The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1917-08-01

will steal" Said he: Mr. Longfellow's
poems, The Beleaguered City and
The Spanish Student are much Sr..
Politian." The poet James Aldrich
was accused of plagiarizing Hood's
poem. The Death Bed" In like man
ner he punctured the self-esteem of
William Gilmore Simms in the South.
All this was unworthy of Poe. Reg
taliation in kind was inevitable. and
hostility easily discovered that ffer
Raven" was stolen property. Poo.
felt that criticism had reached a stage
of degradation and made amends In
a general apology, alleging that "p}a--
giarism involves no moral deficiency.
1t Is but the outcome of the feeling
that things admired become our own,
and the greatest poets are the most,
frequent plagiarists. Very true, but
this was small balm to wounded liter.
airy vanftfes. Now 1t was under condi-
tons of disgust and Indignation IKE
these that Griswold wrote the memoir
of Edgar Allen Poe. In such an
atmosphere one can readily see that
it was next TO impossible for him to
write otherwise than he did.
Magnanimity of His Contemporaries
Immediately the magnanimous-
Wills put in a counter note. saying:
There is goodness in Poe. He was .
sad hammered, winning. refined gene
tleman. single glass of wine rs--.
versed his whole nature, making him
arrogant, overbearing jealous and hin
will palpably insane. His sense, Of
truth and Righteousness became de-.
ranged. But let us hedge his grave
with respect" The generous and
| lovable Longfellow wrote as follows
in the Southern Literary Messenger
one month after the passing Of The
ipoet: What melancholy death IL
that of Mr.. Poe, a man so richly en-
dowed with genius. I have always
entertained high appreciation OF hio
powers as prose writer and a poAt.
THE harshness of his criticism I have
never attributed to anything but the
Irritation of a sensitive nature. cnaf-
ed by some indefinite sense Of wrcnE:-
| Worthier Biographies.
| Griswolds mentor held the defd
for quarter of century. Then the
worthier biographies of Ingram.
! Woodberry and Harrison began to APP
| pear correcting his blemishes ana
blunders in the light of fuller knowf-
edge and under the spell of a more
pathetic spirit. --,s
| 1t now remains to ask what are the
durable contributions of Poe to Ameri-
lean literature? His great abilities
| had an ample field and the best ops
portunities of the time. From his
twenty fifth to his thirty-sixth year
he held conspicuous positions on Ave
/ of the best periodicals Of the nation.
/ He was editor of the Southern Liter.
AIRY Messenger in Richmond; succAs-
sively editor of the Gentleman's Maya
zine and Graham's Magazine in Phila-
,delphia. and later. editor successive
/ ly to the Evening Mirror and the
/ Broadway Journal in New York. Why
this restless change? Nothing hut
the incurable feebleness of his will,
During his five years in Phiiadefpftfx
he began to cherish the scheme OF
founding a journal OF his own. to be
called The stylus which should be
the autocrat of intellectual society In
America. The futile dream Knocked
him increasingly and then dropped
into the dead sea of his unrealized
hopes. But large was the output of
his pen through all the unquiet years.
his prose hearing to his poetry, the
proportion of forty to one.
His Indeiible Literary Impress. -
p. The matured Judgment Of scholars
rs that Poe left an indeiible i'm press
on our literature in three several
particulars: First, in the sphere OF
criticism. Griswold said: AS a critic
Poe was little better than a carping
grammarian." But Lowell said. HIS
is the most discriminating. philosophi-
cal fearless critic on imaginative
works that has written in America.
Yet. he sometimes mistakes his vial
of prussic acid for an inkstand"
Some thoughtful men have considered
mis- critical faculties stronger than HIS
Imaginative -and-cseatipe- faculties
Certain il, is. he was the founder Of
Literary CRITICISMS In America. Eeh0-
~mentiy he stressed the principles Of
honor, self-rel!ance and originality In
authorship. lndolent thought and
careless composition he scourged with
a whip of cords. His forked lightntngs
clarified the murkiness of the literary
sky. and style lost much of its dull
ness. keenly sensitive TO merit. he
failed not to crown it. He praised
Longfellow as the head OF our poets.
and later said to Lowell: You are a
better poet than Longfellow." HIS
criticism lives in American letters to-
day and will not die -
Again, Poe added to his fame as "a
thinker in his original discussion of
the poetic principle. To him that
principle Is beauty. POETRY bases it
self on elemental beauty in the uni.
verse. Its aim is to give exalted pleas
ure in the discovery and expression OK
the beautiful Matthew Arnold says
that "poetrys aim liz the criticism OF
life" Poe's thought strikes me as
deeper, for when beauty is really por-
trayed, il of necessity becomes a critic
of all life's ugliness. IT was Poe's
wish to put the Greek taste and spirit
into English poetry; hence his weari-'
ness with what he calls Longfellow's
t'didacticism. He insists that. not
teaching nor narration. but setting
forth the beautiful. is poetry's func-
Ition. Out of this philosophy he drew
a practical conclusion that started the
cultured. No poem can be long, His
psychology taught him that the poets
fine phrenzy, the creative estacy. must
Iof necessity be brief. The poets con.
Germ. then. is how to produce MAXI
mum effects with minimum means.
Poetry cannot take the epic form.
That dictum waves out of court The
1liad, The Aeneid. The Inferno, Ard
Paradise Lost. Poe declared that they
lack the totality of effect characteristic
of a genuine poem. Each one OF these
masterpieces is simply a series7' of
poems bound together by links Of
material prose. Sidney Lanfer~ re-
spends to this view when he writes
of Homer's Sandy wastes OF prose
and catalogue, his dread haranSues
that tease the patience of the CEN