On
October 7,
1849
Edgar Allan Poe (born January 19, 1809), American poet and writer of macabre tales
(The Tell-Tale Heart; The Raven),
died after a drinking binge in Baltimore, Maryland. The great author of such classic poems as
'Annabel Lee', prescient essays like
Eureka, A Prose Poem, and chilling tales such as The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red
Death, Poe was not a heavy drinker but someone who might have had an allergy to alcohol, for even a glass or two could send him into extreme behaviour.
On October 3 he had been found, delirious and incoherent at a low-class tavern in Lombard Street, by Dr James E Snodgrass. Summoning one of Poe's relatives, Dr. Snodgrass took the now unconscious and dying poet to the Washington Hospital where he was put into the care of Dr JJ Moran, the resident physician. Several days of delirium followed, with Poe only occasionally regaining partial consciousness. On his death bed he repeatedly called the name
"Reynolds", and he did know a Reynolds, but not closely. Shortly before dying, he said
"the best thing a friend could do for me is blow out my brains with a pistol". He became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time. Then, gently, moving his head, he said,
"Lord help my poor soul".
The Poe Toaster
Poe is buried in the
Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. Since 1949, every
January 19, Poe's birthday, a mysterious visitor dressed in black and wearing a fedora hat has left on
the original marker of
Poe's grave a half-filled bottle of cognac accompanied by three red roses. The significance of cognac is uncertain as it does not feature in Poe's works as does, for example, amontillado. Several of the bottles of cognac from prior years are on display in the
Baltimore
Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. It has been suggested that the roses represent Poe himself and the two women who were most important to the poet during his troubled life: his mother, and his wife, both of whom are in repose in the same cemetery.
One source suggests that the mysterious man is in fact a succession of men, and when one mourner retires he hands the torch of this enigmatic remembrance to another. In fact, in 1993, the original dark stranger left a note saying,
"The torch will be passed". In 2001 the 'Poe Toaster', as he is known, left a note that indicated he was a football fan as well as a Poe aficionado. Each year, a band of Poe devotees watches at a distance for the stranger to appear and fulfil his unknown rite
near the original marker of Poe's mortal
remains, taking care not to interfere.
Update (January, 2008):
"Former
church historian, Sam Porpora claims that he developed the idea of the
Poe Toaster in the 70's as a publicity stunt.
"'We did it, myself and my tour guides,' Porpora said in August. 'It was
a promotional idea.'
"Since then, he says, someone else took over the position.
"On the contrary, Jeff Jerome, curator for the Poe House and Museum,
claims that the tributes started in 1949 bringing attention to an
article in the Evening Sun. The article printed in 1950 spoke
about 'an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty
bottle (of excellent label)' on Poe's grave."
Source: 'Mystery
Man Makes Annual visit to the Grave of Edgar Allen Poe' [sic]
Nevermore? Mystery visitor misses Poe's birthday (2010)
Edgar Allan Poe's prescient cosmology
Poe wrote in 'Eureka: A Prose Poem' (1848):
That the Universe of Stars might endure throughout an aera at all commensurate with the grandeur of its component material portions and with the high majesty of its spiritual purposes, it was necessary that the original atomic diffusion be made to so inconceivable an extent as to be only not infinite. It was required, in a word, that the stars should be gathered into visibility from invisible nebulosity -proceed from visibility to consolidation- and so grow grey in giving birth and death to unspeakably numerous and complex variations of vitalic development:
– it was required that the stars should do all this – should have time thoroughly to accomplish all these Divine purposes- during the period in which all things were effecting their return into Unity with a velocity accumulating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances at which lay the inevitable End.
Here is what modern astrophysicist John Barrow writes in his book
The World within the World (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988, p354); note the similarity:
This state of expansion means that the size of the Universe is inextricably entwined with its age. The reason that the Visible Universe is more than 13 billion light-years in size today is that it is more than 13 billion years old. A Universe that contained just one galaxy like our own Milky Way, with its 100 billion stars, each perhaps surrounded by planetary systems, might seem a reasonable economy if one were in the universal construction business. But such a universe, with more than a 100 billion fewer galaxies than our own, could have expanded for little more than a few months. It could have produced neither stars nor biological elements. It could contain no astronomers.
More of Poe's amazing scientific insights in Poe's Cosmology
Shop Poe
Poe
coincidences
There
are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally
been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in the supernatural,
by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere
coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.
Edgar Allan Poe
October 28, 1884 The Times of London reported that in a
life boat on the open sea, a cabin boy named Richard Parker had been
cannibalised by the three surviving crew members of the wrecked yawl Mignonette. In 1838, Edgar
Allan Poe had published a story called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym which told of a
parallel set of circumstances to the Mignonette's misfortune, in which a sailor was also eaten. His
name was
Richard Parker.
Craig
Hamilton-Parker writes:
"In the summer of 1993, my parents took in three Spanish language
students. My father told them about Richard Parker one evening over supper
… All conversation stopped when a local programme started talking about
the remarkable story. Dad went on to break the silence by saying how weird
coincidences always occur whenever Richard's tale is mentioned. He told them
about Edgar Allan Poe.
"Two of the girls went
white. 'Look what I bought today' said one. She reached into her bag and
pulled out a copy of the Poe story. 'So have I!' said the other girl. Both
had gone shopping that day and independently bought the very same book
containing the Richard Parker story. And as if events are trying make my
story totally unbelievable my father told the same story to his language
class the following year. Again one of the girls pulled a copy of the Poe
book from out of her bag!"
Craig Hamilton-Parker's grandfather's cousin was the real-life
Richard Parker More
Postscript: Another
coincidence
I
noticed another remarkable coincidence as I read Mr Hamilton-Parker's
interesting tale (above). As a background to his site, he has a
design that features the ouroboros – an ancient symbol
of a snake in a circle, biting its own tail.
Remarkably, the
ouroboros is clearly seen as the printer's mark on the first
edition of Poe's collected works.
I emailed Mr
Hamilton-Parker asking whether he had deliberately used the ouroboros
symbol on his page. He answered that he had not; it was just another
coincidence, one of many in this episode that would have Edgar himself
chuckling, I'm sure.
Ouroboros at
Wikipedia, in
Wilson's Almanac
::Aha!:: Synchronicity Central
– log your coincidences and unusual experiences
Mike Keith
has some wonderful excursions into Poeiana
Mike
Keith's complete anagram of The Raven
Once
upon an April swelt'ring, as I blubbered, nearly melting,
Through my grandson's even-chambered
house's small hartberry plot,
Damn! While pre-ill,
bathtub-dreaming, all the evening housetops steaming,
Suddenly, pell-mell, I
marveled, birth'd a little sunny thought.
"Let's go
revelling," I ventured, "somewhere where it's ever not
So interminably hot!"
Near a Raven A mathematically constrained rewrite of
Poe's poem.
alt.Poe.versifications.experimentalize!.AANVVVize!.do! An even stranger one
Raven-Two Anagram of the entire Raven
Another
of Mike Keith's amazing Poe-poems
alt.dreary.night.was.abode.remained
alt.forgotten.volumes.discarded.put-by.sat
alt.restless.naps.shaken-up.broken-thus.put-out
alt.annoying."tap-ap".shocked.surprised.heard
alt.disturbing-my-antedoor.traveler?.said.contradistinguished.queried
alt.incontrovertible.emptiness.was.continued.persisted
|
Just a
curiosity ...
The bridge at
midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers' nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
From Love Minus Zero/No Limit by Bob
Dylan
[Note the reference to the raven, then note that Dylan has
written a tune to which Poe's The Raven can be sung.
Was this done consciously or unconsciously?
You can here the tune and read the lyrics here]
|
 |
Once
upon a midnight dreary, while I websurfed, weak and weary,
Over many a strange and spurious website of 'hot chicks galore',
While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning,
And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour.
"'Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my cheap
hardcore!" -
Quoth the server,
"404"
Not Edgar Allan Poe
Quotes
Edgar Allan Poe is dead.
He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle
many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known, personally or by
reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in several of
the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets
for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him
literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars.
Rufus
Wilmot Griswold, a literary rival and secret enemy of Poe; New York
Tribune, October 9, 1849
Lord, help my soul.
Last words of Edgar Allan Poe
Mother is the name of god on the lips and hearts of all children.
Edgar Allan
Poe
In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like
Harmodious, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar
shrine
A
libation of Tyranny's blood.
Edgar Allan Poe, Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius,
translation from the Greek
More quotes
I have great faith in fools. My
friends call it self-confidence.
I have no faith in human perfectibility. I
think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is
now only more active-not more happy--nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
All that we see or seem is
but a dream within a dream.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme
development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
The Bostonians are really, as a race, far
inferior in point of anything beyond mere intellect to any other set upon the
continent of North America. They are decidedly the most servile imitators of the
English it is possible to conceive.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid
either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
Believe me, there exists no such dilemma as
that in which a gentleman is placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard.
After reading all that has been written, and
after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the
man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face
with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that
which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he
is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
There are few cases in which
mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of
song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
There is something in the unselfish and
self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who
has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of
mere Man.
Were I called on to define, very briefly, the
term Art, I should call it "the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in
Nature through the veil of the soul." The mere imitation, however accurate,
of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of "Artist."
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme
development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Boston: Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin
pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good.
The Bostonians are really, as a race, far
inferior in point of anything beyond mere intellect to any other set upon the
continent of North America. They are decidedly the most servile imitators of the
English it is possible to conceive.
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in
which a little man can himself attain greatness.
There is not a more disgusting spectacle
under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting,
first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous--secondly, because of its
gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will--we know
that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books . . . we know
all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the
crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.
The best chess-player in Christendom may be
little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies
capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind
struggles with mind.
A strong argument for the religion of Christ
is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on
their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.
If any ambitious man have a fancy to
revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human
opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own--the road to immortal
renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do
is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple--a few
plain words--"My Heart Laid Bare." But-this little book must be true
to its title.
I have no faith in human perfectibility. I
think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is
now only more active--not more happy--nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly,
absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
To be thoroughly conversant with a Man's
heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.
As the strong man exults in his physical
ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so
glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious
are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
We now demand the light artillery of the
intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily
diffused--in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the
inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not
degenerate into pop-gunnery--by which term we may designate the character of the
greater portion of the newspaper press--their sole legitimate object being the
discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By
this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
After reading all that has been written, and
after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the
man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face
with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that
which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.
I never can hear a crowd of people singing
and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at
Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he
introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of
Meleager.
Years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute.
'To ———'
Never to suffer would never
to have been blessed.
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which
escape those who dream only by night.
'Eleonora'
To conclude this branch of the subject: -I am
fully warranted in announcing that the Law which we call Gravity exists on
account of Matter's having been radiated, at its origin, atomically, into a
limited sphere of Space, from one, individual, unconditional, irrelative, and
absolute Particle Proper, by the sole process in which it was possible to
satisfy, at the same time, the two conditions, radiation and equable
distribution throughout the sphere -that is to say, by a force varying in direct
proportion with the squares of the distances between the radiated atoms,
respectively, and the Particular centre of Radiation.
'Eureka, A Prose Poem'
(1848)
It is the nature of truth in
general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
Those who dream by day are
cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night
It will be found, in fact,
that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never
otherwise than analytic.
The true genius shudders at
incompleteness -- and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not
every thing it should be.
To vilify a great man is the
readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
More
Take this kiss upon the...
The true genius shudders at...
They who dream by day...
Those who dream by day...
We loved with a love...
In one case out of...
It is by no means...
Man's real life is happy...
Once upon a midnight dreary...
Poetry is the rhythmical...
A gentleman with a
pug...
All that we see or...
I have great faith in...
I have no faith in...
I wish I could write...
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Index of articles on
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The Raven Book
Raven CD
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection
EA Poe Society of Baltimore
A Poe Webliography
Poe Decoder
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Assignation
The Tell-Tale Heart
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains
Edgar Allan
Poe at Wikipedia
The Tell-Tale Heart, on ABC, Australia
Need to write a college essay on Poe? Here's a cheat site.Edgar Allan Poe
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