Did Poe write to be read aloud? - Poe International: The International Edgar A Poe Society

Midnightdreary · Senior Member

RE: Did Poe write to be read aloud?

Jamieb09 · Newbie

I believe that Poe DID NOT write to be read aloud when he first started writing his works. How was he to know that his works would become some of the most famous poems in the world?!

Reynolds · Veteran Member

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Some_Strangeness_in_the_Proportion:_The_Exquisite_Beauties_of_Edgar_Allan_Poe.

I could put this in several places. (Maybe we should have a separate topic for all these recent famous author ruminations on Poe.) It's Neal Gaiman's introduction to a Barnes and Noble edition of Poe works. He goes with the notion of Poe as a writer best read aloud. The rest of the piece is his early introduction to Poe and continual return to Poe.

Reynolds · Veteran Member

Midnightdreary wrote:

Reynolds, the more I think about this, the more I'm not so sure. The poetry, certainly, just screams for reading aloud ("Ulalume" and "Eulalie" most certainly). This weekend I sat through a completely unabridged reading of "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (one of my favorites) by a well-accomplished actor of stage and screen (John Astin). In the end, I determined that at least for that story, I'd rather read in my head than sit back and listen.

That's a good counterexample. I think you would have to modify the theory to include just works featuring the personal account of a narrator and not works using a clinical tone, like "Valdemar" or imitating newspapers like "The Balloon Hoax".

I recently heard Vincent Price perform "The Sphinx" (from an Evening with Poe). It worked but was not that engaging on a second listen. It kind of straddles the line between a clinical tone -- the description of the moth -- and the agitated narrators of "Usher", "Amontillado", and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Midnightdreary · Senior Member

Reynolds wrote:
Oh, you might also be amused to go over to YouTube and check out the mash up of "The Raven" and "The Night Before Christmas" complete with illustrations.

By the way, I echo this recommendation!

Midnightdreary · Senior Member

Reynolds, the more I think about this, the more I'm not so sure. The poetry, certainly, just screams for reading aloud ("Ulalume" and "Eulalie" most certainly). This weekend I sat through a completely unabridged reading of "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (one of my favorites) by a well-accomplished actor of stage and screen (John Astin). In the end, I determined that at least for that story, I'd rather read in my head than sit back and listen.

Then again, "The Tell-Tale Heart" or even "Hop-Frog" is very different when you hear it rather than read it. Ultimately, I think the best answer is, "Sometimes."

Reynolds · Veteran Member

Well, I (or my wife, actually) was thinking of Poe's prose and not his poetry. I told her I'd be curious as to her opinion after reading Poe pieces like "A Domain in Arnheim" or "The Balloon Hoax".

As to Poe's poems, I'd certainly agree his sounds were enchanting. But, then, I'd argue that all real poetry takes on another dimension when read aloud. Otherwise, it's just funny typing.

A Cambridge Companion to Poe? Sounds worth checking out.

And speaking of "A Dream Within a Dream" I seem to recall one of the few times I saw the sitcom Cheers the Ted Danson character recited the poem -- trying to pass it off as his own -- to some woman he was trying to seduce.

Oh, you might also be amused to go over to YouTube and check out the mash up of "The Raven" and "The Night Before Christmas" complete with illustrations.

-- Edited by Reynolds at 13:11, 2009-01-16

monday love · Veteran Member

Good point, Reynolds. This is so strange because a working class guy I know just last night who wasn't even aware of Poe's bicentenary, after I mentioned it, started reciting 'El Dorado' and 'Dream Within A Dream' from memory and it was like some magic chant.

Poe So Totally Rocks

Shekhar · Newbie

This is very Intersting,
yes, Poe write to be read sloud,
I think best Example is his Poem "The Raven",
-
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'"

Midnightdreary · Senior Member

I think reading works just as well as hearing, personally, but I see the point. I'm not sure if Poe wrote to be read aloud literally, but I think he anticipated that people would "hear" the sounds in their mind. Certainly, sound is incredibly important to Poe and his writings make that clear. "Ulalume" and other poems are good examples but even his prose works quite well. Just listen to the first line of "The Fall of the House of Usher":

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
I think you can "hear" the mood as much in the sound of the words as in the meaning of the words. His use of a run-on sentences with excessive prepositional phrases is also deliberate. See Scott Peeple's essay "Poe's constructiveness and 'The Fall of the House of Usher'" in the Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe; he really breaks it down nicely.

But, just to emphasize his poetry again:

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

No one can deny that Poe knows all about sound.

Reynolds · Veteran Member

My wife has a theory about Poe and the oddness of some his prose to modern eyes.

What seems on the written page to be verbose and overpunctuated makes perfect sense when it's read aloud. Given Poe's views on the musical qualities of poetry and his frequent use of a narrator, she thinks he instinctively wrote in a rhythm that is clear when it is read aloud. The asides and digressions flow better, the punctuation makes more sense, when the story is delivered to the ears rather than the eyes. (She specifically formulated this theory when reading "Ligeia".)

She thinks that a modern audience's first exposure to Poe should be via audio rather than reading. (Say the Tell-Tale Heart movie from 1953 and narrated by James Mason or Vincent Price's An Evening with Poe.)

What do people here think?