Read Online Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Edgar Allan Poe - Free Book Online
Authors: Edgar Allan Poe
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may have been actually ahead of his time, in positing that Pym had developed into a post-adolescent stage in which he was prepared, if warily, to merge with the female presence represented by the giant, white-shrouded human figure. 10 Pym draws the other voyagers with him, although moving in this way toward an inescapable unknown may have troubled him and his Tsalalian hostage, if not Dirk Peters (whose names merge sexuality and spirituality). Poe may indeed have had racial fantasies, but in Pym such fantasies seem to exist in the context of melding rather than in separation. Within this scheme, Nu-Nu, a member of a decidedly anti-feminine culture—emphasized in the destruction of the Jane Guy, a ship contextualized with notable femininity—is not equal to a merger with the feminine toward which Pym and Peters are drawn; Nu-Nu’s death may symbolize his position. If Pym is a work in which we see probings of irrationality in the human self (and “self,” singly or in compound words, resonates throughout the novel much like a refrain in a poem or piece of music), then the final scene, where masculine and feminine are inevitably going to merge, may symbolize an awe-inspiring plunge into depths hitherto only glimpsed. If Pym is continuing to mature, then that continuation plausibly incorporates mystery as a concomitant to true identity.
Such a reading, of course, offers but one approach to Poe’s novel. Others suggest that Pym may be incomplete because Poe had no idea where to go with his creation, or that incompletion may signal his consciously essaying the Romantic fragment that became a respectable form in the early nineteenth century, as exemplified in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” several Wordsworth poems, Keats’s “Hyperion,” Shelley’s “The Triumph of Life,” and Byron’s Don Juan. This structure of incompletion or tentativeness paves the way for what has subsequently become known as Modernism in literature. Not too long after it was published and reviewers remarked its heterogeneity, Poe called Pym a “silly book,” but when he sought to plume himself as an author, he always cited it as one of his accomplishments. If, according to Webster‘s, “silly” may mean “contrary to reason,” Poe, being Poe, may have knowingly chosen this designation to confute his detractors.
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What can one say in conclusion regarding Poe’s ongoing appeal? First, his creative works have survived considerable deprecation to emerge as deservedly ranking with those of other authors whose achievements are often considered far more artistic than his own. Part of the low esteem for Poe’s poems and fiction has come about because readers today are often unwilling to approach literature with their ears as well as their eyes. Thus Poe’s intent to enlist hearing as well as seeing from his audiences may have been blunted by shifts in readers’ responses. Second, since connections of his creative work with literary Gothicism have been apparent since he began to publish, and since Gothic tradition overall had to wait until the later twentieth century before it gained recognition, Poe’s work was likewise bypassed by many until comparatively recently.
A consensus has emerged, however, that Poe’s horror writings merit considered attention. Poe realized that stock character types and their worlds, long familiar in antecedent Gothicism, could be manipulated into representations of the human mind (symbolized in weird castles, mansions, dark pits, or cellars) under stress (represented by the overwrought characters themselves, who repeatedly seem to be living creatures moving with and through dizzying experiences inside and “haunting” those minds just described). He discerned that he could create a sustained “effect” or impression of such upheavals in short poems and, for the most part, in brief fictions, Pym being a notable exception. Poe’s horrors thus continue to fascinate readers because they indeed touch on
Such a reading, of course, offers but one approach to Poe’s novel. Others suggest that Pym may be incomplete because Poe had no idea where to go with his creation, or that incompletion may signal his consciously essaying the Romantic fragment that became a respectable form in the early nineteenth century, as exemplified in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” several Wordsworth poems, Keats’s “Hyperion,” Shelley’s “The Triumph of Life,” and Byron’s Don Juan. This structure of incompletion or tentativeness paves the way for what has subsequently become known as Modernism in literature. Not too long after it was published and reviewers remarked its heterogeneity, Poe called Pym a “silly book,” but when he sought to plume himself as an author, he always cited it as one of his accomplishments. If, according to Webster‘s, “silly” may mean “contrary to reason,” Poe, being Poe, may have knowingly chosen this designation to confute his detractors.
V
What can one say in conclusion regarding Poe’s ongoing appeal? First, his creative works have survived considerable deprecation to emerge as deservedly ranking with those of other authors whose achievements are often considered far more artistic than his own. Part of the low esteem for Poe’s poems and fiction has come about because readers today are often unwilling to approach literature with their ears as well as their eyes. Thus Poe’s intent to enlist hearing as well as seeing from his audiences may have been blunted by shifts in readers’ responses. Second, since connections of his creative work with literary Gothicism have been apparent since he began to publish, and since Gothic tradition overall had to wait until the later twentieth century before it gained recognition, Poe’s work was likewise bypassed by many until comparatively recently.
A consensus has emerged, however, that Poe’s horror writings merit considered attention. Poe realized that stock character types and their worlds, long familiar in antecedent Gothicism, could be manipulated into representations of the human mind (symbolized in weird castles, mansions, dark pits, or cellars) under stress (represented by the overwrought characters themselves, who repeatedly seem to be living creatures moving with and through dizzying experiences inside and “haunting” those minds just described). He discerned that he could create a sustained “effect” or impression of such upheavals in short poems and, for the most part, in brief fictions, Pym being a notable exception. Poe’s horrors thus continue to fascinate readers because they indeed touch on
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