American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2013 research journal

Joseph Bernard

2 May 2013

The Poe Passport

Crossing Borders:

            Within the American literary canon, few have received as much attention, fascination and even worship than Edgar Allan Poe. Perusing the Poe section of one’s local library can feel daunting due to the sheer number of books that contain his work, criticism, and biographical information. Classes are dedicated to deciphering his work and students who have encountered his texts typically desire to know the “man behind the legend”. While a biographical study on Poe would be fascinating, so much has already been said, so many have pursued the “truest” information on this mythic literary figure that one would be tempted to proclaim that the genre of “Poe biography” has been thoroughly exhausted. In a similar vein, studies on how Poe’s work has influenced American literature and other media have been explored at seemingly every possible angle. Where can one turn to possibly glean new perspectives on Poe? Edward Wagenknecht gives his reader the answer in the introduction of his book Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind The Legend: “Tennyson calls Poe ‘the most original genius that America has produced,’ . . . . Rossetti acknowledged his debt to him . . . . Shaw declares that ‘we others simply take off our hats to let Mr.Poe go first’” (Wagenknecht 4). These English authors giving Poe praise is just the first portion of Wagenknecht’s answer. The other portion is located just a few pages over: “Poe’s reputation has been higher in non-English speaking countries . . . the Russians and other Europeans came to know him…and he was once reported to be one of Stalin’s favorite authors!” (Wagenknecht 6) While Stalin is not a great literary figure, the point remains clear: Poe’s influence extended beyond American borders and infiltrated Europe and Asia. Who specifically was influenced? How did Poe’s texts influence other writers across the world? Why did Poe’s work have such a dramatic impact on world literature? As the journal progresses, these questions will be examined and given answers that will hopefully inject new life into the study of one of America’s greatest authors.

Just a bit of biography:

            Although this journal is primarily about those who have been influenced by Poe’s work, it seems appropriate to take a slight detour into Poe’s correspondence with other authors and how the man himself viewed his international authorial counterparts. While Poe was generally considered a narcissist and “tore into” most authors that were not himself through his criticism, George A. Woodberry’s biography(aptly entitled Edgar Allan Poe) makes note of the heavy influence that Lord Byron and Samuel Coleridge, Woodberry saying of the latter: “He was the disciple of Coleridge; and, being gifted with something of Coleridge’s analysis powers, he applied the principles he thus derived with skill and effect.” (Woodberry 269) Although he was a “disciple” of Coleridge, that did not stop him from decimating his and others work. Wagenknecht details the follow attitude Poe held toward other authors, especially those of an international origin: “That he was sometimes rude as a reviewer all his readers know. He could be slighting even toward…Coleridge…and he could be rude, toward writers he had never seen, like Wordsworth and Carlyle. He was impudent...Poe was ‘vindictive, revengeful, unscrupulous…’” (Wagenknecht 80). Poe might have possessed less than tasteful qualities when it came to discussing other authors, but as a literary critic he was able to at least recognize the achievements of international authors: “The test of his ability as a critic, the severest test to which a man can be put, is the quickness and certainty of his recognition of unknown genius…To Tennyson, Dickens, and Longfellow he brought early applause.” (269) This vacillation between lauding praise and searing criticism seems only fitting for someone as frustrating to pin down in terms of personality as Poe. He judged for himself who he believed to be worthy of literary respect, as one of his letters to James R Lowell illustrates: “I am profoundly excited…by some poems—those of Tennyson especially, whom, with Keats, Shelley, Coleridge…I regard as the sole poets.” (Ostrom 256-257) Projecting his own standards onto literary history and proclaiming some poets to be the only ones worthy of study was arrogant to be sure, but it is an ironic arrogance; after all, Poe’s work created a massive chain reaction across literature, both in the United States and worldwide, that almost qualifies him to make such sweeping statements. A narcissist, yes, but is he a qualified narcissist? I leave that question to the reader.

The Breakdown:

            With biographical information out of the way, the attention now shifts to the “meat” of the journal: Poe’s influence upon a global scale as well as how literary figures from around the world influenced Poe’s own work. In order to make the journal an easier read, all authors discussed will fall underneath their respective country.

England:

Alfred Lord Tennyson:

            As alluded to earlier in the journal, Poe was an author that Tennyson respected a great deal. However, that respect ran both ways, as evidenced in Gerhard Joseph’s article “Poe and Tennyson”, where Poe’s admiration for Tennyson is mentioned: “Whenever Poe alludes to Tennyson it is with a panegyrical energy that reaches for superlatives: Tennyson is the ‘most pure poet’ that has ever lived…” (Joseph 419) It should be no surprise to know that the duo’s writing styles complimented each other rather well, especially in the area of poetry, which Joseph concentrates on rather heavily. The “tonalities” or sound of both poets’ work not only sound similar, but attempt to achieve a higher purpose: “For Poe and the early Tennyson, the cultivation of exquisite tonalities is not an end in itself but rather a strategy to facilitate toward the ascent toward heavenly beauty.” (419) Examples of these similar tones are found in Tennyson’s “The Lotos Eaters” and “Annabel Lee”, both poems featuring the same rhyme scheme and a heavy atmosphere of desire to return home(whether that was Greece or in the arms of Annabel Lee) and the eventual loss of that desire in death. Joseph says more about the correlation of tonality between Poe and Tennyson: “In the works of both writers physical objects are suffused with a mingled aura of ineffable beauty and suffocating gloom; houses and palaces and cities are built to a shadowy music and take upon themselves deathlike associations…” (Joseph 420) One only has to take a cursory glance at Poe’s work to find gloom and beauty: the suffocating catacombs of “The Cask of Amontadillo”, the grotesque mansion that houses a party with unsuspecting guests in “The Masque of the Red Death” and the prototypical gothic home in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” to name a few. Tennyson matches Poe with his poem “Locksley Hall”, in which a decrepit manor is described in detail as framed against a nocturnal setting: “Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall/Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,/And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.” (Tennyson 3-6) The dreariness of the manor compounded with its overlooking a darkened shoreline screams of a Poe-esque murder mystery just waiting to happen.

            Another facet of mutual influence is the subject of the “dying maiden” that Poe famously discussed in numerous places, including “Ligeia” and “Annabel Lee”. While it is not fact that Tennyson influenced Poe to write those poems, Poe made much of Tennyson’s work on the dying maiden, which includes the famous poem “The Lady of Shallot.” It is of note to mark the contrasting thematic elements between Tennyson’s and Poe’s “dying maiden” poems, seeing as there is a marked difference in what the respective poets were attempting to communicate. In “The Lady of Shallot”, a maiden is held captive in a large tower by a spell that kills her if she chooses to venture outside. Upon viewing Lancelot passing by her tower, she decides to go outside and experience the world for the first time, thereby effectively committing suicide. In essence, the poem is attempting to convey the restrictive nature of the Victorian ideal for women(which was to appear beautiful, stay silent and take care of the domestic sphere without leaving it) and if a woman were to rebel against said ideal, they would be quickly dashed aside in Victorian society as just another “Lady of Shallot” with no individual identity, a woman who tried to go against Victorian norms. With Poe’s “Annabel Lee”, however, the reader sees a very different view on women. Firstly, the woman in the poem is named, giving her an individual persona and thereby importance in Poe’s eyes. Also, near the end of the poem, Poe describes how everywhere he looks in nature reminds him of his lost love, thereby preserving her memory forever in his heart. In no way does Poe restrict or bind women to a societal ideal and proclaim that if they stray from that ideal, they would die; rather, he shows that even upon death, the love for a woman will endure.

            The relationship between Tennyson and Poe’s texts could be explored throughout the entire journal, but obviously cannot be for the sake of space. Suffice to say, both authors were heavily influenced by the other and made gigantic contributions to literature on a global scale. While Tennyson and Poe were happily in tune with one another, there was another English author who Poe had more of a rocky relationship with.

Charles Dickens:

             To be clear, both Poe and Dickens did respect each other on a personal and academic level. Burton R. Pollin’s article “Dickens's 'Chimes' and its pathway into Poe's ‘Bells’” mentions that Poe had “numerous laudatory references” to Dickens’s works and even met with the man on one occasion (Pollin) However, there was one incident that sparked a sort of controversy between the two men that revolved around plagiarism and a nasty letter.

            Fernando Galvan’s article “Plagiarism in Poe: Revisiting the Poe-Dickens Relationship” points out that Poe was obsessed with detecting plagiarism in other authorial works and banishing any who he believed to be a plagiarist to the figurative “doghouse”. It would be no surprise to note that Poe himself came under fire several times for plagiarism himself by other authors who were tired of his critical antics. The most defining piece of criticism that aimed to defame Poe’s reputation was one published in The London Foreign Quarterly that had an anonymous author and reviewed a tome entitled The Poets and Poetry of America, in which three of Poe’s poems were published. The reviewer had this to say about Poe’s work: “ ‘ these passages have a spirituality in them, usually denied to imitators; who rarely possess the property recently discovered in the mockingbirds- a solitary note of their own.’” (Galvan 11-12) Upon reading this slanderous accusation, Poe immediately believed that Dickens had written the article, seeing as “some of the words in the review were taken from comments which Poe himself had made to Dickens…in Philadelphia…”(Galvan 12). Although some tried to talk him out of the thought process, Poe remained adamant that the English author had slandered Poe’s good(for what that term is worth in the context of Poe) name. Thankfully later that year, Poe softened his outlook on Dickens authorship of the piece, allowing the matter to drop.

            The previously mentioned literary rough-housing did not tarnish the influence that Dickens had on Poe and vice versa. A Dickens short story entitled “A Confession Found in a Prison in the time of Charles the Second” was praised by Poe as “’a paper of remarkable Power’” and could have influenced the writing of “A Tell-Tale Heart”. Critic Edith Krappe points out four distinct elements that both stories share: a similar manner in which the idea for murder is thought of, motivation for murder, similar behaviors of the murderer before and after the murder as well as the discovery of the murderer’s identity (Galvan 14)

            Another connection between Poe and Dickens is that of their respective works entitled “Bells” and “Chimes”. The first few paragraphs of “Chimes” and the fourth part of “Bells” sound very similar in their description of the atmosphere that surrounds the bells. For instance, Dickens writes this about the context in which the chimes (or bells) operated in: “High up in the steeple of an old church, far above the light and murmur of the town and far below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and dreary place at night: and high up in the steeple of an old church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of.” (Dickens) Compare the preceding quotation with this from Poe: “tolling of the bells/Iron bells!/What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!/In the silence of the night,/How we shiver with affright/At the melancholy menace of their tone!” (Poe 69-75) The phrases “wild and dreary” and “solemn thought” create a dense, moody atmosphere that can almost be called Gothic in nature. The distant nature of the chimes/bells emphasized by Dickens can be joined with Poe’s mention of silence to enforce a kind of stagnant darkness that looms above the heads of mankind in almost threatening manner: “far above the light of the town…high up in the steeple” and “their monody compels!/In the silence of the night…” There are many more similarities between the two works, but again, for sake of time the author will stop here.

            Both Tennyson and Dickens were key players with Poe in terms of mutual influence. However, it may be easy for one to say at this juncture that American and British authors had an easier time influencing each other due to the readily available boat travel. As the journal proceeds, however, one can see how Poe’s work did not just influence England, but Spain,  Eastern Europe and Australia as well.

Spain

            A brief author’s note: due to the number of Spanish authors influenced by Poe and the discussion on the film industry that will proceed the discourse on authors, there are only two categories for this portion of the journal: Literature and Film.

Literature:

            Emilio Canadas Rodriguez gives his readers a unique view into how Spanish literature has been influenced by Poe in his article “Finishing ‘The Lighthouse’ with Jose Jimenez Lozano: A Sample of Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on Contemporary Spanish Writers” The article’s main premise deals with a unique project in which nine Spanish writers were tasked with finishing Poe’s unfinished story entitled “The Lighthouse”. This challenge brought together the best of the best in terms of contemporary Spanish authors who desired to meet the chAllange; this alone speaks to the deep roots Poe has in the minds of Spanish authors. Rodriguez gives his readers a perspective on how Poe is viewed in Spain: “Poe’s authority affects Spanish writers in different ways…the tales of Cristina Fernandez Cubas is based on the feelings evoked by a mysterious atmosphere whereas Javier Garcia Sanchez is influenced by the connection between those who are alive and the ‘others’ who are not ‘dead’.” (Rodriguez 70-71) Unfortunately for the author, there were no English translations of any texts by the authors, but with titles such as “She, Dracula”, “The Others” and “Those houses don’t exist”, the author can certainly infer that the Gothic is alive and well in contemporary Spain.

Film

            As the film industry began to form, directors could not resist sinking their teeth into Poe’s stories and, after falling in love with them, thrust them onto the silver screen as adaptations. While in America we are familiar with Poe-esque adaptations(“The Raven” being the first that comes to mind), the Spanish film industry also took a liking to Poe’s work and adapted his stories for film. Within Angel Galdon and Maria Isabel Jimenez’s article “The Influence of E.A. Poe in the Spanish Short Subject Industry,” several films are detailed by the authors that reflect Poe’s influence. The Cask of Amontadillo is dubbed “El Tonel de Amontillado” and filmed as a silent, black and white film, although it was released in 2000, the authors giving their reasoning for why it was done this way: “[the] format wants to suggest that the action took place in another period of time, distracting the spectator’s attention through the current age.” (Galdon and Jimenez 79) Overall, the film is accurate to the source material. Two films that are totally different from Poe’s material are “El Chivato” and “El gato negro”, both adaptations of “The Black Cat”. “El Chivato” features several differing elements, such as the disappearance of a narrator, the married couple who features heavily in the story being replaced with gun-toting man, among others. In “El Gato Negro”, the story is set in Japan, the director claiming that the film is a blending of Poe’s story and Japanese ghost stories. Whether Poe’s stories were adapted faithfully or not, one thing is clear: Poe’s imprint is clearly evident in Spain.

            It is fascinating to see how Poe, written in English, was taken in by other non-English speaking countries and embraced as a heavy influence upon their media. This speaks to the universal fascination that humans have with the Gothic, Poe speaking to that fascination rather heavily. With England and Spain in the books, two more stops remain: Eastern Europe and Australia.

Eastern Europe:

(Note: Again, for the sake of time, the author has a blanket category, but this one is labeled differently due to the nature of the sources gleaned. )

Walking into Hostile Territory:

            In the small country of Romania, one would not expect to find a tome of Poe’s works in a local library, let alone studied profusely by the general populace. However, Ana Olos sheds light on the Romanian perspective on Poe in her article entitled: “Premises for the Reception of Edgar Allan Poe’s work in Romania at the Bicentenary of his birth.” Romania had been a country under Soviet rule, which meant that studying any American author, let alone someone as Gothic as Poe, was not an avenue to be explored. Yet, Poe represented a challenge, a dare to authority that made Poe more “attractive” to study according to Olos (Olos 9). As the years wore on, the USSR launched its first space probe, leading an author to a certain story of Poe’s: “Poe’s writing about travel to the moon stirred a new interest, and thus, Ion Vinea’s translation of Poe’s ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Phaal’” was published in a youth collection of science fiction stories in…1960.” (10) With the USSR’s collapse and the establishment of Romania as an independent country, Poe’s writings became more widespread: “In recent years some of Poe’s writings have been constantly available…a fact which suggests that his imaginative writing have general popular appeal and that the authorities regard him as…non-controversial…”(12) Courses in foreign languages were established and with these courses came a renewed vigor to study American authors, especially Poe. Why him? What was his appeal? Olos furnishes her take at the end of her article: “His success lies in the impressive variety of his work, but it is also based on the ‘cult’ generated by the story of his short, unhappy and troubled life…” (17) This sounds very familiar in the sense that we as American readers love Poe for the very same reasons. We are fascinated with not only his works, but his personage as well. Although Romania was controlled by a governing body who viewed America in a less than favorable light, Poe managed to infiltrate the country slowly, eventually becoming commonplace in Romanian curriculum as the USSR’s grip loosened.

            Two non-English speaking countries have now been covered alongside England and Poe’s influence continues to remain strong. The last country on the itinerary is one that the author would not have thought about even in the remotest sense: Australia. An English speaking country, yes, but because of its distance from America, the author believed it to be a non-factor. The author was wrong. Very wrong.

Australia:

Note: One category is only required here

The Australian Gothic:

            The Gothic of Australia, while differing in subject material, hold very similar characteristics to Poe’s Gothic subjects and his influence looms large on Australian authors. The Australian Gothic is detailed extensively in Devearakonda Ramakrishna’s article “The Australian Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe.” Ramakrishna is quick to point out that the Gothic in Australia is very similar to Poe in the sense that “fear is psychological, resulting from a haunted conscience, perverseness, and morbidity intensified by the environment.” (Ramakrishna 49) This can be seen in Joan Lindsay’s book Picnic at Hanging Rock, in which a group of young girls and their teacher go on a picnic only to disappear, never to be found. A quote emerges from the book that seems rather Poe-esque:

‘Miranda...!’ There was no answering voice. The awful silence closed in and Edith began, quite loudly now, to scream. If her terrified cries had been heard by anyone but a wallaby squatting in a clump of bracken a few feet away, the picnic at hanging Rock might yet have been just another picnic on a summer’s day. Nobody did hear them. The wallaby sprang up in alarm and bounded away, as Edith turned back, plunged blindly into the scrub and ran, stumbling and screaming, towards the plain.” (Lindsay)

Phrases such as “the awful silence closed in” and “Nobody did hear them” create fear within the heart of the reader and aid the reader in questioning whether or not there was something ready to jump out of nowhere and feast on Edith’s flesh. One only has to think of the morbid silence within “The Pit and the Pendulum” to come up with an accurate comparison. Marcus Clarke is another author of the Australian Gothic who follows in the footsteps of Poe. Ramakrishna has this to say about the similarities between Clarke and Poe: “Another of Clarke’s stories, ‘Human Repetends’(1872) employs Gothic mystery in an 1863 setting. The narrator refers directly to Poe’s ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’ in presenting the solution of a murder by means of deductive reasoning.” (51) The detective story is employed in Clarke’s story as a homage to Poe, who all but invented the detective story in the United States.

Why should I care?

            By now, there is a temptation to ask “How does any of this connect to American Romanticism?” After all, isn’t the point of AMERICAN Romanticism to cover only what has been studied in America? Why bother studying the global effects of one author? The answer is simple: Romanticism does not just encompass America; rather, it is a movement that is universal, one that can apply to any part of the human condition. Those in Spain and Romania are just as fascinated by Poe’s mysterious lifestyle, his suspenseful and tense fiction and his themes that cover the gamut of psychological profiling, not to mention his work with detective fiction. As a Romantic author and poet, Poe speaks to the human soul, not exclusively to the American or the British or any English speaking people. In a sense, Poe transcends geographical limitations and superimposes himself upon other literary canons, which could have been objected to, but was not due to his examination of the human condition and how that condition can change drastically when put in a very Gothic light (or darkness).

Concluding thoughts:

            As with the previous research journal, I thought that this was be an easy subject to do research on. Poe is an author who has been studied extensively for at least one hundred and thirty years and there had to be some material about how his writings had impacted the global literary canon. I was pleasantly surprised to find numerous sources that gave me a number of global perspectives from which I could draw on for the purposes of this journal. However, as I began to write, something became rather clear: while Poe was heavily influential on authors and still has an imprint on modern literature and film, there was much that Poe himself learned from his contemporaries. Being a literary critic, he examined countless works from authors around the world and reviewed them, which by extension means that he absorbed differing styles into his own work and employed them for his own benefit. I would have never thought that Poe had Tennyson and Dickens to thank for so much of his style; instead, I thought that others copied from Poe. In this instance, I was wrong. There was much give and take between Poe and the works he encountered; in fact, there is still a give and take in the sense that we can take Poe’s works and adapt them as we see fit, effectively giving a new take on an old classic and possibly influencing someone else to take a different stance on a Poe story, etc. The cycle of reading, interpreting, analyzing and discussing will never be broken with Poe because of the wealth of perspectives readers bring to the literary forum of discourse and can apply to Poe’s almost malleable work. With the Poe Passport stamped in rather heavily, the author can finally say that it’s time to come home.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. "The Chimes." The Chimes by Charles Dickens. Project Gutenburg, n.d. Web. 5 May 2013.

Galdon, Angel, and Maria I. Jimenez. "The Influence of E. A. Poe in the Spanish Short Subject Industry." Edgar Allan Poe Review 10.2 (2009): 78-86. Web. 5 May 2013.

Galvan, Fernando. "Plagiarism in Poe: Revisiting the Poe-Dickens Relationship." Edgar Allan Poe Review 10.2 (2009): 11-24. Web. 5 May 2013.

"Joan Lindsay(1896-1984)." Joan Lindsay(1896-1984). N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2013. <https://sites.google.com/a/gothicromantic.com/gothicromantic9/australian-gothic-f/joan-lindsay-1896-1984>.

Joseph, Gerhard J. "Poe and Tennyson." PMLA 88.3 (1973): 418-23. Web. 5 May 2013.

Olos, Ana. "Premises for the Reception of Edgar Allan Poe's Work in Romania at the Bicentenary of His Birth." Edgar Allan Poe Review 11.2 (2010): 9-20. Web. 5 May 2013.

Poe, Edgar A. "Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe." Edgar Allan Poe. Poem Hunter, n.d. Web. 5 May 2013.

Poe, Edgar A. "The Bells." Edgar Allan Poe: The Bells. Fordham University Church, n.d. Web. 5 May 2013.

Pollin, Burton R. "Dickens's 'Chimes' and Its Pathway into Poe's "Bells." (Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe)." The Mississippi Quarterly 51.2 (1998): 217. Web. 5 May 2013.

Ramakrishna, Devarakonda. "The Australian Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe." Edgar Allan Poe Review 9.1 (2008): 49-54. Web. 5 May 2013.

Rodriguez, Emilio C. "Finishing "The Lighthouse" with José Jiménez Lozano: A Sample of Edgar Allan Poe's Influence on Contemporary Spanish Writers." Edgar Allan Poe Review 10.2 (2009): 70-77. Web.

Tennyson, Alfred L. "The Lotos-eaters." By Alfred, Lord Tennyson : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2013.

Tennyson, Alfred. "Locksley Hall." By Alfred, Lord Tennyson : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2013.

Wagenknecht, Edward. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man behind the Legend. New York: Oxford UP, 1963. Print.

Woodberry, George. Edgar Allan Poe. Boston: Houghton MIfflin, 1885. Print.