A Christmas wedding... almost

Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman had planned a Christmas wedding on December 25, 1848. Whitman (no relation to Walt, though the two corresponded frequently) was an accomplished and well-known poet from Providence, Rhode Island. A widow, she was six years older than Poe. She was also an ancillary member of the Transcendentalists, a friend of Margaret Fuller, and an admitted disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson — all of which Poe did not much care for.

Nevertheless, Poe and Whitman hit it off rather well (even despite a possible suicide attempt while Poe was wooing a married woman) and he proposed to her in a cemetery. Whitman, however, was relatively wealthy and her family was concerned Poe was trying to marry her for her money. Undaunted, the couple signed an agreement waiving their rights to inheritance. To further show his commitment, Poe also promised Whitman he would give up drinking — which he almost certainly did.

Poe arrived in Providence on December 20 and, that evening, gave a lecture on poetry at the Franklin Lyceum. Whitman was in the front row and when Poe recited Edward Coote Pinkney's "A Health," he seemed to be directing it right at her ("I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone"). Impressed, she agreed to an immediate marriage. Poe called for Reverend Nathan Bourne Crocker, minister of St. John's Episcopal Church. Poe wrote to Maria Clemm (then in New York): "We shall be married on Monday."

A couple days before the wedding, however, Whitman was sitting in a library when an anonymous note was passed to her. According to the note, Poe had broken his promise to stay sober. Though Poe tried to tell her she had been "misinformed," Whitman called off the wedding and Poe immediately left Providence. They never saw each other again. Their marriage was so close to happening, however, that the couple was congratulated in newspapers throughout the country.

Poe did not stay upset for very long. Soon, he lined up another engagement to a different woman.

After Poe's death, Whitman got Rufus Griswold to confess he had written Poe's libelous obituary. She later published a book defending Poe.

Poe vs. The Crazyites

Poe was already a household name when The Raven and Other Poems was published in 1845, mostly due to the title poem in that collection. On December 6, 1845, one very different periodical reviewed the book.

The Harbinger was the official publication of the experimental community at Brook Farm at West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Formed in 1841 by George Ripley and his wife Sophia, the working farm meant to put in practice the ideals of Transcendentalism. Every community member did their fair share of the work, but buy-in required a part-ownership of their joint-stock company. One of the founders, Nathaniel Hawthorne, left early on and asked for his money back. The Farm was dissolved about five years after its founding.

With their high ideals for perfect living, the Brook Farmers anticipated plenty of time to explore the Arts, culture, and other intellectual pursuits. The Harbinger was the outlet to show off their success. Critic John Sullivan Dwight reviewed The Raven and Other Poems in the December 6, 1845 issue. "Mr. Poe has earned some fame by various tales and poems, which of late has become notoriety through a certain blackguard warfare which he has been waging against the poets and newspaper critics of New England, and which it would be most charitable to impute to insanity." Ouch.

More to the point, he wrote: "We must confess that they [e.g. the poems] have a great deal of power, a great deal of beauty... originality, and dramatic effect. But they have more of effect, than of expression... There is a wild unearthliness, and unheavenliness, in the tone of all his pictures, a strange unreality in all his thoughts; they seem to stand shivering, begging admission to our hearts in vain, because they look not as if they came from the heart."

A few days later, December 13, Poe gave his opinions of The Harbinger in the magazine he owned, the Broadway Journal. He notes that he "sincerely respect[s]" the publication as "the most reputable organ of the Crazyites" (i.e. the Transcendentalists?). He dismisses them by noting the group is "conducted by an assemblage of well-read persons who mean no harm — and who, perhaps, can do less." Harmless as they are, Poe then dissects Dwight's review and ridicules his poor grammar. He concludes, "it shocks us to hear a set of respectable Crazyites talking in so disingenuous a manner." In the future, he hopes, they "will never have any opinion of us at all."

*Images: Brook Farm by Josiah Wolcott; its idealism is emphasized by the rainbow. From the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The other image is the front page of a November 1846 issue of The Harbinger; it continued publishing from New York for about a year after Brook Farm dissolved.

The fever called "Living"

In late 1848, Poe was struggling between two women. One was single and available but, most unfortunately, a Transcendentalist. The other was flirtatious but very married (with children). One was a poet in Providence, Rhode Island, but Sarah Helen Whitman had doubts that Poe was on the right track and urged him to take a temperance pledge (he would take another pledge a year later). The other was a non-literary woman from Lowell, Massachusetts, who promised Poe she'd visit him at his deathbed. Poe wanted to take Nancy Richmond up on that promise.

Making his way from Lowell to Providence, Poe stopped in Boston. On November 5, 1848, he said, he attempted to bring himself near enough to death that Nancy Richmond would have to come see him. So, he procured two ounces of laudanum, an opiate commonly used as a painkiller. He wrote a letter to Nancy, "in which I opened my whole heart to you... whom I so madly, so distractedly love." In the letter, he reminded her of her promise to see him on his deathbed, and wrote where he would be. On his way to the Post Office, he swallowed half his laudanum — an attempt at suicide which he hoped would put him on his deathbed. However, Poe took enough laudanum that he was unable to deliver the letter that would have called for Nancy Richmond to see him. It was not enough to kill him, and Poe wrote how he his stomach had rejected the drug (he vomited). The event is Poe's only documented drug use for either medical or recreational purpose.

He returned to Providence, told Sarah Helen Whitman he was ill, then made his way home to New York. Whitman later described the incident that Poe had "taken something at a druggists" something which he thought would make him feel better. Instead, she said, it "bewildered him." She does not allude to Poe being near death. On November 9, she took him to have his portrait taken.

What really happened in Boston on November 5, 1848? Did Poe really take laudanum and, if so, was it enough to cause his death? Was this really a suicide attempt? Is it really so simple to categorize? The letter, in which Poe poured his soul to Nancy (whom he called "Annie"), the one which he was about to deliver when he took the laudanum, does not exist. Biographers like to say, often without irony or question, that Poe tried to kill himself that day. More likely, Poe was over-dramatizing the whole event and trying to get attention (many "suicide attempts" today are equally an attempt at getting attention). Nevertheless, the incident inspired one of his most powerful poems. Allegedly written to Nancy Richmond, it is addressed in his nickname to her.

"For Annie"

Thank Heaven! the crisis—
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

The sickness—the nausea—
The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain—
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated-the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:-
I have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst:—

Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.

And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed—
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses—
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie—
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead—
And I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead—
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead.

But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

I don't care who the devil he is

My last post was about one of Poe's most famous horror stories published in September. To balance it out, I have to write about one of my absolute favorite Poe works. "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" was first published in the September 1841 issue of Graham's Magazine. The story is a comedy, and possibly one of Poe's most successful in that genre.

The narrator/author responds to critics who note that he has never written a moral tale (Poe, after all, despised didacticism). So, the narrator tells the story of Toby Dammit, a man of many vices prone to rhetorical bets introduced with the idiomatic, "I'll bet the devil my head..." One day, he and his companion come across a covered bridge with a turnstile in the middle. Dammit, looking for some fun, bets the devil his head that he can jump clear over that turnstile.

He insisted upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do... I therefore told him, in so many words, that he was a braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be sorry afterward;—for he straightway offered to bet the Devil his head that he could.

Right on cue, a mysterious stranger arrests their attention when he clears his throat. He decides to take Dammit up on his bet — to the dismay of the narrator, who notes, "I don't care who the devil he is." Misgivings of his friend aside, Dammit gracefully jumps over the turnstile — though as he reaches the apex of his leap, things change: his body makes it over, but his head does not ("what might be claimed a serious injury," the narrator notes). The mysterious gentleman claims the head and walks off. It turns out that, directly above the turnstile, was a thin, razor-sharp metal bar. The moral of the story? "Never bet the devil your head."

Besides the ironic humor, and the clear criticism of moral tales, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" is also a satire on Transcendentalism. As Dammit approaches the bridge, his friend notes he is in an unusually happy mood and may, in fact, "be affected with the transcendentals," a disease.

After losing his head, the narrator notes "he did not long survive his terrible loss." After his death, the narrator sends a bill to the Transcendentalists but "the scoundrels refused to pay it." Instead, Toby Dammit's body was ground into dog's meat — perhaps a fitting fate for one who was afflicted with the disease of the transcendentals.

I think Poe here was responding to the Transcendental idea of communing directly with God or "the over-soul." If one can communicate with God, why can't he also communicate with the Devil? The result, of course, is disastrous (and hilarious). As a "moral tale," the story satirizes not only the Transcendentalists and their writings but also of popular writing in general. Poe, of course, called didacticism in literature a "heresy" which detracted from the inherent art of writing. But feel free to forget that stuff. Ultimately, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" is simply a funny story — and very much worth reading. I've got one more post on my favorite of Poe's September stories coming soon.

For more on Poe's battles with Transcendentalism, mark your calendar for October 31. I'll be presenting a talk called "Poe vs. Transcendentalism" — in Concord, Massachusetts, of course.

Hawthorne, Poe, Brook Farm, and Ripley

Happy birthday to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born July 4, 1804. Poe and Hawthorne, I believe, were cut from the same chunk of marble. Both focused on perfecting the tale (until Hawthorne defected to novels) and attempted to make it big in the magazine industry (more or less). Both struggled financially for most of their lives (Hawthorne didn't buy a house until after Poe's death), and both were deeply in love with their wives.

Where they differed, however, was in the purpose of their writing. Though both presented the dark side of human nature — guilt, sin, evil — Hawthorne tried to teach lessons, something Poe called "the Heresy of The Didactic." Poe believed any piece of writing was a work of Art and need not be sullied by something like a moral message. Nevertheless, Poe encouraged Hawthorne early in his writing career. In his review of Twice-Told Tales, Poe writes of Hawthorne: "The style of Mr. Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective — wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes... Upon the whole we look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth."

Poe would later soften his praise when Mosses from an Old Manse was published. Moving to the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, connected Hawthorne with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Transcendentalists. Poe did not approve — though, in reality, neither did Hawthorne. He had grown weary with the movement fairly early after being a founding member of the Transcendental community at Brook Farm. Hawthorne quickly saw their idealism and optimism were misplaced. He quit and later sued to have his initial investment returned.

Coincidentally, today is the anniversary of the death of George Ripley, the Transcendental minister-turned-critic who founded Brook Farm. By his death in 1880, his attempts at creating a Utopia were pretty much forgotten. While the experiment was in full bloom, Poe at one point noted his "sincere respect" for Brook Farmers but noted that they "meant no harm." Really, Poe's was belittling them and noting that, at worst, they couldn't do much harm anyway.

Happy birthday to Hawthorne, and RIP to Ripley. As an aside, I just realized that this is my 100th post.

Hawthorne writes to Poe

From Salem, Massachusetts, the now well-known American author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote to Edgar Poe about his book, Mosses from an Old Manse. In the letter, dated June 17, 1846, Hawthorne asked Poe if his publishers had already sent him a copy to review. He also noted his respect for Poe as a critic. As he wrote:

"I have read your occasional notices of my productions with great interest — not so much because your judgment was, upon the whole, favorable, as because it seemed to be given in earnest. I care for nothing but the truth, in regard to my writings, than a sugared falsehood."

"Sugared falsehoods" were something Poe tended to avoid by this time, certainly known as a "Tomahawk Man" since well before Hawthorne's letter was written.* Today, Poe is occasionally dismissed as a critic (in part for his caustic nature) but, clearly, at least Hawthorne respects him for this line of work.

Nevertheless, Hawthorne makes it clear that he prefers Poe as a fiction writer more than as a reviewer. "I admire you rather as a writer of Tales, than as a critic upon them," he wrote. "I might often — and often do — dissent from your opinions, in the latter capacity, but could never fail to recognize your force and originality, in the former." In 2009, that should ring like a pretty decent endorsement from a heavy hitter in American writing.

Poe did get his review copy of Mosses from an Old Manse and wrote a lengthy critique, which was published in Godey's Lady's Book in November 1847. He praised the writing, but worried about how New England culture was influencing the book's author. He warned Hawthorne particularly of the Transcendentalists. In his review, Poe wrote: "Let him mend his pen, get a bottle of visible ink, come out from the Old Manse, cut Mr. [Bronson] Alcott, [and] hang (if possible), the editor of 'The Dial.'" Interesting words, but Poe might not have realized that not only was The Dial already canceled, but also that Hawthorne was already out of the Old Manse. By this time, he was living once again in Salem while famously holding a government-appointed job at the custom house.

This letter from Hawthorne and Poe's review of Mosses from an Old Manse will both play a salient role in my upcoming lecture, Dark Romantics: Hawthorne and Poe. The talk is kindly hosted by The Wayside, Hawthorne's former home, today part of Minuteman National Park in Concord, Massachusetts. We will celebrate both Poe's bicentennial year and Hawthorne's birthday (a couple days off). The talk is free and takes place on the side lawn of The Wayside on July 2 at 6:30 p.m. The staff there is worried that neither Hawthorne nor Poe will draw a large crowd — let's prove them wrong!

*A recent discussion begs the question: When is the earliest reference to Poe and his "tomahawk"? We found as early as 1840, thanks to Poe's friend Thomas Holley Chivers.

Emerson and his bee

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born May 25, 1803. He went on to become the leading voice in the Transcendental movement. Emerson and others believed that individuals could achieve perfection and work together to better society as a whole. In addition to his role as philosopher, Emerson was a lecturer, essayist, and a poet. Poe said the "transcendental vagabonds ... may all go to the devil together." Poe disagreed with the movement's idealism; they believed that pure reason and trust in the senses can lead to the absolute truth of nature, even without explicit external evidence. Poe's characters (most obviously the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart") make it clear that the senses cannot be trusted.

But forget the philosophy. What about Emerson's poetry? In March 1842, when Poe met Charles Dickens, we know they discussed the state of American poetry and Poe read Emerson's "To the Humble Bee" as an example. We don't know if Poe liked or disliked the poem; an extant letter merely states that he read it. Of course, who can forget such memorable lines:

Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer through the waves of air;
Voyager of light and noon;
Epicurean of June;
Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,—
All without is martyrdom.

He goes on to acknowledge the bee as "wiser far than human seer" and a "yellow-breeched philosopher." Clearly, Emerson's view of nature is one of worship, where he can see the inspirational philosophy of something as humble as a bee. The poem is dripping with sweetness and sentamentality, to the point of obnoxiousness, really. Rufus Griswold, that arbiter of what makes American poetry great, praised this poem profusely, and asked Emerson about it directly in a letter dated September 18, 1841.

But what is Poe's poetic view of nature? He didn't write about nature very often, certainly not in the same sense that Emerson did. For some reason, however, I can't help but compare "To the Humble Bee" to Poe's "The Conqueror Worm":

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama — oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! — it writhes! — with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out — out are the lights — out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

If Poe could be convinced of Emerson's theory that man could see the truth in nature, what truth would Poe see? Would he see the beautiful philosophy of something as humble as a bee? Or, would he see the tragedy that is man, whose only hero is the worm that eats his rotting flesh? No two men could be more dissimilar!

Nevertheless, happy birthday, Ralph Waldo Emerson!

Emerson, Transcendentalism, and Poe

Ralph Waldo Emerson has become the figurehead of American Transcendentalism. Even in his lifetime, he was the face of the movement, even though several others were important participants; many of those names are not commonly known today (anyone remember Orestes Brownson, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Frederick Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Jones Very...?). Emerson was considered to be one of the greatest minds of the 19th century. However, when he died on April 27, 1882, not much of that mind was left.

Emerson suffered from some form of dementia, speculated by some to be Alzheimer's. He certainly had aphasia — his memory could no longer find the words for simple objects and concepts. When he attended the funeral of his good friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow only a month before his own death, Emerson reportedly said something to the effect of: "Today we bury a great man. I do not remember his name." Emerson was also forgetting his own name. When asked how he felt around this time, he once answered: ""Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well."

These final years of Emerson aren't often discussed.* Of course, Edgar A. Poe never knew Emerson at this late stage in his life. Poe knew of Emerson when he was in his prime. Poe, just like people today, saw Emerson as the icon of Transcendentalism - and that made him a target.

Poe's utter dislike of Transcendentalism was no secret (he once took a swipe at Nathaniel Hawthorne, who he otherwise respected, simply for living in Concord, Massachusetts — the seat of the movement), and his particular disgust with Emerson was equally well-known. Poe chided the Concord Sage for writing that was purposely difficult to understand — "mysticism for mysticism's sake," as Poe referred to it. Poe also identified (and he was a bit right) that Emerson was "little more than a respectful imitation of [Thomas] Carlyle."

Overall, Transcendentalism and its avowed idealism didn't make sense to Poe (nor does it make sense to most high schoolers introduced to it). As he wrote, "They could not define their own position & cannot be expected that I can define them exactly." However, he noted that their philosophy wasn't inherently bad. "You mistake me in supposing I dislike the transcendentalists," he wrote to friend Thomas Holley Chivers. "It is only the pretenders and sophists among them." When the Transcendental community at Brook Farm began publishing their journal, The Harbinger, to promote their worldview, Poe wrote it was "conducted by an assemblage of well-read persons who mean no harm—and who, perhaps, can do no less." True enough.

Eventually, Poe looped all of the Boston area with Transcendentalism (and a general Longfellow-like lack of originality). So, feel free to blame Emerson for at least part of Poe's distaste for Boston in his adult years. Next month (May 25), I'll follow up with a battle of poetry, Emerson vs. Poe.

Perhaps ironically, today, the City of Boston dedicates "Edgar Allan Poe Square" at the intersection of Charles St. and Boylston St. near his original birthplace, directly across from the Boston Common. I'm sure the ceremony was scheduled on the anniversary of Emerson's death by mere coincidence.

*I am of the opinion that Emersonians have, for years, been cleaning up his image. Hiding his struggle with dimentia - or the fact that he was not perfect - does not help him. It would be better to humanize him, rather than try to deify him.