dependence on the mundane and the terrestrial. Poe’s tales almost always contain a moral chestnut, but he requires that his readers possess the wherewithal to crack open its shell— not with a mallet but with the full intellectual vigor of the mind. He obscures so that we must seek and engage. When we allow the idea that Poe was earnestly revealing himself through his expressed system of aesthetics, then we finally come to the understanding that truly enriches
Poe’s body of work: that Poe’s artistic process and Poe’s lived philosophy are fundamentally the same.
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