The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-12-03

My Shakespeare curse OH clown ana
knave
who will not let his ashes rest!
Who make it seem more sweet TO be
The little life Of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that MARBLES long and loud
And drops ut Glory's temple-gates.
For whom the carriou vuture waits
TO tear his heart before the crowd.
The shaping spirit of Imagination
had wrought these lines into the form of
ideal art long before that dreary autumn
nal day ON which Poe was laid in West
Minister churchyard, but the sovereign
master of modern poetical thought and
expression rose TO the height of prophecy
i'm the unconscious yet most accurate de-
lineation he has afforded Of the essential
and distinctive characteristics that are
exhibited in the melancholy story Of our
poets life, and above all, the strange
vicissitudes and unique experiences
which have marked the expansion and
development Of his literary fame. In
the serene retrospect of a half centurs,
with calm of mind all passion spent,
what are the teachings the lessons of
literary wisdom, of poetic inspiration,
that are suggested by the memory of
Poe's life and achievements, and the
still sadder memory of his death! That
his countrymen have not attained the
height of adequate appreciation Of his
phenomenal and versatile power in the
n here of poetry, as in the province OF
fiction. is demonstrated by the fact that
the semicentennial OF his death
is not regarded in even the cen
tres Of Literary culture. the cera-
n!0nial exercises at the University of
Virginia. upon the occasion Of the un-
yelling Of the Zolnay bust being the
single exception to this all-prevailing
coldness and Indifference which has
come within the range of our observation.
In Germany the day is to be c0mnerl-
grated by special observance signifi-
cant indication Of advance along the
higher ranges of aesthetic Appreciation
The leading shrines Of university culture
in America are too much dominated by
the exclusive and petrifying pursuit Of
verbal philoloey to vouchsafe an hour Of
ceremonial regard to the memory of a
supreme master Of style-a sovereign
of form IN the ideal ranges of prose
and Of poetry. For the merely empirical
deyotee Of language, the artist
Retains his loyeliest things
And his soul in its ''wordiness" docs net
miss
What poet sings.
From this point Of view nothing IS to
he hoped for. as nothing is possible
under existing conditions. With one or
Two brilliant and notable exceptions,
such as Harvard. the literary barrenness
and the lack OF literary appreciation
characteristic Of American Universities
Is received as part Of the inevitable or
der of the academic dispensation. and to
itinlste or suggest the possibility Of
modification would be construed us heresy
if not regarded as perilously akin to
sacriIege and Dissertation Of our affairs
dedicated to The worship of the great
goddess Of fosSlized culture. Apart.
however, from the dreary precincts OF
academic shrineS, uncheered by a ray
of literary inspiration. the retrospect of
80 yaars-1S49- 1S99-is replete with hope
encouragement. quickening appreciation,
the steady advance of purer ideals Of
poetic art the constant expansion. de-
spite adverse and malignant criticism. OF
fame which is assured. the gradual
recognition Of his claim to the primacy
among American poets, and not to that
alone. but 70 position of uniqueness
and aoofness rarely approached or pa
ralleIed in the literature of the English
language. He was without pro-
totype or precursor III our poetry or IN
the sphcre of fiction. There is j thing
distiuctively American IN his genius,
scarcely trace of local color, of native
"Reminiscences in all that he has produced.
His real poetical utilization is with the
school Of Coleridge; perhaps the nearest
approach to reproduction of his spirit
IN our day is to be traced in some OF
the nobler creations Of the strangely
gifted poet-altiSt ID. g. Rossetti. That
the empirical imitators of his self-evoly-
cd and mysterious rhythm may be de-
scribed as legion merely serves to attest
the perfection of his touch, the eonsum-
mate purity of his metric art.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.
4 half century of literary develop
ment has confirmed the critical accuracy
of nearly every one of his literary indg-
ments. and in the serene splendor of
their matured greatness we see and
know Tennyson and Hawthorne and
Mrs. Browning as they We're revealed
to our prophetic artist in the mere
1awning of their consummate power.
tic in its character, has sprung into ex-
istence in foreign lands, deriving its orr
gin and its inspiration from his mar
yelous conceptions in this province of
literary evolution. In reading The
Purloined Letter, one is irresistibly re-
minded of Dreyfus and the complex mys-
teries OF the bordereau.
In the rhythmic development Of our
language he may be said almost to have
created IN era His sense of verbal
melody was like to that of Virgil, or
Dante, "all the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many golden phrase"
words and phrases revealed an undream-
ed-of brilliance, and became radiant with
the splendor and the power of an UNI
known and unsupported life. When we
take into account the inauspicious ma
turesof the environment with which he
grappled the uDgenial relation to his
fellows in which his own aloofness of in