I recently completed The Man Who Called Himself Poe ed. by Sam Moskowitz (1968). Built around short stories that have Poe as a character, there are a few stories worth reading.
Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel's son, appears with "My Adventure with Edgar Allan Poe". Forty-two years after Poe's death, the narrator meets him in a restaurant. Poe, thanks to his beautiful handwriting, is leading a quiet life as a banker's secretary. He's not only lost his taste for liquor but everything else that made him a singular, fascinating figure.
Vincent Starrett's "In Which an Author and His Character Are Well Met" really doesn't work to any great effect, but it's interesting to see the meeting of Legrand and Poe during Poe's last days in Baltimore.
Robert Bloch shows up a couple of times. First it is with "The Man Who Collected Poe". It's not only influenced by Bloch's first literary idol, H. P. Lovecraft, but Lovecraft's idol Poe. Bloch takes the setup, plot, and even some verbatim quotes from "The Fall of the House of Usher". It works. Bloch also does a credible job of finishing Poe's fragment "The Lighthouse". (I know many writers have done that, but this is the only one I've read, so I can't compare it to the others.)
"Castaway" by Edmond Hamilton takes the not very novel idea that Poe's fantastic images derived from direct personal experience. Poe would like to believe he is not of this "ugly and terrible" world. But he knows that way lies madness. Hamilton does a nice job of conveying the despair Poe must have felt at times.
The first four installments of the 1838 serial "The Atlantis" are included though Moskowitz admits only Thomas Hobson Quinn thought Poe wrote any part of the work. I don't believe this is available online.
I'm not convinced, personally. Poe didn't care much for "those negrophilic old ladies of the north," as he once wrote, which I interpret to refer pejoratively to those who cared about Black people. He also criticized the "Abolition fanatic" James Russell Lowell and lamented that Southern writers (like Poe himself) were treated like "barbarians". Agreeing that Poe was not often political, I don't see any good way to determine Poe was loyal to the Union despite all his statements that he was anti-Abolitionism or that he was a Southerner ("I am a Virginian -- at least, I call myself one").
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
You guys are right, Poe didn't comment much on politics. He was more into art. But that's not the whole story. Especially in the Marginalia, later in his life, he does start to make philosophical remarks that could be called political. I agree that Poe was too smart to get into long arguments on divisive political issues. But I still say he would have been for the Union, not any 'way of life' of the South.
I agree- I don't think that Poe was at all political. An artist YES but with no purposeful political undertones. In all honesty he had so many "strained relationships" to deal with that I can't imagine his wanting to focus on politics- he had his own trials and tribulations to manage. Now...one could imagine if he were more of a poititian, what would his stand be?
I think that's fascinating speculation, Monday. But the problem that suddenly occurs to me is this: how is Poe political? Throughout all the major political events of his life, including multiple presidencies, battles, westward expansion, etc., he rarely - if ever - made any particular notice of it. Even Longfellow, who firmly believed that being politically outspoken was not appropriate for a public poet, made minor notes in his journals about damn near everything going on around him (it helped, of course, that his best friend was Charles Sumner).
My new speculation is that Poe was too much of an artist to be too interested in the Civil War or the question of slavery. Even so, I think, ultimately, if he had to choose a side, he would have sided with the South - not because of his commitment to slavery but because of his commitment to the Southern way of life and his opposition to the North's inability to leave them alone about it. As he wrote of Longfellow shortly after that poet published Poems on Slavery: it is "a very commendable and comfortable thing, in Professor [Longfellow], to sit at ease in his library chair, and write verses instructing the southerners how to give up their all with a good grace, and abusing them if they will not."
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
Poe was a patriot, and was proud that his grandfather knew Lafayette. Poe hated fanaticism and many of his stories are satires against all sorts of fanaticism. Poe was really more the smiling 18th century Wit than the weeping 19th century Romantic. Poe became a successful writer in the North, and there's no real proof that he was a 'racist.' The 'southern gentleman' label carries with it a host of pejoratives which really don't apply to Poe. John Allan was a very, very wealthy man (after collecting his inheritance when the family came back from England where Poe was schooled as a boy) and Poe's story would probably have been different had he been given some of that fortune and become a 'real Southern gentleman.' But Allan kicked him out and Poe made his way in the world with nothing, and most of his success came in Philadelphia and New York. Poe was not some 'cracker' by any means. He did think, like many, including Lincoln, that the abolitionist movement was crazy, and just pushing America towards war. I think Poe would have supported Lincoln, not the South. Poe didn't trust England, and England tacitly supported the Confederacy, hoping the war would destroy the United States. Like all highly charged political eras, many shrewd players kept their cards close to their vests, and Poe was known to do this. He would not have been an outspoken abolitionist as the war approached; I think he would have sought compromise and tried to prevent the war. His genius may even have wrestled with the horrible dilemna, and he might have prevented the war somehow, or given military advice to the North (see Winfield Scott, a friend of John Allan's and a slight acquaintance of Poe's) to help them win the war quickly with less bloodshed. This is all speculation, of course, but it's a shame Poe did not live longer. As a Southerner living in the North, he would have been a great force for peace and compromise, since he did love America, and he was a rhetorical genius, and a genius in so many ways.
Thanks for those descriptions, Reynolds. I'm intrigued by the concept of Poe and the Civil War. It's so hard to pin down Poe's feelings on slavery (as is true, frankly, of most people from this period, even the most public abolitionists of the day). When people used to ask me if Poe was a racist, I'd usually respond that he was a product of his time and was neither more nor less racist than any other Southern gentleman of the time. Then again, the Civil War would have been such an odd thing for Poe to endure... who knows where he would have ended up on the issue?
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
I've encountered fictional Poes in three science fiction stories. (Warning: Spoilers in some plot descriptions.)
The first is Walter Jon Williams' alternate history story "No Spot of Ground". Williams puts Poe at Gettysburg. In this world, Poe is pulled out of the gutter in Baltimore before he can get fatally ill. He mourns Virginia, has given up his literary life, and endures the strange admiration of the French poet Baudelaire (who insists he thought of Poe's poems independently) and the occasional admiration by fellow Americans. He is haughty, arrogant, self-conscious, somewhat paranoid of his fellow officers opinion of him; affected by his Eureka-type thoughts; has two ravens who croak "Nevermore" like a Greek chorus, and oh so lonely for Virginia despite his new marriage. Poe is a Cassandra like figure, using his evidently capable tactical sense and expertise with codes to warn his superiors of Yankee intentions, and he is always ignored. To Poe, the Yankee's are the symbol of everything he hates -- industrialization, common, sordidness unbefitting a Southern aristocrat. The Civil War is a battle of values and the North is symbolized by Walt Whitman -- a possible homosexual, writer of common, sordid poems to prostitutes and working men. The story ends on a powerful note. Poe has won the battle, is a hero, but no longer believes in the cause. He sees his victory as only prolonging the South's inevitable defeat. He mournfully concludes he should have died in Baltimore. A sad, haunting story.
Charles L. Harness' Lurid Dreams actually takes its title from a complimentary Whitman essay on Poe and also links Gettsyburg and Poe. Here the elements are an alternate history/time travel/out-of-body subplot; a fanatical, would-be son of the Confederacy who wants to change history by making sure Brigadier General Edgar Allan Poe does the right thing and lead in his men to sure death in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg; a satire on the trivilaity, narrow mindedness, and sexual harassment of academia and graduate studies; and such a relentlessly Freudian interpretation of Poe's works that it's almost convincing. William Reynolds, narrator, is utterly obsessed with getting a doctorate as is his girlfirend Alix Schell, a woman who, while a Freudian obsessed, symbol mongering psych major, is blind to Reynolds' faults. Reynolds desperation is well-conveyed along with his ambition. The Colonel is obsessed with the South as victors in the Civil War. The best thing in this book is Harness' amazing knowledge of Poe and his works. And the character of time-hopping Edgar Allan Poe who chooses the literary path even though he knows the despair, poverty, obscurity, and anguish which are at its end is very memorable -- the ultimate distillation of the artist who gives all, knowlingly, for his art. This dedication and poignancy is echoed by the Colonel words at the revised Gettysburg (his art in a way).
Rudy Rucker's The Hollow Earth isn't all that interesting except for its description of the alternate Poe as a con-artist and counterfeiter and how bits of Poe and his language (particularly "Berenice" and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym) are worked into Ruckers story.
I absolutely LOVED Robert Poe's "The Return to the House of Usher." His follow-up on "The Black Cat" was not quite as tight a narrative.
I'll have to respectfully disagree on Harold Schecter's book with Poe and Crockett ("Nevermore"). Though I'll admit his characterization of the fictional Poe was unique and intriguing, I just didn't care much for it. His other books, by the way, include Poe teaming up with a young Louisa May Alcott and P. T. Barnum... I didn't read any after "Nevermore" so I can't comment on them.
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
I read a book called Nevermore by Harold Schechter Poe has to solve a murder with Davey Crockett. It is actually very funny and entertaining. I think there is a whole series of four books so far, but I haven't read the rest. There was a series a few years ago by Robert Poe (who is related to EAP) that included Return to the House of Usher and The Black Cat. It was about a modern day relative of Poe who has inherited a box of secret papers belonging to Poe. I was enjoying the series, but it stopped abruptly.
Inspired by Isobel's comment, I thought I'd start a thread on the many fictional representations of Poe. Has anyone read any books, seen any films, etc. that you would like to comment on? There are some good ones (and plenty of bad ones too).
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
