University of Virginia Library

V

IN MADISON HALL

AT 11 o'clock Tuesday morning, the one
hundredth anniversary of Poe's birth,
Dr. Charles W. Kent presided at commemorative
exercises held in Madison Hall, whose
special purpose was to offer an opportunity
for a study of Poe's influence beyond the
limits of his own country. Dr. Kent addressed
the assemblage:

We have assembled this morning for the
purpose of doing further honor to the memory
of Edgar Allan Poe. On Saturday evening
the Jefferson Literary Society of which he was
a member recalled his close connection with
the student life of the University of Virginia
by reviving the story of Poe's University residence
and his connection with our literary activities;
on Sunday evening some of us had the
privilege of hearing from the distinguished
clergyman who occupied our Chapel pulpit his

gracious and grateful tribute to Edgar Allan
Poe and his plea for a right judgment of his
failures and foibles.

On last evening the Raven Society entertained
us thoroughly by a unique celebration
of Poe's interest as a man and gifts as an
artist.

While the University of Virginia lays claim
to her distinguished son to whom, at all times,
through good report and ill, she has been loyal
and kindly, she recognizes that he cannot be
confined within the narrow compass of her
encircling care. When he passed from these
walls into the outer world he committed himself
to the judgment, too often tardy and
grudging, of his American countrymen. His
recognition, however, has now past far beyond
the limits of his University, his Southland, and
even his entire country and his fame has extended
throughout all of the nations of Western
Europe and even to the more remote lands of
the Orient. In recognition of the universality
of his fame and the cosmopolitanism of his
literary genius we have chosen at this morning
meeting to remind ourselves and you of his
appreciation abroad. That this may be rightly
set before you, we have invited distinguished

speakers representing other languages and
other civilizations and have great satisfaction
in believing that their testimony will convince
even the most sceptical among you of the true
worth and increasing fame of the University's
most distinguished son.

Dr. William Harrison Faulkner read letters
from distinguished men in England, France
and Germany. A letter from Richard Dehmel
of Hamburg, a German poet of distinction,
contained this tribute:—

which Dr. James Taft Hatfield of Northwestern
University instantly rendered into
English and read, as follows:

Other poems contributed for the occasion were:

Arthur Christopher Benson, Tremans,
Horsted Keynes, Sussex:

Mr. John Boyd, Montreal, Canada:

Dr. Edward Dowden, Trinity College,
Dublin:

Dr. Cäsar Flaischlen, Berlin:

The Chairman, Dr. Kent:

In no country has Poe been so appreciated
and so distinctly flattered by sincere imitation
as in France. The development of the shortstory,
which has reached such a marked degree
of excellence both in France and America, has
its common starting point in Edgar Allan Poe.
This influence was transmitted to France
through the translations of Baudelaire, and
from this day to ours the influence of Poe,
both in poetry and prose, has been consciously
felt by the artists of our sister republic. Unable
because of distance to summon to our aid
a speaker from fair France, we have been
singularly fortunate in procuring as her representative
on this occasion Dr. Alcée Fortier
of Tulane University, designated by one of
his colleagues as our "Prince of Creoles." I
have the honor to introduce Dr. Fortier who
will speak to you in the language counted by
him and his compatriots as la plus belle langue
du monde.

Dr. Fortier:

Je suis heureux de me trouver parmi vous
aujourd'hui pour prendre part à la célébration

du centenaire de la naissance d'Edgar Allan
Poe. C'est ici même que l'on doit célébrer cet
événement avec le plus d'éclat, à cette grande
Université de la Virginie, où le célèbre écrivain
commença sa carrière littéraire. Ici vécut Poe,
ici il fut étudiant, ici il fut inspiré par l'atmosphère
vivifiante de la magnifique institution
fondée par Jefferson. Le nom de l'auteur du
"Corbeau," de "la Chute de la Maison d'Usher"
et autres histoires admirables, est indissolublement
lié à celui de l'Université de la Virginie,
et le nom de l'Université à celui de Poe.

L'étudiant doit une grande reconnaissance
au collège qui lui a donné la vie intellectuelle,
mais le collège, à son tour, ne doit pas oublier
l'ancien élève qui, par son génie, a contribué
à illustrer son alma mater. Je sais bien que
cette Université serait arrivée à la célébrité
sans l'aide d'Edgar Poe, mais celui-ci a grandement
ajouté à la gloire de l'institution, et il est
éminemment juste qu'elle se souvienne du poète
et qu'elle l'honore. En agissant ainsi l'Université
représente aussi le grand état de la
Virginie qu' aimait tant Poe, et dont l'admirable
civilisation exerça sur lui une si grande
influence que, malgré ses égarements, il lui

resta toujours dans l'âme l'amour du beau et
du vrai.

Nous ne pouvons admettre qu'un homme
soit jamais vraiment grand, s'il lui manque la
grandeur morale, et une institution d'enseignement
supérieur ne donnera pas cet homme en
exemple, quelque vaste que soit son génie.
Edgar Poe fut plus malheureux que coupable,
et nous qui admirons ses belles qualités
mentales, lui pardonnons ses fautes, parce
qu'il aima l'art, parce qu'il ne ternit jamais un
nom de femme dans ses vers ni dans sa prose,
et parce qu'il étudia l'âme humaine et tâcha
d'en comprendre les mystères. Telle est l'opinion
qu'ont de lui les professeurs de l'Université
de la Virginie, qui ont fait une étude approfondie
de ses oeuvres littéraires et de sa
vie malheureuse. Telle est l'opinion de M.
le Docteur James A. Harrison, qui a écrit la
biographie la plus complète et la plus sympathique
du poète; telle est l'opinion de M.
le Docteur Charles W. Kent, qui a si bien compris
le génie de Poe; telle est l'opinion enfin
de l'eminent Président de cette Université, dont
le goût littéraire est si fin et si parfait. C'est
parce que ces messieurs savent qu'Edgar Poe

ne fut pas le misérable, que nous présente une
dèplorable légende, qu'ils honorent aujourd'hui
sa mémoire et nous ont invités à
l'honorer avec eux.

L'Université de la Virginie est fière du plus
illustre homme de lettres parmi ses anciens
élèves, elle lui sait gré de la gloire qu'il a donnée
à elle, à l'état de la Virginie, et aux EtatsUnis.
Pendant de longues années, après que
notre pays eut acquis son indépendance, il
n'était connu en Europe que par ses institutions
politiques, et par son merveilleux développement
industriel et commercial. A peine
quelques noms d'écrivains avaient traversé
l'Océan et étaient mentionnés de temps en
temps, mais lorsque le Corbeau de Poe eut
croassé son immortelle complainte, que le
Scarabée d'Or eut scintillé dans la nuit, et qu'
eurent paru les formes éthérées de Morella et
de Ligeia, on sut dans la vieille Europe que
la jeune république occidentale avait donné
naissance à un vrai poète, à un prosateur exquis.
De tous les écrivains américains Edgar
Poe est le plus connu en Europe. Il est le
seul qui fasse, pour ainsi dire, partie de la littérature
française, qui soit réellement fran-

cisé, comme l'a si bien dit Emile Hennequin.
Voyons donc quelle est la genèse de cette extraordinaire
popularité.

Dès 1841, peu après la publication du
"Double Assassinat dans la Rue Morgue,"
M. le Docteur James A. Harrison nous dit que
trois journaux de Paris s'approprièrent et se
disputèrent ce conte étrange de ratiocination.
Ce qui commença, cependant, la réputation de
Poe en France fut un article de E. D. Forgues,
publié dans "la Revue des Deux Mondes" du
15 octobre, 1846, "les Contes d'Edgar A.
Poe." M. Forgues commence son article par
une comparaison entre "l'Essai Philosophique
sur les Probabilités" de Laplace et le système
de Poe. Il dit que les contes de l'auteur américain
ont une parenté évidente avec la philosophie
de Laplace, quoiqu' ils ne conduisent pas
à un aussi noble but et n'émanent pas d'une
pensée aussi vigoureuse. La faculté inspiratrice
de Poe, c'est le raisonnement; sa muse,
c'est la logique, son moyen d'agir sur les lecteurs,
c'est le doute. "L'auteur met aux prises
Oedipe et le sphinx, le héros et un logogriphe."
Le mystère parait impénétrable, l'intelligence
s'irrite contre le voile étendu devant elle, mais

sort victorieuse de la lutte après des travaux
extraordinaires.

"Monos et Una," d'après M. Forgues, est
une monographie patiente, méthodique, scientifique,
sur la fraternité du sommeil et de
la mort. La logique de Poe ne dévie que rarement
les principes une fois posés; elle est
claire et intelligible, et s'empare du lecteur
malgré lui. C'est sans nul doute, à mon avis,
cette logique impeccable, cette clarté, malgré
l'obscurité apparente, que l'on trouve dans les
contes de Poe, qui le rendirent si populaire
en France, car ce sont les traits caractéristiques
de l'esprit français. Les grands écrivains de
la France reconnurent en Poe une affinité littéraire
et lui donnèrent droit de cité parmi eux.

M. Forgues ne se contente pas, cependant,
de présenter le logicien à ses compatriotes; il
veut aussi leur faire voir le poète, l'inventeur
de fantaisies sans but, et il fait l'analyse du
"Chat Noir" et de "l'Homme des Foules." Il
préfère les quelques pages de certains contes
de Poe à de longs volumes, et comprend le
mérite du conte, ce genre où l'on "condense,"
dit-il, "en peu de mots sous forme de récit,
toute une théorie abstraite, tous les éléments

d'une composition originale." M. Forgues ne
veut pas établir un parallèle en règle entre
l'auteur américain et les feuilletonistes modernes,
mais, dit-il, "il sera opportun et utile
de les comparer quand le temps aura consolidé
la réputation naissante du conteur étranger,
et—qui sait?—ébranlé quelque peu celle
de nos romanciers féconds." Le critique français
de 1846 était prophète: les nombreux
volumes d'Alexandre Dumas, quoiqu'ils intéressent
encore les jeunes gens de vingt ans,
ne font presque plus partie de la littérature,
tandis que les contes de Poe sont des joyaux
littéraires, dont l'éclat augmente; à mesure que
s'écoulent les années.

L'article de M. Forgues attira l'attention de
Mme. Gabrielle Meunier, qui traduisit quelques-uns
des contes de Poe. Ce grand
écrivain, néanmoins, serait resté presque inconnu
en France, s'il n'avait trouvé en Charles
Baudelaire une affinité littéraire extraordinaire
et un traducteur merveilleux. On n'avait rien
vu de pareil en France aux contes de Poe,
malgré la concision et la clarté caractéristiques
du style français, si ce n'était "la Vénus
d'Ille" de Mérimée, publiée en 1837. Aussi la

traduction de Baudelaire en 1848, et ensuite en
1856, des "Histoires Extraordinaires" eut-elle
un immense succès. Le traducteur consacra
à l'auteur américain une notice sympathique et
éclairée, et quoiqu'il n'eût pas les documents
qui exonèrent le poète des calomnies de Griswold
il le défend contre son biographe
malveillant. Il dit qu'Edgar Poe et sa patrie
n'étaient pas de niveau, et il ajoute que Poe
avait "une délicatesse exquise de sens qu'une
note fausse torturait, une finesse de goût que
tout excepté l'exacte proportion, révoltait, un
amour insatiable du Beau, qui avait pris la
puissance d'une passion morbide." Il était
certainement impossible que Poe pût être bien
compris par ses compatriotes de la première
moitié du XIXe siècle.

Baudelaire raconte la vie de Poe, nous
présente son portrait physique et moral et fait
de lui un magnifique éloge que nous citons tout
entier. "Ce n'est pas par ses miracles
matériels, qui pourtant ont fait sa renommée
qu'il lui sera donné de conquérir l'admiration
des gens qui pensent, c'est par son amour du
Beau, par sa connaissance des conditions harmoniques
de la beauté, par sa poésie profonde

et plaintive, ouvragée néanmoins, transparente
et correcte comme un bijou de cristal—par son
admirable style, pur et bizarre,—serré comme
les mailles d'une Armure,—complaisant et
minutieux,—et dont la plus légère intention
sert à pousser doucement le lecteur vers un but
voulu,—et enfin surtout par ce génie tout
spécial, par ce tempérament unique qui lui a
permis de peindre et d'expliquer, d'une
manière impeccable, saisissante, l'exception
dans l'ordre moral.—Diderot, pour prendre un
exemple entre cent, est un auteur sanguin; Poe
est l'écrivain des nerfs, et même de quelque
chose de plus,—et le meilleur que je connaisse."
"Quelquefois, des échappées magnifiques,
gorgées de lumières et de couleur,
s'ouvrent soudainement dans ses paysages, et
l'on voit apparaître au fond de leurs horizons
des villes orientales et des architectures,
vaporisées par la distance, où le soleil jette des
pluies d'or."

Dans cette appréciation de son auteur favori
Baudelaire s'élève à la hauteur de son modèle
comme prosateur, et nous verrons bientôt
qu'il l'égale presque comme poète. Je ne sais
réellement si l'Edgar Poe français n'est pas

supérieur au Poe de langue anglaise. Ecoutez
l'admirable traduction de Baudelaire:

"Les années, les années peuvent passer mais
le souvenir de cet instant—jamais! Ah! les
fleurs et la vigne n'étaient pas choses inconnues
pour moi—mais l'aconit et le cyprès
m'ombragèrent nuit et jour. Et je perdis tout
sentiment du temps et des lieux, et les étoiles
de ma destinée disparurent du ciel, et dès lors
la terre devint ténébreuse, et toutes les figures
terrestres passèrent près de moi comme des
ombres voltigeantes, et parmi elles je n'en
voyais qu'une—Morella! Les vents du firmaments
ne soupiraient qu'un son à mes oreilles,
et le clapotement de la mer murmurait incessamment;
`Morella!' Mais elle mourut, et de
mes propres mains je la portai à sa tombe, et
je ris d'un amer et long rire, quand, dans le
caveau où je déposai la seconde, je ne
découvris aucune trace de la première—
Morella."

En 1857 Baudelaire publia "les Nouvelles
Histoires Extraordinaires;" en 1858, "les
Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym;" en 1864,
"Euréka," et en 1865, "les Histoires
Grotesques et Sérieuses." Ces traductions

sont dignes des premières et naturalisèrent en
France les contes et les nouvelles de Poe.
"Les Petits Poèmes en Prose" de Baudelaire
furent, sans nul doute, comme beaucoup de
ses vers, inspirés par Poe. On y voit des
études étranges et l'amour de l'art, mais on
voit souvent aussi dans la prose et dans les vers
de Baudelaire, des grossièretés de langage et
des impuretés de pensée qu'on ne trouve jamais
dans Poe. On ne peut, cependant, qu' admirer
"l'Etranger," à la première page des "Petits
Poèmes en Prose." On y trouve le sentiment
poétique de Poe:

"Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme énigmatique,
dis? ton père, ta mère, ta soeur ou ton
frère?"

"Je n'ai ni père, ni mère, ni soeur, ni frère."

"Les amis?"

"Vous vous servez là d'une parole dont le
sens m'est resté jusqu'à ce jour inconnu."

"Ta patrie?"

"J'ignore sous quelle latitude elle est
située."

"La beauté?"

"Je l'aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle."

"L'or?"

"Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu."

"Eh! qu'aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire
étranger?"

"J'aime les nuages—les nuages qui passent
. . . .là bas . . . . les merveilleux nuages!"

"Le Vieux Saltimbanque" est un portrait
tel qu'aurait pu le dessiner Poe, un portrait
implacable de vérité, où cependant la sympathie
pour les vaincus de la vie se mêle au sentiment
d'horreur que fait éprouver la vue
d'un vieil homme voûté, caduc, décrépit.
Nous reviendrons à l'influence de Poe sur
Baudelaire poète. Poe le prosateur attira
l'attention de Barbey d'Aurevilly, et cet
étrange écrivain consacra à l'auteur américain
plusieurs articles, entre 1853 et 1883. Il ne
lui est pas aussi sympathique que Baudelaire,
mais il reconnaît sa volonté extraordinaire,
et l'appelle "le plus énergique des artistes
volontaires." Il dit que Poe "se sert d'une
analyse inouïe et qu'il pousse à la fatigue
suprême, à l'aide d'on ne sait quel prodigieux
miscroscope sur la pulpe même du cerveau."
. . . . "Positivement le lecteur assiste à
l'opération du chirurgien; positivement, il

entend crier l'acier de l'instrument et sent
les douleurs."

Barbey d'Aurevilly ne connut d'abord
Poe que par sa biographie par Baudelaire.
Il le jugea moins sévèrement, lorsqu'il eut
lu la vie que joignit Emile Hennequin à sa
traduction des "Contes Grotesques." Il lui
donna alors "la Royauté des hommes de
génie malheureux."

Revenons maintenant à Baudelaire et à
Poe, et voyons ce que Théophile Gautier a
dit d'eux. Nous ne doutons aucunement
que Poe n'ait eu une certaine influence sur
Gautier, le poète de "l'art pour l'art," et sur
son école. Il est probable que les contes de
Poe ont inspiré "la Morte Amoureuse,"
"le Roman de la Momie," et "Spirite."
Baudelaire avait dédié ses extraordinaires
"Fleurs du Mal" à Gautier, et celui-ci écrivit
une notice sur l'auteur du livre dans laquelle
il fit une fine analyse du génie de Baudelaire
et de celui de Poe. Il dit qu'au-dessus de
l'immonde fourmillement de misère, delaideur
et de perversité que présentent souvent
"les Fleurs du Mal," "loin, bien loin dans l'inaltérable
azur, flotte l'admirable fantôme de

la Béatrix, l'idéal toujours désiré, jamais
atteint, la beauté supérieure et divine incarnée
sous une forme de femme éthérée, spiritualisée,
faite de lumière, de flamme et de parfum, une
vapeur, un rêve, un reflet du monde aromal
et séraphique comme les Ligeia, les Morella,
les Una, les Eléonore d'Edgar Poe et la Seraphita-Seraphitus
de Balzac, cette étonnante
création."

Gautier appelle Poe "un singulier génie
d'une individualité si rare, si tranchée, si exceptionnelle."
Il dit qu'en France le nom de
Baudelaire est inséparable de celui de Poe, et
que le souvenir de l'un éveille immédiatement
la pensée de l'autre. "Il semble même parfois,"
ajoute-t-il, "que les idées de l'Américain
appartiennent en propre au Français."
Une des histoires les plus fortes de Poe est
"le Chat Noir," qui nous terrifie, lorsqu'il apparaît
"avec sa gueule rouge et son oeil unique
flamboyant." Baudelaire écrivit trois poèmes
sur les chats et dit d'eux:

On voit Edgar Poe dans les plus beaux
poèmes de Baudelaire, dans "Don Juan aux
Enfers," dans "les Petites Vieilles," dans "le
Soleil," et surtout dans "le Mort Joyeux,"
qui n'est qu'une autre forme du "Ver Conquérant,"
de Poe, et que nous citerons en
entier, malgré l'horreur du sujet, pour faire
voir l'affinité littéraire et mentale vraiment
extraordinaire des deux poètes.

"William Wilson," où Edgar Poe se dédouble
d'une manière si étonnante, a dû plaire
infiniment à Baudelaire, ainsi que l'admirable
"Chute de la Maison d'Usher," où le sentiment
de la terreur est si intense. Baudelaire
a dû rêver bien souvent à Eléonora, qu'il eût
voulu suivre dans la vallée du Gazon Diapré,
où "les fleurs étoilées s'étaient abîmées dans
le tronc des arbres; où avaient dépéri les
asphodèles d'un rouge de rubis," qu'avaient
remplacées "les sombres violettes, semblables à
des yeux qui se convulsaient péniblement et
regorgeaient toujours de larmes de rosée;" d'où
"le volumineux nuage retombé dans les régions
d' Hespérus avait emporté le spectacle infini
de sa pourpre et de sa magnificence." Ces

admirables phrases de Poe sont rendues en
français par son traducteur avec une exactitude
saisissante, un sens poétique extraordinaire.

L'influence de Poe le conteur se fait voir
dans Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Paul Hervieu,
Henri de Régnier; dans Guy de Maupassant,
qui l'égale dans "le Horla" et autres oeuvres
d'un réalisme intense; dans Jules Verne, qui
imite ses romans scientifiques, comme "Hans
Pfaal," ou ses aventures de voyage, comme
"Gordon Pym," dans Gaboriau, dont le M.
Lecoq est frère de Legrand et de Dupin; dans
Jean Richepin, dont "les Morts Bizarres,"
sont imitées directment des contes de Poe,
où celui-ci fait une étude si extraordinaire et
si poignante de la mort. "Le Disséqué" de
Richepin nous rapelle "le Cas de M. Waldemar,"
et Féru, l'étudiant en médecine, nous
intéresse presque autant que les personnages
les plus sombres de Poe. Il veut prendre la
matière en flagrant délit de pensée. "Il suffirait
d'arriver à ceci," dit Féru, "analyser, disséquer,
tenir sous ses doigts un cerveau pensant.
Evidemment on saisirait la pensée,
on la sentirait, on la toucherait, comme on

saisit, comme on sent, comme on touche un
phénomène électrique, par exemple." Pour
espérer une telle possibilité, Féru veut disséquer
des hommes vivants. Il tuerait des
hommes pour le bien des hommes. A la fin
de la Commune, dans la cuisine de la crêmerie
borgne, "le Rendez-vous des Affamés," un
corps tombe à travers une marquise en verre.
C'est Féru, l'étudiant en médecine. On se
baisse pour le relever, mais on est saisi par
une épouvantable horreur, "le malheureux
avait la poitrine dépouillée, les chairs à vif, et
cela non pas par l'effet du verre, mais par
suite d'une opération. Il était disséqué." Il
s'était disséqué, veut dire l'auteur.

Le 1er mai 1886 "la Revue des Deux Mondes"
publia un article très intéressant sur "les
Poètes Américains," par Th. Bentzon (Mme.
Blanc), qui visita les Etats-Unis il y a quelques
années, et fit un sympathique portrait de
la femme américaine. Mme. Blanc dit que
Poe "restera inimitable, quelque effort que
fassent pour approcher de lui les exploiteurs
du macabre grotesque ou larmoyant." Elle
dit que le poète américain adorait le beau
comme Heine et "qu'il voyait sa suprême expression

dans la tristesse que nous cause le mal
de la vie et notre incapacité à saisir l'inconnu."

Mentionnons encore d'autres articles publiés
dans "la Revue des Deux Mondes:" Un
par T. de Wyzewa, le 15 octobre 1894, et deux
en 1897 par Arvède Barine (Mme. Georges
Vincens). M. de Wyzewa dit des vers de
Poe: "Ils sont les plus magnifiques, à mon
gré, de tous ceux qui existent dans la langue
anglaise. Ce sont des chefs-d'oeuvre d'émotion
et de musique: à eux seuls, ils suffiraient
pour la gloire d'un écrivain." M. de Wyzewa
ajoute qu'il "a inauguré en outre une dizaine
au moins de genres littéraires tout autres, dont
chacun a été ensuite largement exploité."

Les articles d'Arvède Barine ont pour titre,
"Essais de Littérature Pathologique." Ils ne
nous plaisent pas autant que le livre de M.
Emile Lauvrière, publié en 1904, "Edgar Poe,
sa vie et son Oeuvre, Etude de Psychologie
Pathologique." Voilà l'ouvrage le plus complet
sur Poe qui ait paru en France. L'auteur
consacre 730 pages à son sujet et le traite
à fond. Il donne la vie du grand poète
américain, reconnaît ses fautes, les excuse,
jusqu'à un certain point, et le plaint. Il

étudie de la manière la plus détaillée les oeuvres
du poète et du prosateur, et nous pouvons dire
que son analyse du "Corbeau" est la plus
pénétrante que nous ayons lue: le Corbeau,
c'est Poe lui-même; Lénore, c'est encore lui.
"Il y a donc," dit le critique français, "dans
le puissant symbolisme de ce petit drame
pathétique, toute l'âme du poète: c'est son
être conscient aux prises avec son idéal extatique
et avec sa mélancolie désespérée. Le
volume de 1845, adjoute M. Lauvrière, contient
assez de chefs-d'oeuvre pour immotaliser
un nom. "Il n'a pas seulement `le Corbeau'
qui, malgré des raffinements d'art qui touchent
à l'artifice, restera par la solidité de son fond
comme pour la vigueur de ses effets, par la
prestigieuse magie de sa musique comme par
le poignant pathétique de son désespoir, la
plus puissante et, partant, la plus populaire des
oeuvres de Poe, un vrai chef-d'oeuvre de
poésie fantastique, sans égal en beaucoup de
langues et avec lequel ne peut rivaliser dans la
poési anglaise que le charme moins conquérant,
mais plus insinuant du "Vieux Marin"
de Coleridge.

M. Lauvrière étudie en Poe conteur, le fantastique,

la peur, l'impulsion, la curiosité
l'imagination, la logique et le style, et fait un
travail vraiment magistral. Poe critique, Poe
cosmogoniste, nous intéressent moins que Poe
poète et Poe conteur, mais je le répète, le livre
de M. Lauvrière est remarquable. Il est écrit
avec une clarté bien française, avec une exactitude
toute scientifique, et d'un style, parfois
simple, parfois fort, et parfois poétique comme
les vers mêmes de l'auteur du "Corbeau."

De nombreux volumes ont été publiés en
France sur Edgar Poe, et ses oeuvres ont été
traduites maintes fois en français. Parmi ces
traductions, outre celles de Baudelaire, nous
pouvons mentionner les poèmes traduits par
Stéphane Mallarmé, et "le Scarabée d'Or," par
J. H. Rosny. C'est, néanmoins, Baudelaire,
comme nous l'avons dit, qui naturalisa Poe en
France. Son admiration fut telle qu'il fut
possédé de son auteur favori, et Asselineau,
cité par M. Lauvrière, nous dit "qu' à tout
venant, où qu'il se trouvât, dans la rue, au
café, dans une imprimerie, le matin, le soir, il
allait demandant: `Connaissez-vous Edgar
Poe,' et selon la réponse, il épanchait son
enthousiasme ou pressait de questions son

auditeur. Jules Lemaître, lui-même, le
célèbre écrivain, dans un "Dialogue des
Morts," a placé Poe en compagnie de Shakespeare
et de Platon, quoiqu'il dise qu'ils présentent
trois exemplaires de l'espèce humaine
aussi dissemblables que possible.

Nous avons donné l'opinion des critiques
français sur Edgar Poe; nous allons maintenant
étudier brièvement quelle fut son influence
sur la poésie française. Nous nous
servirons pour ce petit travail de l'excellente
"Anthologie des Poètes Français Contemporains,"
de M. G. Walch, publiée en 1906.
Nous avons déjà comparé Poe poète à Baudelaire
poète, et nous avons vu l' influence de
l'Américain sur le Français. Quant aux autres
poètes inspirés par Poe, ils le furent, en général,
indirectement et principalement par l'entremise
de Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé,
peut-être, le seul excepté. Baudelaire répéta le
précepte de Poe que la poésie n'a d'autre objet
qu'elle-même. C'est la doctrine de "l'art pour
l'art" de Théophile Gautier, et nous la voyons
portée à un haut point de perfection par Théodore
de Banville, qui avait, disait-on, "pour
âme la poésie même."

Barbey d'Aurevilly est de l'école de Poe,
ainsi que Villiers de l'Isle Adam et Verlaine,
cet étonnant bohème, que M. Anatole France
compare à Villon, le grand poète du XVe
siècle. Verlaine a même un poème intitulé
"Nevermore" que nous citons ici comme un
souvenir intéressant du "Corbeau:"

Chez plusieurs des Parnassiens de la première
heure, tels que Xavier de Ricard, Léon
Dierx, Catulle Mendès, ainsi que chez plusieurs
écrivains des deux autres Parnasses, on voit
l'influence de Poe. Le Parnasse fut une réaction
contre le romantisme, et fut suivi par le
symbolisme, qu'on a parfois appelé "le décadent."
Arthur Rimbaud, l'auteur du curieux
"Sonnet des Voyelles," fut un des précurseurs
du symbolisme. Henri de Régnier en fut le
chef incontesté, et subit, sans aucun doute, l'
influence de notre poète américain. Lisons
surtout l'admirable sonnet, "la Terre Douloureuse
a bu le Sang des Rêves:"

Stéphane Mallarmé, acclamé le Maître par
beaucoup de jeunes poètes, fut selon l'expression
d'un critique, "imprégné" d'Edgar Poe.
Jean Richepin poète nous rappelle l'auteur du
"Corbeau," ainsi que René Ghil, Edmond Haraucourt,
Gustave Kahn, Jules Laforgue,
Grégoire Le Roy, Adolphe Retté, Maurice
Rollinat, l'auteur des "Névroses," parmi beaucoup
d'autres poètes contemporains. Mentionnons,
cependant, d'une manière toute spéciale,
deux grands écrivains belges, Maurice

Maeterlinck, dont on a dit: "Poe, le Poe de
la `Maison Usher,' est à coup sûr, son maître
familier;" et Emile Verhaeren. Appelons
encore l'attention sur deux célèbres poètes
français, nés aux Etats-Unis: Stuart Merrill,
à Long Island, et Francis Vielé-Griffin, né
à Norfolk, en Virginie. Le petit poème de
celui-ci, "Fleurs du Chemin," est charmant et
est un exemple de la "volonté" de Poe:

Quant à Stuart Merrill ses "Poings à la
Porte" nous intéressent presque autant que
"le Corbeau." Le refrain: "Entends-tu tous
ces poings qui frappent à la porte?" nous impressionne
tout autant que le "nevermore" de
Poe: Ce sont peut-être des amis qui frappent,
mais le poète n'ouvre pas à la joie futile, lui
qui veille seul parmi les esclaves du sommeil;
ce sont peut-être des vagabonds, rôdant de
male sorte, pieds nus dans leurs sabots, couteau
clair au poing.

C'est peut-être Celui qui vient vêtu de blanc,
et quit fait dans la nuit le geste immense du
pardon. Le poète alors prendra le bâton de
voyage et suivra le Rédempteur vers des

destinées meilleures. "Entends-tu tous ces
poings qui frappent à la porte?"

Je ne sais si l'on ne pourrait dire qu'Edmond
Rostand lui-même n'a pas pensé parfois à Poe,
lorsqu'il écrivait son fier "Cyrano," où l'on
voit un tel culte pour l'idéal, pour la beauté
artistique, malgré le physique grotesque du
héros. Xavier Privas, Albert Samain, Camille
Mauclair, Charles Morice, Léo Larquier,
doivent beaucoup à Baudelaire et à Mallarmé
et, par conséquent, à Poe. Paul Fort a certainement
imité notre poète dans sa ballade,
"Cette Fille, elle est morte," où nous voyons
le repetend si cher à Poe, la répétition et le
parallélisme si bien décrits par M. le Dr. C.
Alphonso Smith:

Georges Marlow, Belge comme Maeterlinck
et Verhaeren, a donné de la poésie une définition
que n'eût pas désavouée Poe: "La
poésie? Un peu de fumée qui s'élève de l'âme
embrasée et qui parfois, entremêlée de rayons
d'étoile, se concrête en auréole autour de l'âme
qui s'éteint."

Terminons nos citations des poètes français
par le sonnet de Mallarmé:

Les vers français, inspirés par notre grand
poète, sont généralement fort beaux, mais je
doute qu'ils égalent le merveilleux "Corbeau,"
même traduit en prose, tel que nous le lisons
dans le livre de M. Lauvrière. Quelle fin admirable
du poème, que les lignes suivantes:

Je remercie les membres du Comité du Centenaire
qui m'ont fait l'honneur de m'inviter
à parler ici en français. Je vous remercie,
mesdames et messieurs, de votre bienveillante
attention. Cela me fait le plus grand plaisir
de me retrouver ici, à cette Université, où,
comme Poe, j'ai été moi-même étudiant. Mon
séjour ici a été bien court, mais il a laissé sur
mon esprit et sur mon âme des traces ineffaçables.
Je puis dire de mes années de jeunesse:
"Jamais plus," mais le souvenir que j'ai conservé
de l'Université de la Virginie est aussi
immuable que le "Corbeau qui, sans broncher,
siège encore, siège toujours sur le pâle buste
de Pallas."

The Chairman, Dr. Kent:

Within recent years much attention has been
given to the influence of Hoffman on Edgar
Allan Poe, and the reciprocal influence of Poe
on the German writers of imaginative prose
and more especially upon the modern school
of German poets. We were very fortunate
in finding in our own country a talented young
German fresh from the companionship of
these modern poets and thoroughly in touch
with the present literary movement of the
Fatherland. It will be his province to tell you
how far this influence of Poe has extended and
to bring to you the greetings of the German
nation on this the centennial anniversary of
the birth of our great alumnus. I have the
privilege, ladies and gentlemen, of presenting
Dr. Georg Edward, recently of Germany, at
present a member of the faculty of Northwestern
University.

Doctor Edward, speaking of Poe in Germany,
said:

The purpose of my brief address is to recall
to memory the tribute which German literature,
and, accordingly, the German people

as a whole, has rendered and is still rendering
to the genius whose hundredth birthday we
are celebrating at this time. It will be necessary,
in the very first place, to glance back at
the way in which Poe gradually became wellknown
in Germany, then to attempt to answer
the question why at the present time, sixty
years after the poet's death, the temperament
of precisely this American author is felt to be
specifically modern by a European nation;
why it is that we behold in him a man of letters
who was far in advance of his own times,
and who, accordingly, must be said to belong
to no earlier age than our own.

Poe's relations to German literature, and
the relations of German literature to Poe, are
both varied and manifold. The influence of
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann upon the
author of the "Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque" has been but recently investigated
in detail by Professors Gruener and Cobb. It
is my purpose merely to show how highly
prized Poe is in Germany, and why he is regarded
there as the typical and characteristic
American author. That the Germans have
occupied themselves with him continuously

and minutely is, perhaps, not an occasion for
especial comment. Germany is the very home
of what Goethe called "Cosmopolitan literature"
(Weltliteratur). There exists in Germany
an almost marvelous familiarity with
the literature of other nationalities, and it is
not at all an exaggeration to maintain that
there is scarcely any important poet or writer
in the whole world, who has not been treated
"historisch-kritisch" by some German scholar.
Furthermore, there has been an endless number
of translations of foreign works, and even
poets and authors of very moderate ability
have often enjoyed a renascence in the German
tongue. This broadly-flowing stream of translations,
which the peculiar elasticity and
adaptability of the German language have
made so possible, has brought it to pass that
the German nation, not merely in professional
literary circles, but in the general group of
cultured people, is so largely acquainted with
the literature of other lands. It is on account
of this fact that the Germans have also acquired
the ability to recognize what is specifically
and characteristically national in the literature
of other peoples; in other words, the
Germans have developed a very discriminating
sense of what is specifically English in
an English writer, Russian in a Russian,
French in a Frenchman, or American in an
American. That which Goethe once affirmed
concerning French poetry and French literature,
namely, that it could not possibly be detached
for one moment from the life and the
emotion of the whole nation, is none the less
true of every nation's poetry and literature.
And so it comes to pass that the intimate acquaintance
with various foreign literatures
which the German people possesses, leads to
a feeling for the national individuality of an
author, and the more highly this quality is
exhibited by a writer, the more is he valued
in Germany, if only, at the same time, his art
gives evidence of a certain international spirit.
In the light of these assertions, the fact that
the Germans regard Poe as a most prominent
American writer, nay, in general, as the greatest
of American authors, assumes an unusual
significance.

Poe's naturalization has taken place more
slowly in Germany than in France. He has,
to be sure, never enlisted the services of any

German Baudelaire or Mallarmé as interpreter,
but, on the other hand, very important
authors and historians of literature have been
his advocates, and his "Raven," at least, has
found a number of first-rate translators. In
the period from 1855 to the present day, there
have appeared three English editions of his
works in Leipsic, as well as a large number
of editions of various "Tales" for the use of
schools. The first translation of his short
stories appeared in two volumes in Leipsic
from 1855 to 1858, and to these have been
added thirteen further translations by most
varied authors, under the imprint of all sorts
of publishers. A selected translation of his
"Poetical Works" has appeared but once,
namely, that of Hedwig Lachmann, published
in 1891, but we encounter separate translations
of separate poems scattered through the
pages of many journals, and "The Raven"
has been adapted to the mother-tongue of the
Germans—with greater or less felicity—some
dozen times. It is worthy of especial remark
that the best translation, that by Eduard
Mauthner, appeared (along with Coppée's
"The Smiths' Strike") in the so-called "New
Theatrical Library of Vienna," and has gone
through three editions, the last in 1894; in
this transmigration "The Raven" has for a
long time belonged to the repertoire of the
"show pieces" of elocutionists, and of those
actors who occasionally make a public appearance
as reciters. Naturally enough, the
"Tales" have appeared in many editions, and
I think it is not without significance that they
have been taken up by all the "Popular Libraries,"
such as those of Reclam, Hendel, Cotta,
Spemann, and Meyer. It is only within the
last seven years that a complete German edition
of Poe's Tales and Poems has appeared,
with an excellent introduction by the editor:
the ten volumes constituting "Poe's Werke,"
by Hedda and Arthur Moeller-Bruck, which,
taken as a unit, must be counted as the most
important contribution which has been made
to Poe's memory in Germany up to the
present time. The only features of this
edition which we should characterize as inadequate
(and in fact far inferior to other
similar attempts) are the selected poems
in the translation by Hedwig Lachmann, already
mentioned, and the now-superseded,
though meritorious, "Memoir" of Ingram,
which precedes the first volume.

The translations and discussions of Poe,
which have appeared in Germany, cannot
compare, either in their extent or in their
influence, with similar contributions which
have been made in France. For thirteen
German translations of Poe's Tales in Germany,
we have no less than nineteen in
France; for one collection of selected poems
in Germany, four complete translations in
France; for one complete edition of the
works in Germany, two such in France.
But in spite of the fact that French literature
occupied itself with Poe at an earlier date
than did the Germans, it need not be assumed
that Poe found an entrance into Germany
by way of France. It is only in the
most recent years that German interest in
Baudelaire has breathed new life into the
interest for Poe; only at the present day has
Poe come to be recognized as a thoroughly
modern author. Germany made the acquaintance
of Poe quite as early as did
France, but there has never been found any
person among us who made the American
poet such an object of religious adoration as
did Baudelaire (the German character is

very chary about going to quite such lengths
as this!) or who, like Théophile Gautier,
discovered in him something the like of
which the world had never before beheld, an
intellectual beverage which reminds him of
"those strange American drinks, compounded
of fizzing, prickling soda-water, and ice, and
every conceivable sort of exotic alcoholic
ingredient."

The estimation of Poe in Germany came
to pass unostentatiously, but has held its
own consistently. The first thorough discussion
of the poet I find in Herrig's
"Hand-Book of North American National
Literature for the year 1854," a work of very
little authority on its own account, which
nevertheless, in spite of mistaken opinions
and defective information (it speaks of
"Ulalume" and "Annabel Lee," for instance,
as "writings"), speaks out clearly and concisely
the certain conviction: "Poe left
behind him a name which is bound to live in
the annals of American literature." Poe's
actual introduction to Germany was due to
that eminent novelist and author, who has in
other respects largely contributed to our

knowledge of America by the democratic
spirit of his writings—I mean Friedrich
Spielhagen. It was in 1860 that Spielhagen
published in the journal "Europa" a
thorough-going study of our poet, whom he
calls the greatest lyric singer that America
has produced; furthermore, he occupied himself
in 1883 with an essay of considerable
length treating somewhat exhaustively the
contest between Poe and Longfellow on the
matter of plagiarism, and, in addition, he
had already published a translation of a
number of Poe's poems in the year 1858.
Two years before that time Adolf Strodtmann
had published similar translations in his
"Song- and Ballad-Book of American and
English Poets," to which he added in
1870 his widely-circulated "American Anthology,"
a work which besides "The Masque
of the Red Death" contained "The Raven,"
"Annabel Lee," and "The Bells" in very
good translations, and in this manner made
these poems at once famous throughout
all Germany. Of no less importance is
the attitude assumed toward Poe by the historians
of literature: Adolf Stern in his
"History of Recent Literature," Eduard
Engel in his "History of North American
Literature," and Carl Bleibtreu in his
"History of English Literature" have been
especially influential in preparing the way
for an appreciation of Poe in Germany.
The most important undertaking, one moreover
that is fully modern in all its tendency,
is the already-mentioned translation of Poe's
works in ten volumes edited by Arthur
Moeller-Bruck, and which has been completed
within the past year. With the exception
of two tales, which could not be
translated, it contains all the stories of this
class, and, in addition (for the first time
in Germany), "Eureka." Moeller-Bruck has
contributed on his own account a valuable
essay on "Poe's Creative Activities," which,
in general, does full justice to Poe's temperament;
in a few places only (he appears
to be entirely unacquainted with the latest
literature of the subject, and more particularly
with Professor Harrison's edition)
are his results unsatisfactory. The basis of
his work still continues to be the "Memoir"
of Ingram, the Edinburg edition of which
is the foundation of the German work.

It would carry us too far if I were to
discuss the numberless essays on Poe which
have appeared in the leading German
periodicals. At best I could only give a
barren resumé of their contents, and therewith
I should surely overstep the bounds of
time which have been set for my address.
From the tenor of these articles, however, it
is easy to discover how we have gradually
come to the conclusion in Germany that Poe
is to be regarded as a thoroughly modern
author, and as the most characteristic
American poet. In order to understand
this one must call to mind the evolution
which German literature has gone through
in the last twenty years. Apart from those
circles which are required ex officio to
concern themselves with German literature,
we find among English-speaking people a
very incomplete, not to say a comical conception
of what the Germans have accomplished
in this field. German character
is assuredly not over-easy to understand,
while its literature, which is the expression
of this character, is still more complicated
in its nature. Here in America, where people

are decidely prone to generalizations, German
literature is described either as heavy, brooding,
and tasteless, or it is given (by a very
short process) the general label of "decadent."
One of these estimates is precisely as
fatuous as the other. At present we have
to concern ourselves only with the second,
however: the expression "decadent" belongs
to the repertory of those who have to characterize
the "modern." German literature
has undergone great transformations in the
last thirty years, just as German philosophy,
German music, and German art have done.
After having disposed of "consistent naturalism,"
or perhaps as a reaction against
it, there has appeared an unmistakable new
era of German psychological development:
after sensitiveness, romance, the "second
generation," realism, and naturalism, comes
a new species of impressionism, Nervosity.
Almost simultaneously it has influenced the
entire art, literature, and music of the
western European continent. It cannot be
denied that there is a certain element of
morbidity in all this, but severe psychological
struggles (and those struggles did precede
the recent art-movement) never manifest
themselves without some pathological symptoms.
Underneath the hard pressure of the
Art of the Actual there has been a quest for
new methods of expression for the infinitely
subtle variations of feeling which come surging
in upon the modern individual, and there
has been a discovery of new sensations, which
are rooted in the nervous system. I need
only to call to mind the music of Liszt and
Wagner, who have attempted to give expression
to everything inexpressible that
lies concealed in the innermost depths of
our souls, or the painting of Böcklin and
Klinger, who have conducted us into a new
world of tones and color-impressions—who
have rendered the finest shadings of emotion
in a way which could not have been expressed
at an earlier time. And it is toward this
goal that the modern literature of western
Europe is also striving: the new times have
brought new shades of emotion, and the
new shades of emotion have demanded new
methods of expression, and new sensations.
It is altogether indifferent whether we call
modern literature symbolistic, impressionistic,
mystical, or flatly "decadent": the one thing
which underlies all these tendencies is the
striving after something new, something
remote and strange. But in all this
"decadent" literature we have not to deal
with nervous prostration, or nervous irritation,
or even with the moral corruption of
modern city-life, but a revolt of the individual
against the mediocrity, the dead-level
of Philistinism,—a battle with materialism,
with the age of machinery, the prosy morality
of mere utilitarianism and the struggle for
existence.

And how is it in regard to the "Pilgrim
of Sorrow," as Professor Harrison has
named him, him whose memory we recall
today with veneration and love, with a feeling
of tender regret? Perhaps in his case there
was not so clear a feeling as with the poets
of today that he was groping after new sensations,
in order to give expression to the
emotions which dominated his psychical existence.
But, consciously or unconsciously,
certain it is that he stands at the gateway of
the New Art, the art of modern humanity,
as it comes to meet us at the close of the

last century. Poe was seeking for the new
world of actualities,—the very fact that in a
portion of his works he recoils so sensitively
from the surrounding unsympathetic world
of actuality is proof enough of this. He
made a quest for a means of expression for
that which moved his inner soul, and the
forms of expression which sufficed for his
contemporaries were no longer adequate for
him. In his significant introduction to Poe's
poems, Professor Kent has indicated how
rarely the poet was able to fully express
what hovered before the eyes of his imagination,
how "his conceptions were at times far
beyond his own powers of expression," as
"much that was written is not understood,
since with ears we do not hear, and with
eyes we do not see, for both music and
vision are for those of poetic temperament and
artistic gift." How far was Poe, in this
respect, in advance of his age! Since the
time when he wrote his melodious lines, our
feeling for the musical values of language
has become more and more developed and
refined, more and more has lyric poetry
come nearer to the domain of music. The
very thing which our American poet, so
sensitive for the tonal effects of his verses,
strove for, many years ago (as is proven by
the frequent variants in the different texts
of his poems), the modern verse-technic is
striving today to attain, more earnestly than
ever before. As early as 1900 the Austrian
writer Rudolf Kassner pointed out, in his
book "Mysticism, Artists, and Life," Poe's
high endowment for music. He calls him a
psychologist of the most painful nicety of
apprehension, a mystagogue full of intoxicating
rhythm, self-indulgent and yielding,
a reveler and an adorer of angels, sarcastic
and moody, a comedian and a fatalist.
Dante and Poe—one is startled at seeing
these two names side by side—had one thing
in common (according to our writer): the
necessity of having faith,—Dante because of
the wealth, and Poe because of the poverty
of his endowment of conscience. Dante
believed in Heaven and Hell, Poe in the continuation
of life in the grave, and his
theology was mesmerism compounded with
cryptography. He, too, had his Beatrice,
whom he celebrated in song quite as subtly as
did the immortal Florentine. But one thing
he possessed, of which Dante had no suspicion:—music.
It was his divinity, even
when he was least conscious of it. "And
what did Virginia Clemm mean for the art
of Poe? Perhaps at the very moment in
his life when he was most faithful to her,
he was rapt away by his divinity, Music."
That is the music which every modern poet
and artist carries about in his soul, those are
the "words ineffable" which in vain strive to
make their way out into the light of day, and
which in the end cause the heart to consume
away upon itself. "Who are these Helens,
Lenores, Ulalumes," asks Kassner once
again, "these ghostly beings with violet
eyes and tremulous lids? His art is not able
to tell us that. These maidens appear at the
beginning and end of his dreams,—so much
art is able to tell. They conduct him into
enchanted gardens, where enamored roses
languish in the moonlight; they row him
in swart craft to the enchanted islands, and
the waves die away upon the shore like
yearning after enjoyment; they lead him to
the castles of death, which, wind-forsaken
and immersed in eternal night, loom from
the livid waters of a languid sea; they speak
out of graves and point up to the stars.
Though they appear at the beginning and at
the end, as the first and last star of the night
of dreams, nevertheless the dream has
whelmed them up. This is the art of Edgar
Allan Poe!"

That which gives so strong a sense of
modernity in Poe is not the fact that he led
the life of a dreamer, that he himself had
the consciousness of being "no book whose
meaning has been completely fathomed," to
speak with Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, but
"a man with his own contradiction." He
himself gives expression to this conviction
when he defends himself (in the preface to
his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque")
against the charge of "Germanism," and
cries out: "Let us admit, for the moment,
that the `phantasy-pieces' now given are
Germanic, or what not. Then Germanism
is `the vein' for the time being. Tomorrow
I may be anything but German, as yesterday
I was everything else." And that he was,
most assuredly: subjected to the never-ending

changes of the moods of his spirit. And in
the tales and writings which he has left
behind him this multifariousness of his
artistic and literary temperament comes to
clearest expression. He who wrote most
melodious stanzas, and who had the utmost
horror of crass actuality, he it was who
possessed the knowledge or the presentiment
of our modern actuality: one has merely to
recall his criminal stories, or his modern
types which remind us of similar creations
in the writings of Dostojewski, or the
delineation of milieus, as in "The Man of
the Crowd" which recall impressions in the
novels of Zola. And alongside of these
stand those tales, the fancies of his dreams,
with which he transfigured and beautified
life, those creations which sprang from his
vague visions, in which he seems to us a
visionary or an idealist,—as in his Eurekasong.
Ethical principles, which he should
be bound to champion, concerned him not—
he has no questions to put about the goals
of humanity, nothing about its future—but
he possesses that idealism which has fullest
faith in the greatness, the purity, and the
depth of human feelings, and which has
called into being creations which alone
represent these feelings:—William Wilson
and Roderick Usher and Eleanora, Ligeia,
Berenice and Morella. And then his fondness
for the horrible, the malicious. One
has instinctively the feeling that Poe's soullife
must have been that of the criminal, as
though it gave him unspeakable pleasure
to penetrate into the very depths of criminality,
to experience its very sensations and
to follow out the whole course of its origin.
Such a state of mind is one which is only
too frequently encountered in daily life, but
the exceptional thing about Poe is precisely
this, that he, as poet, is obsessed by this mania,
and holds fast to it in his writings. Poe is
the first of that long list of modern authors—
Krafft-Ebing, Lombroso, Dostojewski, Nietzsche
and Bourget—who trace back the evil
element in man, and consequently his criminality
and wickedness, to an abnormal mental
condition.

And so Poe appears in the category of those
poets and authors to whom German literary
research has given the attribute "modern."

One further reason why Germany gives him
so high a place is, perhaps, that we stand
there in a neutral attitude toward the uninviting
side of his character, his unsparing
sarcasm, the provocative element in his nature
which made enemies out of his friends. In
the older world, where we can look back upon
generations of artists, authors, and musicians,
one is only too well aware of the fact that
those persons who have been humanity's
richest spiritual benefactors were often, in
actual life, anything but model citizens and
blameless toilers. One recognizes, for more
reasons than need to be specified, that people
cannot be estimated by set rules, and that
literature, as well, must reflect both the good
and the bad, for life is made up of both, and
both keep the world moving. We are only
too well aware in Germany how prone Americans
are to lay down inflexible rules to which
even the poet must bend himself. As early
as in Eduard Engel's "History of North
American Literature," in which Poe is called
"an exceptional phenomenon for both British
and American authorship," we encounter the
undisguised satire: "The life of all the other
important American authors passes by
smoothly; they grow old in honor and abundance,
they play the part of literary patriarchs
with dignity, and show that authorship in
America is as brilliant and lucrative a career
as boring for petroleum or building railroads."
Is it hard to understand why Poe, finely-organized
and aristocratic, who did not possess
the force of character to protect his sensibilities
against the commonalities of daily life,
became ever more and more embittered? Why
he paid back the humiliations which he had
to endure anew every day of his life, with
that sarcasm, that unsparing onslaught on the
mediocrity which shut him in from every side?
Was he not, in fact, a dreamer out of ancient,
half-romantic Europe, who was altogether out
of place in the brutally realistic milieu of the
new world? Call to mind his sensitive temperament,
his refined conception of poetic art
and literature, and realize that he was fated
to do his singing to an age in which the first
railroads cut their way across the country, in
which the telegraph made the conquest of the
world, and steamships and factories darkened
the sunlight! Poe's fierce irritability towards
the life which surrounded him, and to which
he felt himself superior, gave itself breathingspace
in those criticisms which made the whole
world his enemy, and plunged him into that
deep, incurable melancholy which makes the
theme of his "Raven" and of all his poems:
the plaint of a heart which is dragged down
from the highest heights of enthusiasm for
the true and the beautiful into the mire of
sordid vulgarity.

And if the Germans, who cultivate cosmopolitan
literature, are prone to seek for the
national trait in every author, they have also
found this in Poe. The very earliest critics
called him "the most original spirit in American
literature;" a nature "in which the leaning
toward the freakish, melancholy, mysterious
and awesome coincides with the sense of
verity, the realistic acumen of the Yankee."
But it is only the most recent criticism which
finds in Poe the characteristic American poet,
the greatest American poet; one of the arguments
in favor of this view is not precisely
flattering, but the proof is mathematical in
its logicalness: every poet, who truly bore
the arms of his calling, has come into conflict

with actuality, but few have been victorious
in this struggle, and none has ever emerged
from it without sore wounds. Is it not therefore
logically inevitable that any true poet
who should come into contact with the
American life which encounters him in the
larger northern cities with a materialism
bordering upon brutality, must go to destruction
under these influences? An American
poet was in the nature of things an impossibility:
he could never survive. But there
have been attempts to treat the matter less
superficially. In the contemporaries of Poe—
such as Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson and
Whittier—one has recognized, not American
poets, but merely those who have continued
English literature upon American soil.

In Poe, on the other hand, one recognizes
an artist who understood American life as
none other had done, who recognized its criminal
tendencies long before they had reached
their climax, and who comprehended, decades
in advance, what an evolution the American
spirit was destined to undergo in the field of
inventions and discoveries. To be sure, Poe
was interested merely in the physiological, or
rather the pathological side of the American

temperament, but the one-sidedness of his entire
being is itself a part of the American
nature. He is thoroughly American, even
when, compelled to write tales merely in order
to secure the barest necessities of life, he is
bound to continually invent what is new, and
in being able to show interest and curiosity
where his heart was not directly engaged.
Curiosity is certainly a most prominent trait
in American life, or interest, if the other term
seem offensive. Poe's interest was directed
toward the most strange and odd mysteries,
and yet he refused to concern himself with
things which were ready and finished. All
that was incomplete, unsolved, unexplained,
challenged him to pursuit; he was bound to
complete it with his imagination; and so he
has told of mysterious secret documents, of
inexplicable crimes and discoveries, so he has
tracked out the possibilities of mesmerism, the
prospects of aërial navigation—such themes as
these appealed to his interest. But when such
things became realized, they became totally
indifferent to him: he had to discover new
possibilities which should excite his curiosity.

And yet, even to the last, he never parted
company with his own self—he remained the

artist that he was in the beginning, the pilgrim,
who with bleeding heart is still searching for
the land of undiscovered beauty. So Spielhagen
greets him and pays him homage:
"Unfortunate, fortunate man! for, confess it,
thou hast beheld her, the fairest, the loftiest,
in those rare, unspeakable moments: and she
has kissed thee, but in passing, as she kisses
mortals; but thy soul was filled with the echo
of those kisses; and this rapture thou, starving
one, wouldst not have bartered for all the
gold of Ormuzd; thou, the greedy for fame,
wouldst not have sold it for all the glory and
renown and honor of those who, in thine eyes,
were no priests at all, who counted themselves
as priests only because the world counted them
such!"

And in this hour, in which we pay our
homage to the poet, the artist, the author, I,
too, would bring to him at least one tribute
from across the sea—a tribute which sprang
from genuine enthusiasm, and which, however
insignificant it may appear, gives its testimony
as to how widespread is the knowledge
of Poe in Germany, how deep the respect. I
myself belonged, at a very youthful age, to
a literary group which included Poe among

its objects of study, out of pure love for the
theme: we were then scarcely fifteen-year-old
schoolboys, but we had the genuine reverence
for the great and the beautiful which had not
yet been weakened or overcast by any of the
bitter experiences of life. We also tried our
hand at translating Poe's poems into our
mother-tongue, and out of these efforts one
translation emerged which for its simple,
melodious beauty surpasses anything which I
have encountered in these last days while
busied in preparation for this Commemoration.
It is the touching poem "To My
Mother," and the translator, of whom I have
lost all traces for many years, was called
Friedrich Kraft:—