...money was set aside for a stone marking his grave but the person responsible for that never got around to getting it done. While it's true Griswold had personal tragedy's and then there's the bizarre marriage to the she/he person I'm not shedding any tears for the man. I'd just as soon take a whizz on his grave to pay my respects.
But I will agree on this point. Griswold had power, fame and was one to be feared, however, if it wasn't for his association with Poe he would be largely forgotten as are the hundreds of other writer's who live on through Poe's reviews.
Garth wrote:Isn't it, um, poetic justice that the man who tried to bury Poe alive (metaphorically speaking) has been himself relegated to a forgotten grave?
The cautionary tale here, I believe, is that Griswold expended so much of his life and his literary efforts to blast Poe's character and abilities when he should have spent more of his time on earth creating some worthwhile, as Poe did.
Poe had a vision of the art he wanted to create, while Griswold only had "a demon in his view", to paraphrase a line from Poe.
I think you make an interesting point but, as I've learned more and more about Griswold, preparing to write his biography, I think we've made some incorrect assumptions about Griswold. For one, Poe was just a flash in the pan for him - a momentary annoyance which caused him little concern and for which he expended only minimal effort. His attacks on Poe were brief, and there were only a handful - it certainly wasn't a long, drawn-out fight.
Further, I think Griswold was really anticipating his Poets and Poetry of America and similar anthologies would leave a lasting legacy. To some extent, he was right - the introduction alone is worth reading. The man was brilliant, ambitious, and strong-willed.
He was also callous yet sensitive, a jerk and a liar who was always ready to pick a fight. The lack of a grave marker is, I think, evidence that he had plenty of friends - who were more than happy to abandon him when he they could.
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
Thank you. This is such a poignant and well-written meditation. I hope everyone reads it.
Isn't it, um, poetic justice that the man who tried to bury Poe alive (metaphorically speaking) has been himself relegated to a forgotten grave?
The cautionary tale here, I believe, is that Griswold expended so much of his life and his literary efforts to blast Poe's character and abilities when he should have spent more of his time on earth creating some worthwhile, as Poe did.
Poe had a vision of the art he wanted to create, while Griswold only had "a demon in his view", to paraphrase a line from Poe.
I hope you don't mind my sharing a personal story...
I visit a lot of cemeteries. I insist this is not because of some morbid affectation on my part. The truth is, many of the people that I admire happen to be dead, often by well over a century. My interest with these dead figures varies, of course, from deep and sincere respect to a passing curiosity. Nonetheless, I always enjoy adding to my list of visited graves.
In the past few years, I have visited the graves of Bronson Alcott, Washington Allston, William Ellery Channing (both the first and the second), E. E. Cummings, Richard Henry Dana (Sr.), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Dunn English, Edward Everett, James T. Fields, Benjamin Franklin, William Lloyd Garrison, Sarah Josepha Hale, Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.), Julia Ward Howe, Washington Irving, Harriet Jacobs, George Lippard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, H. P. Lovecraft, James Russell Lowell, Frances Sargent Osgood, Francis Parkman, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Edgar A. Poe, Paul Revere, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Charles Sumner, Bayard Taylor, Sarah Helen Whitman, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Joseph Emerson Worcester - just to name a few off the top of my head.
Usually, my reaction is pretty standard: I'm excited to come as close to meeting this person as possible (or sometimes just relieved I've finally found it after hours of traipsing through a muddy cemetery).
But last weekend, as I made my way through Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery to find the burial plot of Rufus W. Griswold, something else came over me. There, in the long shadow cast by the memorial to telegraph inventor Samuel Morse, I looked down at a completely unmarked grave for one of the most influential - yet controversial - literary figures of the mid-19th-century. No massive monument (like that of Poe) was left for him after fans came to his posthumous support. Not even a humble one, like that of Henry David Thoreau. No tokens were left at his grave, unlike the many trinkets left for Emily Dickinson. No stones or pinecones or pennies like so many other respected men of the past receive at their final resting place. A tree had overgrown into Griswold's spot and I imagined how its roots enveloped a forgotten coffin or, worse, broke through it to disturb the corpse.
It occurred to me as I stood there in the biting April wind that I might well be the only one who knows that Rufus Wilmot Griswold, the Reverend Doctor who had helped shape American poetry in the 1840s, was buried at lot 14668 in section 32. I thought it appropriate that this man was laid to rest on "Thorn Path" after his years as a scorned enemy or, at best, a fearsomely influential bully to whom respect was owed, even unwillingly. For all his faults, for all his mistakes, for his legacy as a universally-hated man, no one whose name was once so worthwhile should ever be forgotten so easily. As I stood over that bed of pine needles, I wondered who besides me has come to pay respects in the past 150 years. Perhaps I was the first since the hole was first closed over him. Worse, I feared I might well be the last. In another 150 years, what will people say of Griswold? Who will remember him? Who mourns him?
My guess is that all biographers, amidst their research and writing, always believe their subject is the most important one in the world. All other notable people have some connection to him, and he seems to pop up in everyday conversations. Such is probably true with me. I accept the bad aspects of Griswold, for which I would never apologize, but I also acknowledge his importance in his lifetime. I am an admitted Poeist above all else - but I don't feel ashamed that I shed a tear for Dr. Griswold, six feet above his forgotten remains, buried alone - without family, without friends.
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It was night in the lonesome October, of my most immemorial year.
