Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-10

The Character OF EdEar A. Poe's Genius.
a. His Extraordinary Gins.
Edgar A. Poe is thus spoken Of in an arti-
Gle in last weeks New York Century:
OF the character of Poe's genius much has
been written that does not deserve to be
read. Dim ideas of his analytic power and
spleudor of imagination, are suggested in
vague criticism, but these are attributes Of
all great poets, and do not express his in
dividuality. Men look upon him as on the
midnight sky, where brilliant consultations
are wrought upon uufathomable darkness.
Astronomy is at fault, yet still in the shadow,
the miracle worketh change; apparitions Of
glory are revealed and Withdrawn, and the
motions of the heavens silently unfolds their
mystery. The laws Of the soul are not less
exact than the necessities of stellar move
ment, and the creations of the poet obey their
tyranny. Atheistical and Goddess they are
not, but intimate the invisible divinity be-
yond. Yet the creations of the poet are
held phantom show, as in old days, men
saw in sunset skies @rial pageants of knights
careering on cloudy steeds, armies. prophet
ical of coming war, marching with banners
in the dazzling mist, and crumbling into
ashen gloom. Or they are seen with the
incredulous eye that in the tropical noon,
and on a sunlit waste, beholds waving for
ests over glittering lakes, and the distant
domes of Pagan cities, that are but mocker-
les of the sun and air, that vanish in the
desert sand.
Yet it may be safely affirmed that no
poetry is more profoundly suggestive of its
author than that of Edgar Poe. That the
power it exerts over the mind does not exist
merely in the force Of abstract ideality, but
in the revelation of a superior personality, is
of this assertion, a striking proof The
magician is greater than his magic. Deeper
was the passion, wilder the climax of his
life, and more difficult of solution its riddle,
than even the story Of the ''Rsyen," or that
of the "House of Usher"
Blindness 10 the force of this fact produces
one of the greatest errors made in the iudg-
ment of the man: the assumption that his
power was necessarily limited to the field of
its exercise. The correctness of bis criticism
though applied to minds radically different
proves his universal appreciation, and from
this alone might be inferred the complete
ness of his genius. His written poetry is not
full expression, but merely an indication I;
for its limited range Of feeling is not the re-
suit of any poetical or personal deficiency,
| but of the pressure of external circumstance.
Writing rarely, and in difficulty, the most
intense and habitual passions naturally
| found the most frequent expression.
| Indeed the originality of the style, is the
! result of poetcal completeness. Possessing
all the qualities essential to the great poet,
the variety of sympathy enabled him to
avoid special imitation. Transcending Ten
nyson in passion, he equals him in the ana
| lysis of emotion, and had he lived, would
| have equaled him in exactness of statement.
With all of Byron's rhetorical splendor, he
had capacity to Suffer, of which Byron
never dreamed. Dante visited hell under
divine protection; Poe lived there. Words
worth calmly contemplated calmness; but
Poe looked steadfastly on dizziness. Admit
ting the personal evil ascribed to him, we do
not weaken our argument, for the possession
| Of evil does not exclude possession of good,
and the poet may exercise in imagination,
real qualities, that in his grosser lie are ne
elected. All that Poe mas written con-
scientlonss,,y -s,y, is strong; nowhere is positive
I poetical weakness betrayed. His personal
! deficiencies were not of that kind that inter-
! feres with intellectual exhibition of the
beautiful, and we especially argue against
the superstition, that his genius was limited
TO the production of effects of horror, and
that his poems, like the rawlings of ancient
oracles, are most impressive when least un-
derstood.