ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY

SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

[Virginia Poe’s life] was despaired of...sherecovered partially and I again hoped....Each time [she relapsed] I felt all the agonies of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly & clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity ...itwasthehorrible never ending oscillation between hope & despair.... Poe to George Eveleth, January 4, 18481(p347)

N JUNE 1875, A POSTER, by John Astin at http://www.youtube brightly lettered in red with .com/watch?v=ACUxJ6fq2IY.) a black raven at its center, CriticspraisedManet’sillustrations announced the folio edi- of The Raven. The Paris Journal noted tion of Ste´phane Mal- his use of black and white media to de- larme´’s French translation of Edgar pict the sinister bird and the interplay I 2,3 Allan Poe’s The Raven. E´ douard of abrupt silhouettes and threatening Manet designed the poster, the cover shadows.6 Manet had successfully design of the book, and its ex libris transformed Poe’s nightmarish, atmo- (thumbnail), The Flying Raven. His spheric poem into visual art in 4 litho- 4 full-page lithographic illustra- graphic plates (Figures 1-4) that il- tions of critical turning points in the Figure 1. Under the Lamp (“Once upon a lustrated key events in the poem.2,3 poem that appear alongside the text midnight dreary”). © MFA, Boston. Sitting at the desk, in Once upon a mid- are among his best-known draw- and reflectivity, creating a sense of his night dreary (“while I pondered, weak ings. The Raven was one of the first artistic refinement.5 The dreami- and weary”), the man turns his head in a new genre of grand illustrated ness of the painting is reminiscent of to listen, evoking a sense of forebod- books. French writer Charles Baude- Mallarme´’s poem “Afternoon of a ing. With the raven’s entry, in Open laire’s translations of Poe’s stories Faun,” which Manet also illustrated here I flung the shutter, the man’s left made Poe famous in France, and that year and that so inspired Claude hand with his fingers widely spread Mallarme´ hoped to have similar suc- Debussy. But it is not the portrait of reveals an inner tension. The raven, 4 cess in translating Poe’s poems. Mal- a commercially successful poet. Their inPercheduponabustofPallas(Athena, larme´ and Manet first met in Paris book collaboration on The Raven was the goddess of wisdom), begins the in 1873 and soon became fast not a financial success. Mallarme´ confrontation between them. Finally, friends. That friendship was bol- wrote that year to Richard Lesclide, in That shadow that lies floating on the stered in 1874 when Mallarme´ rose their publisher, asking how many floor (“mysoul...Shall be lifted nev- to Manet’s defense after his art was copies were left, and offered to pur- ermore!”), the empty chair facing the criticized and rejected by the Salon chase back unsold copies. shadow suggests that the man’s soul jury. Thus Mallarme´ became Ma- Yet when The Raven first appeared hasbeenswallowedbyprofoundgrief. net’s most staunch defender; they in America on January 29, 1845, in lived near one another and met al- The Evening Mirror (New York) in ad- most daily. vance of journal publication, it was In 1876, the year following their an overnight sensation. It was pub- collaboration on The Raven, Manet lished in the February 1845 issue of painted his friend’s portrait (cover). The American Review (Poe was paid Mallarme´, at age 34 years, appears in $9 for the poem6) and republished thoughtful reverie with a cigar held widely in other journals and news- loosely between the fingers of his papers. A contemporary reviewer right hand, which rests on a book. He wrote, “In power and originality of sits on a flowered couch before a Japa- versification the whole is no less re- nese wall hanging with the merest markable than it is, psychologically, suggestion of painted butterflies and a wonder.”6(p195) Written during the flowers. Mallarme´’s rapt contempla- years that Poe was continually ago- tion, the rising smoke from the ci- nizing (epigraph) over the exacerba- gar (“though the ash be loath to part tions and remissions of his wife’s ter- from its glowing kiss of fire”), and the minal tuberculosis, it is a powerful delicate Japanese designs produce an examination of the psychology of be- Figure 2. At the Window (“Open here I flung the atmosphere that blends sensuality reavement. (The Raven is performed shutter”). © MFA, Boston.

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©2008 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/26/2021 poetical topic in the world.” Told from “the lips...ofabereaved lover,”7(p19) it is best suited to achieve the de- sired effect. Melancholy, for Poe, was a species of despair that delighted in self-torture. For the place, he chose a stormy night with the bereaved in an enclosed space. The rhythm and meter, chosen to amplify the effect, was suggested to him by a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (later Brown- ing), “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” Poe’s last line of the last stanza clari- fies that the poem is a “mournful and never ending remembrance.” Figure 4. The Chair (“That shadow that lies Poe’s insistence on this tightly ra- floating on the floor”). © MFA, Boston. tional approach to composition in de- Figure 3. The Raven on the Bust (“Perched scribing how he wrote The Raven sug- upon a bust of Pallas”). © MFA, Boston. gests his need to control the emotions Mallarme´’s most lasting contribu- and thoughts this particular poem tion to Poe’s fame. His poem begins: “Such as at last into Himself eternity Step by step, Poe draws the reader or elicited in him. In 1842, as a compli- 8(p95) listener into the mental journey of the cation of her tuberculosis, his wife, Transforms him....” Mal- bereaved: seeking self-distraction Virginia Poe, whom he deeply loved, larme´ asserts that eternity has trans- (“frommybookssurceaseofsorrow”); burst a blood vessel in a lung while formed Poe after death into who he murmuring the name of the deceased; singing. Her illness waxed and waned truly is; his essence will live on as his imagining that she is not dead; hop- until her death in 1847, 2 years after contributions are recognized and ing for a reunion after death, then de- The Raven was written. Her illness fixed, which did not happen during spairing of it; realizing with mount- brought back memories of the deaths his lifetime. The poet chastises those ing anxiety that the raven must be a of Poe’s mother (in his early child- who slandered Poe’s reputation when messenger of death (“And his eyes hood); brother; foster mother; Jane he was alive and asks that this me- have all the seeming of a demon’s that Stith Stanard, his friend’s mother, morial be a reminder in stone to limit is dreaming”); falling deeper into ru- who inspired him; and others he further blasphemy in the years to mination, self-torture, and hopeless- cared for. The fluctuating course of come. He asks his readers and listen- ness—and finally realizing that she is Virginia’s illness was especially stress- ers, each of us, in our imagination, permanently gone. ful for Poe (epigraph). His January 4, to adorn Poe’s “dazzling tomb” and In April 1846, Poe published his 1848, letter to George Eveleth signi- carve on it an imaginary frieze as a “Philosophy of Composition,” an es- fied his mental state 1 year after her tribute to his eternal genius. say that deeply influenced Mal- death, close to its first anniversary, larme´, in Graham’s magazine where and 3 years after The Raven was pub- James C. Harris, MD Poe had previously worked.7 In it, lished. Poe wrote: using The Raven as his example, he REFERENCES wrote that his first consideration in [I]t was the horrible never ending oscilla- tion between hope & despair...which I poetic composition was deciding on couldnotlongerhaveenduredwithouttotal 1. Quinn A. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Bal- the overall effect of the poem. To loss of reason. In the death of what was my timore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1998. achieve unity of effect, he felt, re- life, then, I received a new but—oh God! 2. Wilson-Bareau J, Mitchell B. Tales of a Raven: The quired that the poem be short enough Origins and Fate of Le Corbeau by Mallarme´ and How melancholy an existence. Manet. Print Q. 1989;6:258-307. to be read in 1 sitting. Poe believed 3. Mitchell B. The Complete Illustrations from Dela- that contemplation of beauty was the Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore croix’s Faust and Manet’s The Raven. New York, province of the poem and that brev- in 1849. The exact cause of the de- NY: Dover Publications Inc; 1981. ity and intensity were required to elicit lirium that preceded his death contin- 4. Quinn PF. The French Face of Poe. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press; 1954. it. Melancholy, for him, was the “most ues to be debated. It was not until No- 5. Llloyd R. Mallarme´: The Poet and His Circle. Ithaca, legitimate” poetic tone. Thus the tone vember 1875, following a 10-year NY: Cornell University Press; 2005. of The Raven would be melancholic, fund-raising effort, that a monument 6. Kopley R, Hayes KJ. Two verse masterworks: The continually underscored by a 1-word to Poe designed by architect George Raven and Ulalume. In: Hays KJ, ed. The Cam- refrain, “Nevermore,” a word cho- A. Frederick was unveiled in Balti- bridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cam- bridge, England: Cambridge University Press; 2002: sen based on its sound, “sonorous and more. Baltimorean Sara Rice invited 191-202. susceptible to protracted empha- Mallarme´ tocomposeasonnetinPoe’s 7. Poe EA. Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews. sis.”7(p18) The effect is amplified by honor for the occasion. No mournful Thompson GR, ed. New York, NY: Library of choosing the raven, a bird of ill omen, remembrance, Mallarme´’s memorial America; 1984:13-25. 8. Mallarme´ S. The Tomb of Edgar Poe. Macksey R, to deliver the refrain. For his topic Poe poem is a tribute to Poe’s genius. trans. In: Shivers FR Jr. Maryland Wits and Balti- wrote, “the death...ofabeautiful The sonnet, “Le Tombeau d’Edgar more Bards. Baltimore, MD: Maclay & Associates; woman is, unquestionably, the most Poe (The Tomb of Edgar Poe)” is 1985.

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©2008 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/26/2021