VIII.—Contemporary Opinion of Poe

Killis Campbell

doi:10.2307/457317

VIII.—Contemporary Opinion of Poe

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020

Killis Campbell

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Although Poe is now all but universally acknowledged to be one of the three or four literary geniuses that America has produced, there was a period immediately following his death when few writers in America were willing to concede to him any extraordinary merit beyond that of an exceptionally gifted artist. It has sometimes been held that Poe was similarly neglected even before his death. Thus, so distinguished a scholar as Professor Sir Walter Raleigh, of Oxford, in a letter addressed to the celebrators of the Poe centenary at the University of Virginia (1909), makes the statement that Poe was “barely recognized while he lived.” Baudelaire, who did more than any other to light the flame of Poe's reputation abroad, believed that Poe was cruelly neglected by his fellow-countrymen, and most other Frenchmen have, I believe, adopted much the same view. In America, too, there has long existed a tradition that Poe was but little appreciated during his lifetime,—a tradition that has flourished especially at the South, though it has not been confined to the South. On the other hand, some of the ablest of those who have made a special study of Poe have held that this tradition is without any substantial basis in fact. The lamented Professor Charles F. Richardson, for instance, in one of the most sympathetic and discriminating essays that we have on the Southern poet, asserts that it is “a serious mistake” to assume that Poe was unpopular in his own day. And Professor W. P. Trent, a no less eminent authority on our literary history, has recorded the belief that “Poe is no exception to the rule that the writers who really count began by counting with their contemporaries.”

Type: Research Article
Information: PMLA , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , June 1921 , pp. 142 - 166

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/457317 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1921

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^{page 142 note 1} The Booh of the Poe Centenary, ed. Kent and Patton, p. 201.

^{page 142 note 2} See the essay with which he prefaces his first series of Histoires Emtraordinavres par Mdgar Poe.

^{page 142 note 3} For echoes of this tradition see John R. Thompson in the Southern Literary Messenger, November, 1849 (xv, p. 694); J. M. Daniel, ibid., March, 1850 (xvi, p. 184); J. H. Hewitt, Shadows on the Wall, p. 41; C. L. Moore, The Dial, January 16, 1899 (xxvi, p. 40); and the New York Times Review of Books, August 11, 1918, p. 348 (an editorial in which the statement is made that Poe“ fought a hopeless struggle against contemporary coldness and inapprecia-ation ”).

^{page 143 note 4} Poe's Works, ed. Richardson, i, p. xviii.

^{page 143 note 5} Longfellow and Other Essays, p. 218. See also Macy, The Spirit of American Literature, p. 127, and Woodberry in the Century Magazine, October, 1894 (xlviii, p. 866).

^{page 143 note 6} The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, ed. R. W. Griswold (New York, 1850, 1856).

^{page 143 note 7} Among the American periodicals that I have examined are the Southern Literary Messenger, the Richmond Enquirer (1826–1828, 1835–1837), the Richmond Whig (1835–1837, 1848–1849), the Richmond Examiner (1849), the Baltimore Minerva and Emerald (18291830), the Baltimore Republican (1831–1835), the Baltimore American (1832–1837), the Baltimore Patriot (1832–1837), the Baltimore Weekly Gasette (1832–1834), the Baltimore Young Men's Paper (1835), the Baltimore American Museum, the Baltimore Saturday Visiter (1841–1846), Atkinson's Philadelphia Casket (1827–1840), the Saturday Evening Post (1829–1833, 1839–1840. 1850), the Philadelphia Saturday Cornier (1831–1852), Godey's Lady's Book, the American Monthly Review, the North American Magazine, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, Graham's Magazine, Alexander's Weekly Messenger (1837–1838), the Philadelphia United States Gazette (1839–1844), the Dollar Newspaper, the Dollar Magazine (1840–1841), the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times (1845–1847), Peterson's National Magazine (1845–1847, 1853), the New York Mirror, the New York Review, the American Whig Review, the Democratic Review, the Columbian Magazine, the New World, Post's Union Magazine, Sartain's Union Magazine, the Some Journal (1846–1860), the Literary World (,1847–1853), the Nineteenth Century (1848–1849), Snowden's Ladies' Companion, the Broadway Journal, Holden's Dollar Magazine (1849), the New York Tribune (1845–1846, 1849–1850), the Knickerbocker (1827–1855), the Brother Jonathan (1842–1843), the North American Review (1827–1860), the Pioneer, the New England Magazine, the New Englander, the Waverley Magazine (1853), the Boston Notion (1843), the Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette (1827–1829), the Pittsburgh Literary Examiner (1839), the Western Quarterly Review (1849), and the Washington National Intelligencer (1845–1847).

^{page 144 note 8} A thorough and altogether admirable study of Poe's reputation in France has been made by Professor G. D. Morris in his Fenimore Cooper et Edgar Poe, pp. 67–208 (Paris, 1912). A study of Poe's vogue in Great Britain has been promised by Professor Lewis Chase: see the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxxii, p. xxxi (March, 1917).

^{page 145 note 1} Tamerlane and Other Poems, Boston, 1827; Al Aaraaf, Tamerlant, and Minor Poems, Baltimore, 1829.

^{page 145 note 2} United States Review and Literary Gazette, August, 1827 (ii, p. 379); Worth American Review, October, 1827 (xxv, p. 471).

^{page 145 note 3} iii, p. 405. Published at Boston in 1829.

^{page 145 note 4} Boston Yankee and Literary Gazette, iii, pp. 295–298.

^{page 146 note 5} Ibid., iii, p. 168.

^{page 146 note 6} i, pp. 586–587. The volume of 1829 is said to have been reviewed by J. H. Hewitt in the Baltimore Minerva and Emerald (see Hewitt's Shadows on the Wall, p. 41), but I have been unable to find this notice in any issue of the Emerald for 1830.

^{page 146 note 7} v, pp. 237–240.

^{page 146 note 8} New York Mirror, viii, pp. 349–350.

^{page 146 note 9} See the Edinburgh Review, April, 1835 (lxi, pp. 12–21); the Southern Literary Messenger, February, 1838 (ii, p. 85); and the review of Cheever's book in the North American Review, October, 1831 (xxxiii, pp. 297–324).

^{page 147 note 10} See the Messenger for April, 1835 (I, p. 460), December, 1835 (ii, p. 1), September, 1839 (v, p. 708), January, 1840 (vi, p. 126), September, 1840 (vi, pp. 707–710), April, 1841 (vii, pp. 310–313), July, 1841 (vii, p. 592).

^{page 147 note 11} For Kennedy's references to Poe, see Woodberry, Life of Poe, I, pp. 109–110, 141–142, 148–149, 151–156.

^{page 147 note 12} Foreign Quarterly Review, January, 1844 (xxxii, pp. 321–322).

^{page 148 note 13} Graham's Magazine, xxvii, pp. 49–53.

^{page 148 note 14} On which date it was reprinted in the Evening Mirror.

^{page 148 note 15} Woodlberry, Life of Poe, ii, p. 27.

^{page 148 note 16} Graham's Magazine, xxvii, pp. 51, 52.

^{page 148 note 17} Virginia Poe, xvii, p. 229.

^{page 149 note 18} Knickerbocker, xxvii, p. 69.

^{page 149 note 19} See Stoddard, Poe's Works, i, p. 150.

^{page 160 note 20} Virginia Poe, xvii, p. 351.

^{page 160 note 21} See the Southern Literary Messenger, xiv, pp. 34–38.

^{page 160 note 22} iv, p. 765 (December, 1849).

^{page 160 note 23} January 17, 1850.

^{page 160 note 24} Poe's Works, iii, p. xlviii.

^{page 151 note 25} cvii, p. 426 (April, 1858).

^{page 151 note 26} Waverley Magazine, July 30, September 10, and October 1, 1853.

^{page 151 note 27} xvi, p. 172.

^{page 151 note 28} xxvii, p. 171.

^{page 151 note 29} ii, p. 199.

^{page 151 note 30} See the article of T. O. Mabbott in Modern Language Notes, June, 1920 (xxxv, p. 373).

^{page 152 note 31} The attitude of Poe's fellow-craftsmen in America appears to have been much the same as that of the reading public at large. Both Lowell and Willis, as we have seen, early accepted Poe as a poet of exceptional ability. Whittier, in later years, ungrudgingly conceded to him the gift of genius (see a letter of September 21, 1875, published in Gill's Life of Poe, p. 284). But Emerson was unable to see in Poe anything more than a facile rhymester, a “jingle man,” and was careful to omit him from his American Parnassus (1874). Bryant excluded him, as we have seen, from his Selections from the American Poets (1840), and in his Library of Poets and Song (1871) admitted only four of his poems (The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Bells, and For Annie). Longfellow, while recognizing in him a man richly endowed both as poet and as prose writer (see the Southern Literary Messenger, xv, p. 696), thought of him, apparently, as a romancer first of all rather than as a poet (see a letter of his believed to have been addressed to Poe, quoted in part in Catalogue No. 27 of Robert H. Dodd, March, 1018, p. 8). Whitman, like Emerson, was disposed to think of Poe as a juggler of words and as overfond of the spectacular and the gruesome. Simms wrote to Chivers in 1852: “He was a man of curious genius, wild and erratic, but his genius was rather curious than valuable—bizarre, rather than great or healthful” (Century Magazine, lxv, p. 552); and George William Curtis wrote Mrs. Whitman in 1846: “I should much like to see anything really good of [Poe's]” (Atlantic Monthly, cxiv, p. 372).

Bryant, after Emerson, among all the American poets, appears to have had least admiration for Poe, being blinded, I suspect, by his belief that Poe was a bad man. To Miss S. S. Rice, of Baltimore, then engaged in an effort to raise funds for a memorial to Poe in that city, he wrote on November 6, 1865: “I am very unwilling to do anything which may seem disobliging, yet I cannot comply with the request in your note…. My difficulty arises from the personal character of Edgar A. Poe, of which I have in my time heard too much to be able to join in paying especial honor to his memory. Persons younger than myself who have heard less of the conduct to which I refer may take a different view of the matter, and, certainly, I do not intend to censure them for doing so. I think, however, that there should be some decided element of goodness in the character of those to whom a public monument directs the attention of the world” (Baltimore Sun, January 17, 1909).

^{page 153 note 32} But see the article of A. Yarmolinsky in the New York Bookman, September, 1916 (xliv, pp. 44 f.), in which we learn that translations of certain of Poe's writings appeared in Eussian periodicals “as early at the late thirties.” For Poe's contemporary reputation in France, see G. D. Morris, Fenimore Cooper et Edgar Poe, pp. 80 ff., and for his vogue in Germany, F. Hippe, Edgar Allan Poes Lyrik in Deutsehland, pp. 13 ff.

^{page 153 note 1} See the Dial for February 17, 1916.

^{page 153 note 2} Duly published in the Visiter of October 12, 1833 (see the article of Professor J. C. French, in Modern Language Notes, May, 1918 (xxxiii, pp. 260 f.)). See, also, the slightly garbled version of this in the Southern Literary Messenger, August, 1835 (i, p. 716).

^{page 154 note 3} Southern Literary Messenger, ii, pp. 133 ff., 341 ff., 517 ff.

^{page 154 note 4} Woodberry, Life of Poe, i, p. 110.

^{page 154 note 5} Southern Literary Messenger, ii, p. 138.

^{page 154 note 6} Woodberry, i, p. 152.

^{page 154 note 7} Sewanee Review, April, 1917 (xxv, p. 197).

^{page 155 note 8} xii, p. 167.

^{page 155 note 9} iii, p. 211. See also, for a notice in like vein, the New York Mirror, August 11, 1838.

^{page 155 note 10} See the communication of Henry C. Lea to the New York Nation, December 9, 1880 (xxxi, p. 408).

^{page 155 note 11} See the sheaf of complimentary notices collected at the back of the second volume of certain copies of the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque; and see also a letter of Poe's of December 19, 1839 (Woodberry, i, p. 238).

^{page 156 note 12} New York Mirror, xvii, p. 215.

^{page 156 note 13} See for citations from these the notices appended to the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Cf. also a complimentary reference by Willis in his Letters from Under a Bridge, London, 1840, p. 121.

^{page 156 note 14} Woodberry, ii, p. 70. Whether Poe's statement is to be accepted at face value is questionable.

^{page 156 note 15} Woodberry, ii, p. 135.

^{page 157 note 16} ii, pp. 306–309.

^{page 157 note 17} xxviii, p. 143.

^{page 157 note 18} October, 1845 (i, pp. 316ff.).

^{page 157 note 19} xvi, pp. 341–366.

^{page 157 note 20} lxii, pp. 582–587.

^{page 157 note 21} There was a notice, also, prior to 1848, in the Revue Française (see the Virginia Poe, xvi, p. 145), an item which has apparently escaped Dr. Morris.

^{page 157 note 22} Graham's Magazine, xxvii, pp. 51, 52.

^{page 158 note 23} Virginia Poe, xvii, p. 233.

^{page 158 note 24} North American Review, lxiii, p. 359 (October, 1846); Knickerbocker, xxviii, p. 452 (November, 1846).

^{page 158 note 25} xxviii, p. 171 (February, 1851).

^{page 158 note 26} Knickerbocker, xxxv, p. 163 (February, 1850).

^{page 158 note 27} See Powell, Living Authors of America, p. 132; G. W. Peck, American Whig Review, xi, p. 307 (March, 1850); and Gilfillan, A Third Gallery of Portraits, pp. 380 ff.

^{page 150 note 28} Histoires Extraordinaires par Edgar Poe, pp. 28 ff.

^{page 150 note 29} National Magazine, ii, p. 198.

^{page 150 note 30} Living Authors of America, p. 134.

^{page 150 note 31} Lowell also had pronounced Poe a genius in his article in Graham's in 1845 (xxvii, p. 52), and this judgment remained unaltered in the revised form of his essay published in the Griswold edition of Poe's works (iii, p. xii). Others who spoke of him as a genius were Ripley (the New York Tribune for January 17, 1850), Gilfillan (A Third Gallery of Portraits, p. 380), and Daniel (Southern Literary Messenger, xvi, p. 172). But it is fairly plain that no one of these, except possibly Lowell, employed the word “genius” with the meaning that we commonly attach to it to-day. Daniel, in his slashing way, while condemning Poe as a poet, assigns him the foremost place among American writers (ibid., p. 178),—though he does not make it clear whether he bases this judgment on his tales or on his critical and philosophical writings: at one point (ibid., p. 181) he asserts that Eureka was his “greatest work.”

^{page 150 note 32} Of adverse criticisms that were made at the time, Duyckinck and Daniel complained of the lack of reality in the tales and of Poe's “want of sympathy with the human kind”; Peck admitted that some of the tales were “too horrible”; Stoddard maintained that his tales were “by no means healthy.” All who touched on the matter complained of Poe's lack of humor. And from Clark and Griswold there went up the old cry of plagiarism, notably in the case of The Pit and the Pendulum.

^{page 161 note 1} Broadway Journal, March. 22, 1845 (I, p. 183); Virginia Poe, xii, p. 85.

^{page 161 note 2} See the lists of newspaper notices printed in the Messenger in 1836 (ii, pp. 133 ff., 341 ff., 517 ff.), and see also the opening of his article on the poems of Drake and Halleck in the Messenger for April, 1836 (Virginia Poe, viii, pp. 275ff.) and his reply to his critics in the Messenger of July, 1836 (ibid., viii, pp. 333 ff.).

^{page 161 note 3} Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1841.

^{page 161 note 4} Woodberry, I, p. 345.

^{page 161 note 5} Baltimore Saturday Visiter, July 29, 1843.

^{page 162 note 6} See Poe's letter to the Richmond Compiler of September 2, 1836; reprinted in the Virginia Poe, viii, pp. xii-xv.

^{page 162 note 7} New York Mirror, April 9, 1836 (xiii, pp. 324–325).

^{page 162 note 8} Woodberry, i, p. 241.

^{page 162 note 9} Baltimore Saturday Visiter, April 2, 1842.

^{page 162 note 10} Baltimore Saturday Visiter, April 26, 1845.

^{page 163 note 11} See the Knickerbocker, October, 1843 (xxii, p. 392).

^{page 163 note 12} Ibid., xxvii, p. 461.

^{page 163 note 13} Graham's Magazine, xxvii, pp. 49–50.

^{page 163 note 14} The Harbinger, December 6, 1845, p. 410.

^{page 163 note 15} Vol. i, p. 105.

^{page 163 note 16} Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, January 8, 1847.

^{page 164 note 17} E olden's Magazine, iii, p. 22; from a poem entitled “A Mirror for Authors” and dealing, somewhat in the manner of the Fable for Critics, with the chief American poets of the time. In two further stanzas Poe's fondness for analysis and his habit of remarketing his wares, are held up to ridicule.

^{page 164 note 18} In a letter to Mrs. Mary Gove-Nichols, November 30, 1846, now among the Griswold Papers in the Boston Public Library.

^{page 164 note 19} Poe's Works, iii, p. xlix.

^{page 164 note 20} xxxvi, p. 372.

^{page 164 note 21} Graham's Magazine, February, 1854 (xliv, p. 221).

^{page 164 note 22} lxxxiii, p. 442 (October, 1856).

^{page 165 note 23} Literary World, September 21, 1850.

^{page 165 note 24} Mary Lyndon, p. 340.

^{page 165 note 25} Knickerbocker, xxviii, p. 368.

^{page 165 note 26} See, for instance, Griswold in the New York Tribune, October 9, 1849.

^{page 165 note 27} Graham's Magazine, xxvii, p. 49.

^{page 165 note 28} New York Tribune, March 1, 1845.

^{page 165 note 29} National Magazine, ii, pp. 198–199.

^{page 165 note 30} Weekly Mirror, February 17, 1845; Home Journal, October 20, 1849.—John M. Daniel, in the Southern Literary Messenger, xvi, p. 183, while condemning his poems save for The Raven, wrote: “As a critic we prefer what remains of Edgar Poe to anything after Hazlitt.”

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