Edgar Allan Poe: 1809-1849.

The first publication of his earliest volume “Tamerlane and Other Poems” appeared in the spring of 1827. The second edition of his poems had been published in 1829. After the dismissal from West Point (where he served in army), a third edition, entitled simply “Poems” (1831), was brought out by Poe in New York. Here were included some of his finest compositions: “To Helen”, “Israfel”, “The City in the Sea”, “Lenore”, and “The Valley of Unrest”. Already his verse had acquired its haunting music -- already found its note of melancholy.

In 1838 Poe moved to Philadelphia, which seemed to offer him a better opportunity for success. This is the period of Poe's strongest work. The “Tales of the Grotesque” and the “Arabesque” were published in two volumes at the end of 1839.

At that time Poe entered a new field of fiction, of which he may be regarded as the discoverer; this is the story in which a mystery is apparently solved by analysis and reason. The modern detective story is our present popular example of the type. Poe's analytical powers were remarkable. When the opening chapters of Dickens's novel “Barnaby Rudge” appeared, Poe forecast from them the entire plot of the novel. The solution of papers written in cipher (cryptographs) was a favorite pastime with him. He declared that no one could invent a cipher that he could not solve. It was in 1841 that Poe's masterpiece in this kind of fiction “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, appeared. This was followed by another narrative “The Mystery of Marie Roget”, in which the author applied his method in the study of an actual murder mystery which occurred in New York. In 1843 was published “The Gold Bug”, the third in this group of realistic narratives, the most popular of all his tales.

In January, 1845, Poe published “The Raven”. The appearance of this poem -- perhaps the most widely known of all American poems -- gave Poe a national reputation. It was copied in well-nigh every newspaper in the land. Again the future looked bright for one whom people now hailed as the foremost among American poets. “The Tales” were re-published. All of his poetical compositions that he wished to preserve were collected and published under the title of “The Raven, and Other Poems”.

The two years after the poet wrote a long and elaborate essay, which he called “Eureka”; it was an attempt to explain the existence of the universe. He thought that he had solved the mystery of creation. But these conceptions of his erratic imagination have no scientific value.

Already before his death, French writers had detected in Poe's works a quality that appealed strongly to their artistic sense; his poems and tales were translated into their language, later into Spanish and German also. To the present time, Germany, Spain, and France regard the author of “The Raven” as the supreme representative of the West in literary art. His productions fall into three groups: the critical articles, the tales, and the poems.

Poe was a pioneer in this country in the field of serious criticism. As a matter of fact, nearly half of his literary work is of this nature. Besides the pungent reviews of contemporary writers, the critical essays on “The Rationale of English Verse” and “The Poetic Principle” must not be forgotten. He was not always a sound critic; he was not infallible in his judgments, and in some of his attacks he was inspired by jealousy or prejudice. But it is remembered that he was one of the earliest to recognize the genius of Mrs. Browning and of Tennyson; that he applauded Dickens from the start; that he was one of the first to discover Hawthorne, and wrote warmly of his work -- although he later denied his originality and, characteristically, declared that Hawthorne had stolen some material from his own tale of William Wilson. For Lowell's verse Poe had nothing but praise; and Longfellow -- in spite of his own ill-tempered attack -- he placed at the head of American poets. He also noted the limitations of Irving, Cooper, and Bryant; and in much of his criticism he has been justified by time. The general effect of his critical work was apparently helpful in the development of American literature.

Poe wrote some seventy tales of greatly varying merit. These can be considered but briefly and in groups. We find, first narratives of romantic adventure, typified by “MS. found in a Bottle”, intense in its suggestions of the mysterious and unearthly. His longest piece of fiction, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”, inspired, perhaps, by the popular success of Cooper's romances of the sea, is as realistic in its employment of commonplace and minute details as any of the narratives of Defoe, the first great master of realism in fiction. Poe's imaginative power is exhibited in vivid pictures of murder, mutiny, shipwreck, and starvation, which are gruesome enough, and sometimes become so morbid as to be offensive to sound taste; but in the conclusion of the tale his poetic imagination asserts itself in wonderful descriptions of an unknown land and of the mysterious white sea of the Antarctic. In “A Descent into the Maelstrom” we have the finest example of this group, realistic, poetical, and thoroughly impressive. The “Adventures of one Hans Pfaal”, like the subsequent story, “The Balloon Hoax”, is based upon the possibilities, real and romantic, of aerial navigation, and is a prototype of such pseudoscientific fiction as the romances of Jules Verne. Poe makes a brave display of scientific knowledge in all these tales -- a knowledge which is superficial in fact, although effective in the machinery of his realism.

Another group contains the analytical tales, which Poe himself called "tales of ratiocination," because their appeal is to the reasoning faculty rather than to the emotions. The presentation of a mystery the solution of which is to follow is always fascinating, and Poe's dominion over his reader is nowhere more complete than in these tales. That the romancer, having first built up his mystery, is obviously only retracing his own steps in the working out of its solution, does not at all affect the interest of his story; for here his art is strong enough to produce the illusion that the reader is watching the first unraveling of the plot. “The Gold Bug”, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Mystery of Marie Roget”, and “The Purloined Letter” still remain our best examples, at least in the short-story form, of this class of fiction.

Poe produced also a group of romantic tales in which conscience is the theme. “William Wilson”, the narrative of a man with a double, is the best. Here are to be included, also, the horrible story of “The Black Cat”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”. But Poe's most effective tales are those which are carefully, elaborately designed to produce a vivid effect on the reader's mind. Foremost among these is the remarkable fantasy “The Fall of the House of Usher”, a masterpiece of literary art, wherein every sentence is significant and almost every word a contribution to the dismal effect. Here belongs, also “The Masque of the Red Death”, with its weird use of colors, its atmosphere of revelry invaded by the horror of the plague. “Ligeia”, a fantasy of transmigration, “The Cask of Amontillado”, a study in revenge, and “Hop-Frog”, in which the same theme again appears, grotesquely treated, fall in the same group. The morbid element is conspicuous in all. Death, horrible and ghastly, -- pestilence, -- dissolution, -- the awakening of the dead, -- the awakening of those prematurely buried: these are the instruments of horrible suggestiveness which are here employed.

Poe had little of the sense of humor. He wrote, however, a number of extravaganzas with intent to make them humorous. In one, “The Devil in the Belfry”, he succeeded fairly. Another phase of his fancy is discovered in two beautiful landscape pictures, masterpieces of natural description, “The Domain of Arnheim” and “Landor's Cottage”, pure idealizations of romantic scenery worthy of a poet's dream.

If the volume of Poe's verse is small, there is an unusual proportion of compositions that attain the perfection of form. The best of them are exquisite embodiments of Poe's own theories regarding his art. Poetry and music were allied in his mind, the aim in both to produce an impression. The poetical effect, he said, could be prolonged only to a certain limit; and that he placed at about one hundred lines. Poetry he defined as "the rhythmical creation of beauty." The poetic principle manifests itself "in an elevating excitement of the soul." In the service of beauty, Poe employed his art. We can easily name the titles of his most effective poems; they are the “Song to Ligeia” (in “Al Aaraaf”), the first “To Helen”, “Israfel”, “The City in the Sea”, “The Coliseum”, “The Haunted Palace”, “The Conqueror Worm”, “Ulalume”, “For Annie”, “The Raven”, “The Bells”, and “Annabel Lee”.

Poe's melodies are haunting ones. Sonorous words play an important part in the mechanics of his composition. Repetition, sometimes in the form of assonance, these compositions succeed in fulfilling the purpose of their author; they impress the mind with ideas of supernal beauty. They speak no message of hope or inspiration, they teach no lesson. In Poe's conception of his art, the poet as prophet had no place.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16