Welcome to the fourth episode of celebratepoe – celebrating the life, times, works, and influence of Edgar Allan Poe – America’s Shakespeare. Let’s get back to the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s early life.
Poe’s foster father, John Allan, took his family to Scotland and England when Poe was six years old to establish a branch of the business in Europe. While in England, Poe attended Manor School at Stoke Newington. Later it became the setting for his story William Wilson.
By the way, Stoke Newington today is a charming English town near London, and the home of actress Jean Marsh of Upstairs, Downstairs.
While we do not know exactly what William Shakespeare would have studied, we do know that a schoolboy who went through the school system in England would have certainly gotten an excellent education. Scholars believe that Shakespeare would have begun school at six in the morning each day and would have finished at five o’clock. School began at seven and finished at four in the winter because of the dark nights. The point is that he received an excellent classical education, and a high school graduate in England would know far more about Latin and Greek than a high school graduate today.
Shakespeare obviously received a great deal of education during his early years, and much of that time was spent learning the classics and various rhetorical devices.
The same could be said about Poe in England – scholars know that the subjects Poe studied included geography, spelling and the Catechism of the Church of England. Stoke Newington was run by the Reverend John Bransby. There is little doubt that Poe took classes in Latin and even Greek because Bransby had quite a reputation as a classical scholar.
During the next entry of celebratepoe, I will talk about the writer continuing his education at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
During this entry, I would like to talk about two poems by Poe that were written the writer was very young.
The first is rather short and most Poe scholars believe it is really only a fragment – the contents of the rest of the poem are unknown.
Last night, with many cares & toils oppres'd, Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest.
The second is considerably longer, and scholars believe Poe wrote O Tempora!, O Mores! when he was about sixteen, and some people believe it is thbe earliest of Poe’s writings known to exist.
The poem is actual a satire of a clerk by the name of Pitts who was a clerk in one of the leading fashionable dry goods store of Richmond. Pitts was in love with a youthful belle of the period, who afterwards married a prominent Virginia politician and member of Congress. O, Tempora! O, Mores!" was written chiefly for the ridicule of Pitts in the eyes of certain members of the Virginia Legislature, who were then boarding in the same house with him. Of course, all the people lampooned in the poem are largely forgotten, but the poem remains interesting – largely because it is the earliest known work of America’s Shakespeare.
O, TEMPORA! O, MORES!
O, Times! O, Manners! It is my opinion
That you are changing sadly your dominion —
I mean the reign of manners hath long ceased,
For men have none at all, or bad at least;
And as for times, altho' 'tis said by many
The "good old times" were far the worst of any,
Of which sound doctrine l believe each tittle,
Yet still I think these worse than them a little.
I've been a thinking — isn't that the phrase? —
I like your Yankee words and Yankee ways —
I've been a thinking, whether it were best
To take things seriously, or all in jest;
Whether, with grim Heraclitus of yore,
To weep, as he did, till his eyes were sore,
Or rather laugh with him, that queer philosopher,
Democritus of Thrace, who used to toss over
The page of life and grin at the dog-ears,
As though he'd say, "Why, who the devil cares?"
This is a question which, oh heaven, withdraw
The luckless query from a member's claw!
Instead of two sides, Job [Bob] has nearly eight,
Each fit to furnish forth four hours debate.
What shall be done? I'll lay it on the table,
And take the matter up when I'm more able,
And, in the meantime, to prevent all bother,
I'll neither laugh with one, nor cry with t'other,
Nor deal in flatt'ry or aspersions foul,
But, taking one by each hand, merely growl.
Ah, growl, say you, my friend, and pray at what?
Why, really, sir, I almost had forgot —
But, damn it, sir, I deem it a disgrace
That things should stare us boldly in the face,
And daily strut the street with bows and scrapes,
Who would be men by imitating apes.
I beg your pardon, reader, for the oath
The monkeys make me swear, though something loth;
I'm apt to be discursive in my style,
But pray be patient; yet a little while
Will change me, and as politicians do,
I'll mend my manners and my measures too.
Of all the cities — and I've seen no few;
For I have travelled, friend, as well as you —
I don't remember one, upon my soul,
But take it generally upon the whole,
(As members say they like their logick [logic] taken,
Because divided, it may chance be shaken)
So pat, agreeable and vastly proper
As this for a neat, frisky counter-hopper;
Here he may revel to his heart's content,
Flounce like a fish in his own element,
Toss back his fine curls from their forehead fair,
And hop o'er counters with a Vester's air,
Complete at night what he began A.M.,
And having cheated ladies, dance with them;
For, at a ball, what fair one can escape
The pretty little hand that sold her tape,
Or who so cold, so callous to refuse
The youth who cut the ribbon for her shoes!
One of these fish, par excellence the beau —
God help me! — it has been my lot to know,
At least by sight, for I'm a timid man,
And always keep from laughing, if I can;
But speak to him, he'll make you such grimace,
Lord! to be grave exceeds the power of face.
The hearts of all the ladies are with him,
Their bright eyes on his Tom and Jerry brim
And dove-tailed coat, obtained at cost; while then
Those eyes won't turn on anything like men.
His very voice is musical delight,
His form, once seen, becomes a part of sight;
In short, his shirt collar, his look, his tone is
The "beau ideal" fancied for Adonis.
Philosophers have often held dispute
As to the seat of thought in man and brute;
For that the power of thought attends the latter
My friend, the beau, hath made a settled matter,
And spite of all dogmas, current in all ages,
One settled fact is better than ten sages.
For he does think, though I am oft in doubt
If I can tell exactly what about.
Ah, yes! his little foot and ankle trim,
'Tis there the seat of reason lies in him,
A wise philosopher would shake his head,
He then, of course, must shake his foot instead.
At me, in vengeance, shall that foot be shaken —
Another proof of thought, I'm not mistaken —
Because to his cat's eyes I hold a glass,
And let him see himself, a proper ass!
I think he'll take this likeness to himself,
But if he won't, he shall, a stupid elf,
And, lest the guessing throw the fool in fits,
I close the portrait with the name of PITTS.
Edgar Allan Poe was born 199 years ago January 19. I am sure that there are people all over the world who will be remembering his birthday, but I will like to talk briefly about two of the most important events.
On Sunday, January 20, 2008 from 2:00 PM-5:00 PM, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum on 1914 East Main Street in Richmond, Virginia will celebrate the birthday of "America's Shakespeare" with a grand celebration. Admission to the museum and a dramatic performance in the museum's Enchanted Garden are free. There is a nominal fee charged for a walking tour of Poe's Richmond at 2 pm and Shadow's of Shockoe Ghost tour at 4 pm. There will be cake and punch for all who attend!
And what is billed as the world's largest Poe Birthday Celebration will be held in Baltimore on Saturday, January 19 and Sunday, January 20, 2008. On Saturday, the doors open at 6PM with the program beginning at 7PM. On Sunday, the doors open at 3:30PM with the program beginning at 4:30PM.
And from their excellent web page -
“For the first time on our stage we present the story
That changed the course of literary history by introducing a new literary form...the detective story - The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Sarah Helen Whitman, Poe's former fiancé, makes a rare public appearance where she will discuss her romantic but controversial relationship with Eddie.
Direct from his moldy grave, Edgar Allan Poe will haunt the stage with select recitations and comments.
And please check their web site at poecelebration.tripod.com for more specific information.
You can think of these two celebrations as kickoffs to the big 200th anniversary of the writer’s birth on January 19, 2009. I am sure that I will be writing more about this later.
Thank you and have a great week.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Mother's Death, To Helen
Welcome to another blog entry for celebratepoe – celebrating the life, times, works, and influence of Edgar Allan Poe – America’s Shakespeare. Let’s jump right into the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s early life.
When Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, two famous people were born less than a month later on the same day, February 12. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12 in Kentucky, and Charles Darwin was born the same day in England. Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States.
As I mentioned in the last episode, Edgar Allan Poe’s parents separated in 1810. Elizabeth Poe took the two sons, Henry Leonard and Edgar. At first Elizabeth, also known as Eliza, continued her career as a well-respected actress and even had a third child, Rosalie. Unfortunately the delicate Eliza contracted tuberculosis, and rapidly declined in health. On November 29, 1811, a notice appeared in the Richmond, Virginia Enquirer asking for donations in aid of Eliza. It went as follows: TO THE HUMANE HEART. On this night, Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of disease and surrounded by her children asks your assistance, and asks it perhaps for the last time. Citizens of Richmond visited her and provided nurses and cooks, but Eliza died on December 8, 1811 when Edgar was just two years old.
William Henry Leonard had been living with his grandparents in Baltimore, and continued to live with them after his mother’s death. Rosalie went to live with the MacKenzies, a family who ran a school in the Richmond area, and Edgar went to live with John and Francis Allan, two theatre patrons from Richmond. Originally from Scotland, John Allan had started a business in Richmond with Charles Ellis called The House of Ellis and Allan. They traded with tobacco and other goods, and apparently the business was quite profitable. At first John Allan did not want to take in Edgar, but finally gave in to his wife’s wishes – although the Allans never formally adopted Edgar. Fanny Allan had been orphaned at the age of ten, which was probably one of the reasons she took in Edgar. We really don’t know a great deal about Edgar’s first years with the Allans and what he thought about being part of a home that was so different from the life of poverty and abandonment that he knew, but when we do know that he went to a Richmond schoolmaster by the name of William Ewing who said that Edgar was charming and liked the school.
I’m sure that the stories of house slaves in the Allan household and the tales told by skippers and sea merchants would have been very influential in the formation of Edgar’s imaginative view of the world. According to the excellent The Poe Decoder web site, “the dead and dying would always have a strong hold over Edgar, as demonstrated by the anecdote that a six-year old Edgar was once ‘seized with terror’ as he passed by a local graveyard, convinced that the spirits of the undead would run after him.” In 1815, when Edgar was six and half years old, his family moved abroad to Scotland and England for five years so that Mr. Allan could expand the business. In a future blog entry, I will go into this important period in Edgar’s development.
Several cities in the United States claim Poe as one of their own. He wrote great works in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and each city can certainly make a case as an important place in the writer’s life. I will certainly talk about his homes a great deal in this podcast. And it is certainly understandably why a city today would claim such a great writer as Poe as one of their own sons. But the writer considered himself a Richmonder. He was very much the Southern gentleman in temperament, and spent more time in Richmond than in any other town. The Allans returned to Richmond after their years in Europe, and Edgar developed a crush on a lady by the name of Jane Stannard, the mother of a childhood friend.
Today I would like to talk about a poem that Poe wrote in 1831 entitled To Helen. Most critics believe that the poem was written about Jane Stannard, and Poe’s memories of her. It is an extremely concise poem – the writer says a lot in just 15 lines. And I apologize that the commentary that I am going into is much longer than the poem itself. (Some of the symbols refer to things that really wouldn’t be common knowledge to most of us today.)
Poe often used a different, even idealized name for a lady when writing a poem about her. And Helen of Troy was esteemed for her beauty. Poe begins the poem by writing “Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicean barks of yore.” He compares the beauty of Helen, with small sailing boats (barks) that took travelers home in ancient times. Then he continues the boat imagery by saying that Helen brought him home to the shores of classical Greece and Rome.
The writer sees Helen as the expression of idealized beauty, both physically and spiritually. She has beautiful hair and a classic face, and the speaker sees Helen as very poised and perfect. He uses such words as ‘gently’, ‘perfumed’, ‘hyacinth hair’, ‘classic face’, ‘statuelike’, and ‘brilliant’. In stanza three, the writer compares Helen (Mrs. Stannard) to Psyche (which means soul.)
Jane Stannard died around the age of thirty-one, and Poe frequently visited her grave in Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
And now To Helen:
————
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
The weary wayward wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome.
Lo! in that little window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The folded scroll within thy hand —
A Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy land!
I especially like the words from the last two lines – “regions which are holy land”. Here I think “holy land” has at least three meanings – an example of how Poe, like the greatest writers, was a master of using expressions that can be read on different levels –
Here holy land could have
1) a religious connotation– with the holy land of the Bible
2) a mythological connotation – referring to Rome or Athens
3) a geographic and emotional connotation– Richmond as the holy land of Poe’s heart
There is an old belief (which is doubtful) in Richmond, Virginia that the town, like Rome, was built on seven hills. And if you want to start an argument at a party, just ask people WHAT those hills are. Actually, I think it is really stretching things to say that Richmond was built on seven hills, but kids were taught that Richmond was built in the tradition of Rome up until the 1950s. I remember I was driving in Richmond when I was younger, and trying to find an address. I got lost, and asked some firemen in the neighborhood (I thought they would certainly know) where the house was. An older man told me to turn right at the first hill. I went back and forth several times and never saw a hill. I went back to the station, and asked again – to make a long story short, what the older gentlemen considered a “hill,” to me was just a bump in the road. I am from Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley, where we have MOUNTAINS!
When Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, two famous people were born less than a month later on the same day, February 12. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12 in Kentucky, and Charles Darwin was born the same day in England. Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States.
As I mentioned in the last episode, Edgar Allan Poe’s parents separated in 1810. Elizabeth Poe took the two sons, Henry Leonard and Edgar. At first Elizabeth, also known as Eliza, continued her career as a well-respected actress and even had a third child, Rosalie. Unfortunately the delicate Eliza contracted tuberculosis, and rapidly declined in health. On November 29, 1811, a notice appeared in the Richmond, Virginia Enquirer asking for donations in aid of Eliza. It went as follows: TO THE HUMANE HEART. On this night, Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of disease and surrounded by her children asks your assistance, and asks it perhaps for the last time. Citizens of Richmond visited her and provided nurses and cooks, but Eliza died on December 8, 1811 when Edgar was just two years old.
William Henry Leonard had been living with his grandparents in Baltimore, and continued to live with them after his mother’s death. Rosalie went to live with the MacKenzies, a family who ran a school in the Richmond area, and Edgar went to live with John and Francis Allan, two theatre patrons from Richmond. Originally from Scotland, John Allan had started a business in Richmond with Charles Ellis called The House of Ellis and Allan. They traded with tobacco and other goods, and apparently the business was quite profitable. At first John Allan did not want to take in Edgar, but finally gave in to his wife’s wishes – although the Allans never formally adopted Edgar. Fanny Allan had been orphaned at the age of ten, which was probably one of the reasons she took in Edgar. We really don’t know a great deal about Edgar’s first years with the Allans and what he thought about being part of a home that was so different from the life of poverty and abandonment that he knew, but when we do know that he went to a Richmond schoolmaster by the name of William Ewing who said that Edgar was charming and liked the school.
I’m sure that the stories of house slaves in the Allan household and the tales told by skippers and sea merchants would have been very influential in the formation of Edgar’s imaginative view of the world. According to the excellent The Poe Decoder web site, “the dead and dying would always have a strong hold over Edgar, as demonstrated by the anecdote that a six-year old Edgar was once ‘seized with terror’ as he passed by a local graveyard, convinced that the spirits of the undead would run after him.” In 1815, when Edgar was six and half years old, his family moved abroad to Scotland and England for five years so that Mr. Allan could expand the business. In a future blog entry, I will go into this important period in Edgar’s development.
Several cities in the United States claim Poe as one of their own. He wrote great works in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and each city can certainly make a case as an important place in the writer’s life. I will certainly talk about his homes a great deal in this podcast. And it is certainly understandably why a city today would claim such a great writer as Poe as one of their own sons. But the writer considered himself a Richmonder. He was very much the Southern gentleman in temperament, and spent more time in Richmond than in any other town. The Allans returned to Richmond after their years in Europe, and Edgar developed a crush on a lady by the name of Jane Stannard, the mother of a childhood friend.
Today I would like to talk about a poem that Poe wrote in 1831 entitled To Helen. Most critics believe that the poem was written about Jane Stannard, and Poe’s memories of her. It is an extremely concise poem – the writer says a lot in just 15 lines. And I apologize that the commentary that I am going into is much longer than the poem itself. (Some of the symbols refer to things that really wouldn’t be common knowledge to most of us today.)
Poe often used a different, even idealized name for a lady when writing a poem about her. And Helen of Troy was esteemed for her beauty. Poe begins the poem by writing “Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicean barks of yore.” He compares the beauty of Helen, with small sailing boats (barks) that took travelers home in ancient times. Then he continues the boat imagery by saying that Helen brought him home to the shores of classical Greece and Rome.
The writer sees Helen as the expression of idealized beauty, both physically and spiritually. She has beautiful hair and a classic face, and the speaker sees Helen as very poised and perfect. He uses such words as ‘gently’, ‘perfumed’, ‘hyacinth hair’, ‘classic face’, ‘statuelike’, and ‘brilliant’. In stanza three, the writer compares Helen (Mrs. Stannard) to Psyche (which means soul.)
Jane Stannard died around the age of thirty-one, and Poe frequently visited her grave in Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
And now To Helen:
————
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
The weary wayward wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome.
Lo! in that little window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The folded scroll within thy hand —
A Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy land!
I especially like the words from the last two lines – “regions which are holy land”. Here I think “holy land” has at least three meanings – an example of how Poe, like the greatest writers, was a master of using expressions that can be read on different levels –
Here holy land could have
1) a religious connotation– with the holy land of the Bible
2) a mythological connotation – referring to Rome or Athens
3) a geographic and emotional connotation– Richmond as the holy land of Poe’s heart
There is an old belief (which is doubtful) in Richmond, Virginia that the town, like Rome, was built on seven hills. And if you want to start an argument at a party, just ask people WHAT those hills are. Actually, I think it is really stretching things to say that Richmond was built on seven hills, but kids were taught that Richmond was built in the tradition of Rome up until the 1950s. I remember I was driving in Richmond when I was younger, and trying to find an address. I got lost, and asked some firemen in the neighborhood (I thought they would certainly know) where the house was. An older man told me to turn right at the first hill. I went back and forth several times and never saw a hill. I went back to the station, and asked again – to make a long story short, what the older gentlemen considered a “hill,” to me was just a bump in the road. I am from Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley, where we have MOUNTAINS!
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