The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-17

Many who confound ethics with art, censure Poe's writings and look for di- dacticism. where none was ever intended
 Poe never aimed at anything greater or less than the highest art. When @ rebel lious cadet at West Point it was easy to lampoon the unpopular professors in verse. but when the cadets subscribed for his volume of poems, hoping to give wider circulation to this same lampoonery, they were angry with disappointment because the young poet had taken art seriously , and aimed at higher things than to be The idle singer of an empty day." Those who estimate literature by its didactic value have always stumbled at the life of Poe at the very outset. These natur- ally include, like life, like literature. There are others who agree with the writer who said, There Is a literary beauty which is impersonal. distinct from the author and his organization This theory pushed to the extreme ;eads to the dictum that if the house is beautiful cne must not inquire if the painter was sober. The real truth lies between these ex- tremes, and Poe's case need not be an exception. There are those who read with complacency of an authors meeting in which wine flows freely and frequently,
 
 liable man testifies positively that dur ing eighteen months he saw the author of "The Raven" at one time very much under the influence of wine. Professor Richardson, in his book on Poe, does not enter upon this acrimonious discussion which has gone well beyond the half century mark. He says: "As the twen- tieth century proceeds, It becomes :n- creasingly evident that Poe is the Amer ican world-author. The Tact may be re- ceived with exclamation or regret, will lingly or grudgingly, but it remains. In estimating the rank of Poe or any other author we are, of course brought quickly to questions of terms. If we mean eth- les, we mean one thing: if art, another. The everlasting discussion narrows it. self, sooner or later to the statement that, other things being equal, the great artists of the world, in any field. have joined moral perception to the perception of beauty of form There is one Ameri- can author who, in my opinion, ought to outrank Poe, even when submitted to the same comparative tests. . - But the world and the years are the obvious ar- biters of fame, and in the half century since the death of our chief creative ge- niuses the general vote has been given to the singer of The Raven, and the teller or the tale or 'Llgeia. Said Ten~ nyson: q know several striking poems by American poets. but l think tkat Ed gar Poe is taking his poetry and prose | together) the most original American ge- nius." When asked to write an epitaph of one line for Poe's monument in Vest minister Churchyard, Baltimore, he an- swered: How can so strange ard so fine a genius, and so sad a l'fe, be ex- pressed and compressed in one iine?' To Victor Hugo, Poe was the Prince of American Literature Widely IS the fame of Poe has already spread, says the author of "Atalanta in Calydoh. and "A Forsaken Garden" and deeply as it is already rooted in Europe, |. IS even now growing wider and striking deeper as time advances" Richardson further quotes William Rossetti as to the origin of ono Of the worlds noted poems, "The Blessed Damosei," by Dante Gabriel Ro- setti. The account was given sby this writer in the Methodist Review some time ago as follows: Most lovers of poetry readily agree that among all :he short poems produced by the promoters or dis ciples of Preraphaelite movement, The Blessed DamoseP by Dante Gabriel Ros- setti, reaches the high water mark. How ever, not all know -he poem to be the work of a young man of 10. and fewer still know that this treasure of poetic art was the result of the authors study