The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-26
On Poe's Poetry
Critical Analysis on
the Beauty of It.

| portion of humankind subject to the sti-
mutation of various early emotions, today
| largely seeks an outlet or a solace to
those emotions in music. The more
| pianos in the land, the higher on the
! shelves the group of poets has climbed.
| We fancy that the young and poetry
susceptible people of half a century ago
read poetry much and with an under
standing of it's often indefinite frenzies,
because it supplied their emotional needs
| as a sonata, a waltz song, an overture
| does today
John Phelps Fruit. professor of English
language and literature in the William
Jewell college, Liberty, Missouri, has
lately published a book on "The Mind
and Art of Poe's Poetry" and in this day
of poetical eclipse and a marked frigid-
ity to the poets generally, the volume is
timely Besides it is a work of love.
Taking a single stanza from Poe for an
instance:
80, then the eternal condor years,
So shook the very heavens on high,
With tumult as they thunder'd by;
had no time for idle cares,
Thro' gazing on the unquiet sky!
Or if an hour with calmer wing
Its down did on my spirit fling,
To while aWay-forbidden thing,
My heart half fear'd to be a crime
Unless It trembed with the string"
Two companions may read this One
saying he understands 1t, the other, in
self protection, will avow that ne does
also If both are honest a verdict will
be easily reached that Poe was crazy as
a loon"
More as a work of love than as 9ne Of
enlightment to people who can "see no
sense in poetry" Mr.. Fruit has taken up
the spirit of Poe's poetry as 1t runs from
his earliest efforts to his last, and ex-
planned beautifully line by line the beau
ties of thought, inspiration and philoso-
ply.
AS an example of one Of Mr.. Fruits
briefer explanations we will quote this:
" THE Conqueror Worm was published
first in 1S49, and made part of I4igeia.'
It is an allegory; the conception is epic,
the theme is the tragedy man the time
is within the lonesome latter years,
which expression recalls the sentiment
OF CampbelTs Last Man 1t is a gala
night, and there sit in a theatre a throng
of angels 'bedight in wells and drowned
in tears to see
play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mines, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and humble low,
And hitler and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Woe.
at is a motley drama. The crowd
chase a phantom that returns ever in
circle to the self-same spot; and the soul
of the plot has much of madness, and
more of sin and horror.
But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude,
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
1t writhes-it writhes-with mortal pangs
The mines become its food,
And seraphs sob at verrnin fangs
In human gore imbued.
1.-THE lights are out and the curtain
falls over each quivering form
While the angels, all pallid and wan
Uprising, unwilling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, Man,
And it's hero, the ConQueror Worm.
Mr.. Fruits handling of The Raven"
both from an art and mind standpoint, is
superb.
Taking the concluding lines from "The
Raven" he at first quotes Poe himself,
Take thy beak from out my heart, and
take thy form from off my door,
Quoth the Raven. 'Nevermore.'
OF this Poe himself said: at will be
observed that the words from out my
heart involve the first metaphorical ex-
preston in the poem. Then with the
answer 'Nevermore' dispose the mind TO
seek a moral in all that has been previ-
ously narrated. The reader begins now
to regard the Raven as emblematical-
but it is not until the very last line of
the very last stanza that the intention of
making him emblematical of mournful
and never-ending remembrance is per-
mitted distinctly to be seen
And the Raven, never fitting, still IS
sitting, still Is sitting
On the pallid bust Of Pallas just above
my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming Of
demons that is dreaming.
And the lamp-light DER him streaming,
throws his shadow on the floor,
And my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted-nevermorel'
Mr. Fruit writes: True, il is that the
anegorical the careful reader must sur
mise long before he reaches the last two
stanzas And Poe's statement of the
allegorical theme is not specific enough;
it was more than a mournful remem-
brance: it was painful with fear and
trembling, as If half-conscious that Ne
mesis was at hand"
1t is in 1.-The Philosophy OF Compost
ton that the poet poe speaks Of the
interview between the student and the
Raven. and how the 'Nevermore' of the
bird finds echo in his heart. He says:
.'Th. student now guesses the state OF
the case. but is impelled, as I have be-
fore explained. by the human thirst for
self-torture and in part by superstition,
% PROFOUND such queries 10 the bird as
Will bring him, the lover, the most OF
the luxury OF sorrow. through the anti
cipated answer 'Nevermore. "
Mr.. Fruit writes: 1t should be re
membered that the lover IS 70 be looked
at as both the victim. 50 TO put it. OF the
experiences and as their reconteur. When
we follow the flow of the human Won
dering. fearing. trembling. doubling,
through the successive stanzas we can
see no intention to luxuriate in sorrow,
bat when we think Of the lover cele-
brating them as his own experiences
then is he INDUCING in sorrow as q lux
ury Not in the moments Of suffering Is
sorrowing 3 luxury but in the after
moments Of recalling and narrat ding"
Many pages are devoted 70 this master
piece All the strange mans greater
poems are studied by Mr.. Fruit His
work viii stand many readings and is a.
excellent as anything OF It's kind any
where.