The Guardian

This morning I took some bits of apple core up to my ever decreasing little flock of chickens. They love fruit of all kinds, so this was a treat for them. To my call of "chick chick chick, here chick chick chick" my few hens and their rooster came running through the pines sounding like a herd of elephants coming through the dry, rustling leaves. As I threw the bits of apple to them, the rooster made little calling noises to his hens, showing them where the food was. The hens, selfish gluttons that they are, fell all over themselves to see who could get the most, even stealing from their sisters. (Hens are such notoriously dumb clucks.) I have seen my roosters behave this way before over the decade I've had chickens. (My, but I've had so many over the years, and I remember them all!) The rooster will first call his hens to the food, then he will pick up and drop several pieces to show his hens where and what it is, clucking and calling all the while. Then he will step back and let them all eat while he stands so tall and proud and watches for danger. He always keeps one eye on me, too, even though he knows I'm the one who brings the food. If there is enough, he will eat when the hens are finished, otherwise he doesn't eat.

I know I'm just an old lady out of her time, but I see in this rooster behavior a foggy reflection of how God our Father calls us to nourishment then steps back to guard and watch while we feed on what He has brought.

When difficulties, hardships, and heartaches come to us in this life, it is good to stop and think that there is still nourishment for us; that there is One Who is always there lovingly and carefully watching and guarding and protecting us, even though we are too busy and perhaps too heartbroken to see it.

A Sparrow

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 4 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

"To Helen" celebrates the antiquity of Beauty and the diffusion from and contraction back into the original unity of Beauty. "Israfel" explains that this Beauty is the very substance of poetry itself, and it is the duty, even the obligation of every poet to bring his reader to at least a realization of, and ideally a contemplation of this supernal Beauty. In his poem, "The Departed," Poe describes man's reactions to having glimpsed at one time this Beauty and his lament at being separated from it. He begins in the first stanza with a faint, and perhaps unconscious, allusion to paradise. The flowing river and green grass are faintly reminiscent of the apocalyptic vision. Here the narrator of the poem wanders with beating pulse and "bold advance" in his effort to regain a meeting with something he holds dear (the reader does not know what yet), but which eludes him. In the second stanza the reader discovers that the narrator is "Musing on the past," his soul remembering "Joys too bright to last." In the third stanza, the reader learns that it is a woman who stirs the narrator's soul and memory so strongly. It is also in this stanza the narrator's bitter lament begins. The fourth stanza describes the narrator's peace and happiness when his search is successful; when he meets with his soul's desire. The fifth stanza asserts the importance of these infrequent and irregular meetings to the narrator. If it were not for them, he would soon have nothing to live for and end his days wandering in darkness and sadness. We are reminded of Edward's and Emerson's assertion that Beauty is the sole object in this world that makes life worth living.

Through this surface topic of a lover searching for his lady love, Poe constructs an allegory of man's soul's search and longing for its lost unity with the original One. He places the reader at the very beginning in Paradise, the dwelling place of Beauty. The early unvarying trochaic rhythm of the poem carries him along through the poem like the flowing of the river carries the narrator through life. If he is in paradise, this must be the River of Life. Through his life, then, the narrator wanders yearning to regain a moment in time, in his past, when he caught a glimpse of the Supernal Loveliness. In the first line of the third stanza the reader is told that she whom the narrator loves is "earth's bright and loveliest flower." Since she belongs to earth, the reader knows that the narrator is struggling to regain a memory of the Supernal Loveliness, whose proper dwelling place is heaven. This may be the cause of the narrator's lack of success and his bitter lamentation. Nevertheless, he is at times successful in his struggle to regain the sublimity of this memory. When this happens, the narrator learns of "things past and to come." From the ecstasy he feels in his soul when he regains even the shadow of unity with Beauty in his memory, his soul is reminded of that original unity, the present disunity, and the inevitable reunion with Beauty. During these times the soul rests peacefully in its temporary unity while all of nature is mute in awe of this sublime moment.

The last stanza reflects the soul's enlivening need for these moments; without them the man would soon pine away "to clay" and wander endlessly "Where the nightly blossoms shiver,--/Dark and sad as they!" in a continual lament for his lost unity.

Poe uses very definite images of a river, grass, stars, blossoms, the moon, a lady; but he places them in indefinite settings. The river, grass, and stars lie somewhere "Where the moon-lit blossoms quiver." This place could be everywhere and nowhere. The blossoms themselves, are made indefinite by the indistinct moonlight. The indefinite images coupled with the incantatory rhythm combine to form a powerful charm upon the reader leading him in an almost unconscious state to a realization of a similar longing for Beauty in his own soul.

The almost unvarying rhythm is broken at regular intervals in a most subtle manner. Poe does not interrupt the trochaic rhythm, but he does interrupt the flow by interjecting a line of three metric feet into the established flow of the trochaic tetrameter line. A closer analysis of these trochaic trimeter lines reveals that each interruption is designed to define what is happening in the preceding lines, carry on the story line of the poem, and press home into the reader's consciousness various aspects of Beauty, or of the narrator himself.

These poems are apt examples of Poe's belief that the contemplation of Beauty is the sole purpose and aim of poetry and that this aim can be best realized through a careful handling of sensory images and rhythm. By arranging the rhythm of a poem in as unvarying a manner as possible, Poe creates a sort of sing-song accompaniment that lulls the reader into an almost trance-like state. He interrupts this trance-like state at strategic points in his poem by changing the rhythm or the flow of that rhythm, the meter. This interruption jolts the reader back into consciousness at just the point in the poem where Poe is able to bring to his reader's consciousness a higher realization of Beauty, an elevation of his soul, if you will, and guide him toward his ultimate purpose--the contemplation of Beauty, before lulling him again into that trance-like state that opens his unconscious to Poe's suggestions which prepare the reader for the next jolt into consciousness on a yet higher level of realization until the highest realization is attained and the reader finds himself in the presence of Beauty itself.

--------------------

Note: The poems cited here are all taken from

Campbell, Killis. The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. N. p.: n. p., 1917.

Bibliography

Edwards, Jonathan. "The Beauty of the World." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 2nd ed. vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1985, 353-54.

Ellis, Charles Mayo. An Essay on Transcendentalism. Gainesville, FL: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1954.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Beauty." The American Transcendentalists. Ed. Perry Miller. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957.

Fletcher, Richard M. The Stylistic Development of Edgar Allan Poe. Paris, France: Mouton & Co. N. V., 1973.

Huxley, Aldous. "From 'Vulgarity in Literature.' " Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1967. 31- 45.

Levine, Stuart. Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman. Deland, FL: Everett Edwards, Inc., 1973.

Parks, Edd Winfield. Edgar Allan Poe as Literary Critic. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1964.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "On 'The Tone Transcendental.' " Critical Essays on American Transcendentalism. Ed. Philip F. Gura and Joel Myerson. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Philosophy of Composition." The Enigma of Poe. Ed. W. U. Ober, et al. Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1960.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Poetic Principle." The Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. T. O. Mabbott. Modern Library Edition. New York: Random House, 1951.

Stovall, Floyd. "The Achievement of Poe." Critics on Poe. Ed. David B. Kesterson. Reading in Literary Criticism 22. Coral Gables, FL: University of Minnesota Press, 1973.

Wilbur, Richard. "Edgar Allan Poe." Major Writers of America. Ed. Perry Miller. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1962.

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 3 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

A scrutiny of some of his poems will illustrate his method. The incomparable "To Helen" ("Helen, thy beauty is to me") is a celebration of time, or antiquity. Poe personifies Beauty in Helen. A woman is an apt symbol of Beauty because of her very indefineableness and her air of mystery. The very name, Helen, invokes a memory of that most beautiful woman, Helen of Troy. Poe celebrates, in this poem, the idea of antiquity "which is gained through a virtual sensing of physical forms." There is an image in the first stanza of going out and coming back, the "barks of yore" carry the "way-worn wanderer" over a "perfumed sea" and back again "To his own native shore." This is an image of Poe's vision of the state of the universe: in the beginning there is Unity, which has become diffuse and has expanded. Then, having expanded, the diffusion returns to its original Unity. Poe works through the senses of his reader in conjuring physical images of a wanderer and barks (a type of ship sometimes spelled "barque") traveling over a sea. From these physical forms he guides the reader to a sense of the expansion and contraction of the universe. The indefineableness in the "barks of yore" and the "perfumed sea" contribute to the reader's growing sense of this flux in the universe. The iambic meter employed continuously through this first stanza enhances the physical images of going out and coming back by adding a rocking back and forth rhythm to the language. This rocking motion carries the reader much like the sea carries the barks and prepares him for the second stanza.

In the second stanza, the euphorial "perfumed sea" has become "desperate seas long wont to roam." This abrupt shift in the image may symbolize the desperate longing and yearning of diffused creation to return home to the quintessential One, the All. Then Poe lists Helen's beauties in her "hyacinth hair," "classic face," and "Naiad airs." These attributes of the woman take the narrator of the poem back in memory to that true, more perfect beauty that belongs to ancient Greece and Rome. Just as a man catches glimpses of a woman's beauty in her various attributes, so Poe tells his reader that the various beautiful things he sees in the universe can serve to guide him back to a realization of the Beauty that is the original Unity. Poe forcefully brings into his reader's consciousness a reminder of the supernal Loveliness by abruptly changing from iambic to trochaic rhythm in the last two lines of this stanza. The reader has been lulled by the rocking motion of the meter and by the images of a wanderer journeying home on a sea until the shock of the intrusion of the trochaic rhythm brings him face to face with a realization of his own ultimate end in the original One.

In the third stanza, Poe shows the brightness and sacredness of this supernal Beauty in the images of the "brilliant window-niche," "statue-like," "agate lamp," and "Holy Land." Poe has brought his image of Beauty (Helen) through diffusion and through time back "home" to the final stability of the original Unity ("statue-like"). He has returned to his iambic meter as further assurance, after the shock of the trochaic lines, to the reader that everything is as it should be; the world has returned to its origin and everything has coalesced in a sense of awe and holiness.

The poem, "Israfel" is an exposition of Poetry and the duty of poets. The reader finds himself in heaven in the first stanza, that place of perfect joy and beauty where all mankind hopes to spend eternity. In contrast to "To Helen," Poe begins with the sublime in this poem and descends to the physical world of mortal man. In this heaven, the highest of all places comprehensible to man, dwells a spirit "Whose heart-strings are a lute." Poe has created a disembodied image, first in the spirit, and increases its indefiniteness by giving it lute strings in place of a heart. The lute is a perfect image here. In this one image Poe embodies the praise of the Divine, which is the purpose of poetry, and music, which is the means to this praise and at the same time the most direct route toward elevating the soul of man. Both images of the spirit and the lute are images of indefiniteness. Poe has at the very beginning whisked his reader to the heights of the Divine where even the giddy stars (after such a fast trip to such a height, the reader may also feel giddy) "Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell/Of his voice, all mute." The music from these lute strings must be Beautiful, indeed.

In the second stanza, the reader is brought from a giddy height down to the "tottering" level of the moon and stars. Here, too, all of nature pauses to listen to the heavenly music; the red lightening pauses in its flashing and the stars, the Pleiads, hesitate in their journey across the sky. The beauty and attraction of this music is explained in the third stanza. Such beauty comes from "The trembling living wire/Of those unusual strings." Poe has brought his reader from a sense of indefiniteness in the first stanza through a sense of awe for this music in the second stanza to the first real object the reader can grasp--"those unusual strings." Yet, even they are still indefinite, but in that Poe has identified them as the source of and reason for the responses of the stars and nature, he has given them a certain almost tangible reality. This is Poe's genius. He has nullified everything the reader knows as real and tangible and made real--almost tangible--that one thing which is not, is even beyond the reader's comprehension. But by making it real, Poe brings it into the reader's comprehension, his consciousness. These living wires, these unusual strings are the stuff of Poetry. They must be unusual because they do not belong to anything in what the reader calls the real world, except as shadows of themselves. They are living because in their music, their praise of the Divine, the reader is wafted to the one Source of all things.

In the fourth stanza, the reader learns what kind of heaven this is where the angel Israfel, whom we now know is the Poet, sings his celestial music, which is Poetry. In this heaven, contemplation of mystical things is a duty in which the reader finds his every pleasure. The fifth stanza still holds the reader in this sense of reality first conveyed by the "unusual strings" in the third stanza to impress upon him the highest and wisest reality of the contemplation of the Divine. Poe has created in the reader an acute sense of reality. He holds this impression and increases it in the remaining stanzas of the poem. This has the effect of impressing, in an enduring way, upon the reader the reality of the Sublime. In his essay, The Poetic Principle, Poe avers that a poem must be long enough to make a lasting impression on the reader; "there must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax."

Israfel, the poet, is exhorted to "Merrily live, and long." Perhaps Poe is expressing here a wish that his conception of Poetry as a contemplation of Beauty will live after him and find expression in other poets' work. Israfel's dispassionate song is the wisest because it is unencumbered by earthly things and, therefore, worthy of immortality.

The sixth stanza celebrates the music of Israfel's lyre. This music is appropriate for all emotions and is capable of raising them to ecstasy--a purer form. Here Poe is saying that all topics may be used in poetry and raised to their highest form through the proper handling of prosody This same idea finds expression in "To Helen" in Poe's listing of Helen's beautiful attributes. By properly handling the meter and versification of a common, or earthly emotion, topic, or event, the poet can raise that common topic, emotion, or event to its most sublime level. This proper handling of prosody by the poet is Israfel's playing of his lyre.

Poe brings the reader down to this earth in the seventh stanza. The indefinite joys of Heaven are now but their shadows in the definite beauty of earthly flowers--the sunshine, the only comprehension of Divine Beauty, that mortals have on earth. The last stanza is almost petulant in its lament that men are earthbound. The poet laments that were he able to ascend to that heaven where Israfel dwells, this poem might be more beautiful, more aspiring than it is. Perhaps Poe felt apologetic that he was unable to express what he may have felt.

The basic rhythm of "Israfel" is iambic with an occasional anapestic foot. However, certain lines contain the most important message of the poem; that the contemplation of Beauty is the most sublime, indeed the only justifiable purpose of poetry. These lines begin with a trochee and, in a couple of instances contain a spondee. By inverting the stress, Poe draws attention to this message. In the second stanza, the first, fourth, and last line begin with a trochee. These three lines record the reactions of the heavenly bodies and of nature to the music of Israfel and emphasize that even nature, as powerful as it can be ("the red levin") pauses to attend to this sublime music. Stanzas three and four revert to a very musical, fluid rhythm which suits their expository purpose. But again in the first and second line of stanza five, Poe inverts the stress to draw attention to the contemplation of Beauty, which is embodied in Israfel's music. In the fifth line of this stanza, Poe emphasizes the superlative nature of this contemplation in his use of a spondee: "Best bard...." This impression is sealed in the reader in the last line of this stanza, which also begins with a trochee.

As a final parting emphasis on the sublimity of the contemplation of Beauty, Poe adds, in the last line of the sixth stanza, his own opinion: "Well may the stars be mute." In the last two stanzas of the poem, Poe returns to his basic iambic rhythm. These last two stanzas support and affirm Poe's statement in the earlier part of the poem that this supernal Beauty belongs in the realm of reality, although not the reality to which mortal man is accustomed. The musical fluidity of these last two stanzas contribute, in a sensory way, to this secondary message of the poem.

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 2 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

Poe carefully chooses the rhythm and meter of his poems to enhance the effect he wishes to produce. When poetry is read aloud, there is a natural rhythm to the language which comes from the things and events being described. Poe capitalized on this. If music is the most direct route to the soul of man, then an incantatory flow of rhythm coupled with the images conjured by the words of the poem is the surest method for inducing in the reader that elevation of soul, almost a euphoria, so important to Poe's purpose. There is also a natural rhythm to the language resulting from the the emotions embedded in the images of the poem. Poe, however, does not permit any emotion except that "tremulous delight" which accompanies the soul's ascension to a higher level of realization. As the soul ascends to a contemplation of incorporeal Beauty, all corporeal things are left behind; in fact, Poe's effort in his poetry is to nullify any effect of emotion by his repetition of rhythm. A poem is to raise its reader out of his present state of existence into a higher state. Poe's incantatory method seems to suggest that this is best done by charming the reader into an almost hypnogogic state. When the reader reaches this hypnogogic state, he is more open to a sense of the supernal Loveliness. The skill that Poe exhibits in producing this effect is his very mark of genius. However, it is this very reaching for the most pure essence of poetry in Poe's writing that Aldous Huxley finds vulgar. He writes in protest to the French infatuation with Poe that "the substance of [his work] is refined; it is his form that is vulgar. He is, as it were, one of Nature's Gentleman, unhappily cursed with incorrigible bad taste." Huxley believes the incantation which is forced onto language is tactless and insulting; that rhythm and meter in poetry should be melodious and subtle, following the natural flow of the language and enhancing the moods produced by the poem. Poe's method, he asserts, is not appropriate to the meaning of his poem and is nothing more than a "shortcut to musicality....all he has to do is to shovel the meaning into the stream of the metre and allow the current to carry it along." However this critic feels about Poe's method, it serves Poe's purpose very well in enhancing the effect of the poem, and it is the effect that Poe primarily wishes to produce in the reader. Through this effect he attempts to create in his reader that conception of a higher reality that is the contemplation of the Divine.

Poe distinguishes between the poem and the sentiment of Poesy. This sentiment is God-given, an instinct that is capable of conceiving of a higher reality than that which he sees before him. It is a sense of the beautiful and the sublime, the mystical. "Poesy is the sentiment of Intellectual Happiness here, and the Hope of a higher Intellectual Happiness hereafter." The true poet is capable of perceiving here in this physical world not only the beauty of shape and form and color, but also the Beauty which exists in all things and will eventually, from Poe's vantage point, draw everything back into that original unity. The poet can recognize the seemingly different beauties in the world as belonging to each other, as being related in the sense that each beauty is descended from the same Beauty. The relationship he sees in this world's beauties awakens and renews his hope in an ultimate unity. This formless, ultimate unity of Beauty is so dazzlingly inconceivable to the ordinary mind that the poet must accept as his duty a certain indefiniteness of expression in order to truly portray it. For this reason Poe endeavors to form his images in as indefinite a manner as possible. He accepts as a first step in the creating of a poem the choosing of an original topic or an original mode of expressing that topic in order to capture the reader's attention. Once this has been accomplished, his next duty is to guide the reader to a contemplation of Beauty in as true a manner as his intuition permits. This guidance may take the form of indefinite images or indefinite circumstances. The sense of indefiniteness is important since the ultimate unity, the Divine Beauty, as Poe conceived it, is formless, having absorbed into itself all forms.

In creating a poem, or rather a true Poem which, by definition, has as its purpose the contemplation of Beauty, the poet must exclude everything that might detain his reader in his hoped for ascension. This ascension, which is an elevation of the soul, must not be hindered by excess of passion, which is an excitement of the heart, or by an excessive sense of the moral, since that necessarily involves the reader with humanity. That which is moral involves the soul in a contemplation of what is right and good for mankind. There is a place for this in prose, but it does not belong in the realm of Poetry. A poem that has as its purpose to teach a moral belies its name and betrays its true purpose. However much truth lies in morality, and however much of Poetry is to express that truth, Poe maintains that the ultimate purpose of Poetry is Beauty. He says that only that man who insists on following the theory that poetry must have as its object Truth will attempt to "reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth." Truth or Passion may be included in a Poem, but it must be made subservient to that true purpose of Poetry. The inclusion of a moral may be desirable in Poetry, but the all important question is one of the manner of handling that moral. It must not take the prime position in the Poem. Handled as a skillful undercurrent of meaning, the moral adds richness to the work. "It is the excess of the suggested meaning--it is the rendering this the upper instead of the under current of the theme which turns poetry into prose."

E. W. Parks in a lecture, "Poe on Poetry," delivered at Mercer University in 1964 defines Poe's avowed purpose of poetry:

Its first element is the thirst for supernal beauty which is not afforded the soul by any existing collocation of earth's forms--a beauty which, perhaps, no possible combination of these forms would fully produce. Its second element is the attempt to satisfy this thirst by novel combinations,....We thus clearly deduce the novelty, the originality, the invention, the imagination, or lastly the creation of BEAUTY...as the essene of all Poesy.

In his Philosophy of Composition Poe outlines his method of creating a poem. First the poet must choose the effect he wishes to produce in the reader. This choice should be original enough to attract the reader's attention and vivid enough to remain in his memory long enough to insure that the reader will be able to go beyond the surface level of the effect to a higher level of realization. If this effect is to be successful, then the poem must be short enough to read at one sitting. If more than one sitting is required, the events of the day intervene to disrupt the poet's purpose. On the other hand, a very short poem does not admit a lasting impression in the reader. "There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax."

After choosing the effect, the poet should consider how he may best achieve that effect. Poe offers four suggestions: the desired effect may be achieved by incident or tone, by combining ordinary incidents with a peculiar tone, by combining peculiar incidents with an ordinary tone, or by combining peculiar incidents with a peculiar tone. Finally he poet should consider how he wishes to construct his chosen events or tone, or combination of events or tone.

This method seems cold and detached considering its object. Poe writes that there is nothing more sublime that a poem, a creation of Beauty itself. However sublime the poem, it, nevertheless, requires the skill of a craftsman for its creation. The duty of a poet consists in "seeing into the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody else" and translating his perceptions to language in the form of a poem. The poet receives his inspiration through his unconscious as intuition. It then becomes the poet's responsibility to translate this intuition into a poem. The perceptions gained by this ability to see farther than anybody else may be communicated to others by following a very practical method. In addition to the method described above, Poe advises the poet to use language in new and unusual ways and to "hint everything." The novel method of expression coupled with an undercurrent of innuendo serves Poe's purpose best.

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 1 of 4)

The true province of art is not by imitation to make men think that they are contemplating a work of nature.... It is to produce that which shall answer men's ideas of the beauty not yet seen, and awaken feelings that have not yet been roused. - Charles Mayo Ellis, 1842

Mention the name, Edgar Allan Poe, at any gathering and sit back and listen to the variety of reactions. Edgar Allan Poe has the intellect of a pre-pubescent schoolboy. Poe is a mad man. He can only write metronomic poetry that has no meaning. These and similar reactions are typical of what we have come to expect, and for many accept, regarding Edgar Allan Poe. The name conjures images of ravens and black-haired, beautiful ladies, black cats and black, stormy nights. Yet in a way these very reactions are a tribute to Poe's skill, for they are definite reactions. No one can read anything that Poe has written without reacting. This would have pleased him, especially if that reaction includes a sense of the beautiful. Poe's very purpose in writing is to produce an effect in his reader. Through the proper handling of this effect he hopes to guide his reader to the contemplation of the Divine, which, for him, is the contemplation of Beauty. To create this effect, Poe relies on a store of vocabulary and a skill with rhyme and meter which he calls the music of poetry. By combining these two elements, language and music, Poe can produce through an incantatory manner the effect he wishes to produce in his reader. This method is easy to imitate. Levine comments that "Poe is one of the easiest of authors to parody." The skill that Poe exhibits is in combining these elements, not only to produce an effect, but to create a unified whole. This is why passages taken out of the context Poe created for them sound so flat, wordy, or "stagey." Poe's writing must be understood as a whole, otherwise they seem adolescent, nonsensical. It is this very unity of effect that shows the genius of his skill. To some critics, his use of language is "vague, verbose," especially if quoted out of context. But this is exactly the point. Poe constructs his writing in such a way that each part is dependent on every other part, and together all the parts produce one, unified effect on the reader. It is Poe's skill at building sentence upon sentence and image upon image that permits the reader to accept the strangeness of his topics, the "theatrics."

These theatrics serve to get the reader's attention. An understanding of Poe's world view is crucial to an understanding of his work. Poe is a cosmongonist. He has espoused Plato's description of man's progress toward that supernal One toward which every soul feels a compelling attraction. The world as it presently exists is a diffusion from that One and is in a state of expansion and will soon begin to contract towards its original unity. The variety of things, including man, that exist in the universe are fragments of the One, or of God, and as such, each creature contains a part of God. There is a natural, or instinctive, impulse toward regaining the original unity, but there is also an obligation for man to attempt through some counterimpulse to restore the original unity. This counterimpulse takes its form in poetry. "The one true response to the creation, then, is to take an imaginative delight in its beauty and harmony, seen and unseen." The purpose of poetry is to draw man into a spiritual unity through the conemplation of Beauty. As a contemplation of Beauty, the poem becomes more than just a pretty sentiment, it becomes the "world in itself." So Poe writes in his essay, "The Poetic Principle," that "a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul." This excitation is achieved through the senses. In order for a poem to achieve its purpose, the reader must first be awakened from his lethargy to a realization of a higher beauty. Poe does this by choosing original settings or topics for his writing. Once he has attracted his reader's attention, he may proceed to his real purpose, the contemplation of Beauty.

In the writing of Poe's contemporaries, Beauty is explored and defined in depth. From the efforts of the popular writers of the time we learn several things about Beauty. First that there are two forms of beauty: the more tangible and understandable and the "hidden and secret beauties." The first form reaches us through our senses. We know why it pleases us; we can explain our pleasure in its form or color or some other aspect that invokes our sense of beauty. The second form is more elusive. Emerson says that it resides more properly in the mind of man and not in the form of the object. We cannot explain why we find this second form of beauty pleasing; we only know that it is. We are continually searching and longing for it, and occasionally we catch glimpses of it. But the moment we come near it, it leaves the object in which we ahve first glimpsed it and "flies to an object in the horizon." This second form of beauty does not receive its beautiful quality from the perfection of the form or color or shape of the object that we describe as beautiful. This perfection belongs to the first form and the attraction this beauty has for us has more charm as it more closely resembles, or recalls to our mind, the second form, the spiritual form of beauty.

These secret, spiritual beauties are the most remarkable of beauties because they are more complex. Jonathan Edwards declares that "the more complex a beauty is, the more hidden it is." This very complexity adds to the remarkability of the beauty. We may perceive a color as white, or green, or blue, but we have learned that each color has its own particular "harmony" of rays that each strike a different harmonious chord in our souls. It is this kind of hidden complexity that, once known, evokes in us such a sense of the marvelous that we can scarce contain our delight in it. Beauty gives purpose to our existence; without it a man may serve mankind in the most useful way, providing those things which are necessary for life, but he will continually be dissatisfied with his lot. Emerson notes, "But as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high value." Jonathan Edwards agrees with Emerson on this pint; a man may lead the most miserable and wretched of lives, yet he will still cling to life as something precious as long as he can perceive beauty in his life.

Man's perception of this second form of beauty evokes a longing in his soul and compels him to struggle for more. That delight which he feels when he is lucky enough to perceive the reward of his struggle leads him to a higher sense, a higher awareness, of reality than he perceived amid the rush and necessity of daily living. While experiencing this delight, man ceases to think of things as he perceives them through his senses and reaches farther toward a contemplation of the origin of all things. It is just this tendency which impels man to prefer beauty as the "form under which the intellect prefers to study the world." This intellectual progression from the perception of beauty in form and color to a higher, spiritual awareness of the origin and relatedness of all things leads man in a gradual ascension until he is finally able to "contemplate the beautiful in itself."

Poe is a firm believer in this struggle, born of delight, to transcend corporeal reality and ascend to the contemplation of Beauty. He agrees with Jonathan Edwards that beauty which is the more remarkable because of its complexity, because its attraction resides not in the form but in our perception of a higher, spiritual reality of that form, is the more desirable. Spiritual beauty is the more desirable because of the intense delight and pleasure it produces in man, and this has the effect of elevating the soul. Poe emphasizes that it is just this effect on man that enables him to contemplate Beauty. This delight which elevates the soul resides in man's perception, not in the form or the object. In this Poe may disagree with Emerson's statement that beauty resides more properly in the mind of man. The perception of beauty, for Emerson, resides in man's mind, his intellect, which enables him to contemplate Beauty itself. Poe's way to the contemplation of Beauty is through the elevation of the soul, and the soul is elevated directly as a response to that intense delight that Beauty excites in man. Contemplation of Beauty must begin with the excitement of the senses and progress to the elevation of the soul. The perception of Beauty, then, for Poe, is a sign of the most heightened sensitivity in man. The reader of poetry who is able to perceive this supernal Beauty becomes the Poet and, in becoming the Poet, he is in a position to save himself. It is the Poet who, by an elevation of the soul, ascends to the original Oneness. Poe insists that it is just this elevation of soul, not of intellect or of heart, that enables man to contemplate Beauty, the original Oneness. He distinguishes Beauty from Truth, which is the "satisfaction of the Reason," and from Passion, which is the "excitement of the heart."

It is this spiritual beauty, "the supernal Loveliness" as he calls it in his essay, The Poetic Principle, that is the object and raison d'etre of poetry. Poe set for himself as a poet this goal of Beauty. The poem which accurately mirrors the longing for Beauty produces a specific response in its reader. That response is an

excess of pleasure...a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever these divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

This longing for joys that remain always just beyond reach may be so intense in Poe because of his constant grasping and searching for happiness in his own life. Whatever the reason for his intensity, Poe asserts that true poetry produces just this response in its reader, but music must be added to the language. A mere repetition of those things which we regard as beautiful is not enough. The initial perception of beauty is through our senses, but a certain inspiration is needed in order to contemplate Beauty, the supernal Loveliness. Poe's goal in writing poetry is to embody this Beauty as he perceived it. In addition to this, the purpose of poetry is to uplift its reader and carry him out of the humdrum routine of daily existence to a supernal awareness of a higher, truer reality, and Poe perceived that reality as Beauty. Through the elevation of the soul which leads to the contemplation of Beauty, man is turned momentarily from his state of diffusion towards a contraction which leads to unity with the original One.

A poem can best achieve its purpose of guiding the reader to a contemplation of Beauty if it is brief, musical, passionless, and melancholy. In his essay, The Philosophy of Composition, Poe explains that a poem must be brief in order to accomplish a totality of effect. For this reason he asserts that a long poem is not a poem by definition. That which is intended as a long poem is merely a succession of short poems leading the reader through a series of alternating emotions of exhilaration and depression. That part of a long poem which seems depressing, will, at a separate reading, seem exhilarating. This is because it is psychically impossible to sustain an intense emotion.

A poem must be passionless because the aim of Poetry is to induce in the reader an elevation of the soul in the contemplation of Beauty. Those things which induce passion excite the heart of the reader and hinder its ascension to this divine contemplation. There is only one emotion that Poe admits to Poetry: a sense of "pleasurable sadness," a melancholy that he maintains is "inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty." It is just this one emotion which "presents an image of that ideal beauty for which the soul yearns yet knows to be unattainable in this life."

A poem guides the reader first through his senses. The poet uses music, or rhythm, to charm the reader by an almost incantatory process. Poetry must embody indefinite sensations since the object of its purpose is itself formless and indefinite, having encompassed all forms. Music is essential in guiding the reader to a sense of this original Oneness since music embodies the most indefinite of our perceptions. In his prefatory letter to his 1831 poems, Poe writes, "Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness." Music is, then, the one thing that can most readily and most directly penetrate to the soul of man. Its very indefiniteness strikes a chord in the soul of man carrying him upward toward a higher realization of Beauty. When music is added to words, images, and symbols, Poetry is the result.

Poe's poetry has the reputation of being very regular in its rhythm, and so it is if he is to accomplish his purpose of charming his reader into a state of mind which admits the contemplation of Beauty. Occasionally, however, there will be irregularities in his meter. The irregularities are "intentional and [serve] a purpose more important, at the moment, than pleasing the senses."

It is the obligation of the poet to awaken in his reader this sense of Beauty through the union of music with imagination. Through imagination the poet chooses those symbols and images which best conjures in the reader an intuition that corresponds with his own. This intuition accompanies that elevation of the soul that is necessary for the contemplation of Beauty. It is imagination which enables the poet to see the relatedness of all things that eventually leads back to the original One. From the union of imagination and music, Poetry is born. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Poe defines Poetry as "The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty."

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

The Lynx

[While looking for some old papers in my ancient file cabinet down in the basement, I came across this short piece that I had written decades ago when I was a teenager and going through a Jack London and Jim Kjelgaard phase. I still like tales of men and their dogs against the wild. It's been a very long time--decades--since I've read anything in this genre, so when I recently watched the movie The Snow Walker, I was transported back in time to a lovely place during my childhood. Watching the movie led me to find the book, and I just finished reading Farley Mowat's book The Snow Walker and thoroughly enjoyed this (for me) escapism literature. Then this morning when I found this old, short piece that I had written as a teenager, I thought it might be fun to share it. I've typed it as I wrote it "back when," without making any of the many corrections that need to be made. Be kind; remember this was written by a rather romantic teenage girl!]

"Be careful, Major," Mike said as he walked stealthily through the forest of Kentucky. It was the Fall of the year and Mike's brown buckskin shirt and leggins blended in perfectly with the splotched background.

Major, Mikes' rust-colored dog, now only five months old, already a good tracker and showing remarkable intelligence for his age, was tracking a lynx that had been killing animals and leaving them--not for food, but for the sheer sadistic pleasure of killing something. They had been tracking the lynx for five days now and had not even seen it--just the victims of its demoniacal game.

The forest floor was matted with brown, red, and orange leaves, which prevented the lynx from leaving a distinct paw-print in the soft earth except in a very few clearings where there weren't as many leaves and so provided space for an animal to leave a print. But the lynx was too smart to wander into a clearing. Instead, it led Mike and Major through the thickest part of the forest where the abundance of undergrowth and trees supplied enough leaves to form a carpet on the forest floor four to five inches deep.

It was mid-afternoon, but the light in the forest was already dimming and the cat was beginning his nightly prowl. Flowing quickly and easily through the dimming light, the lynx hunted--first a deer for food, then a fawn sleeping under a bush. The lynx seemed to not be satisfied until it had killed something that it knew couldn't defend itself. Tomorrow night the lynx would go to the other side of the forest and salve his demoniacal urge to kill on the week-old litter of wolf cubs that lived under a huge rock at the base of a hill. The mother wolf, the lynx knew, would be sleeping with her cubs; but he would go just as the sun first blazed in full strength on the forest. By then the mother wolf will have traveled far away in her search for food.

Meanwhile, Mike was quenching the last spark of his camp-fire as the first light of dawn slid over the hill and crept modestly through the trees. Today, Mike felt that he would surely meet the lynx. Last night, just when he had made up his mind to camp, he had found a tuft of fur clinging to a bush where the lynx had crouched too quickly when he caught the quick movement of a rabbit hurrying to its hole.

Mike and Major walked all day and did not see the lynx. About noon, Major's neck-hairs bristled and he let our a low growl toward a lower-than-usual bush. Mike, thinking his search had finally ended, stole around to the side of the bush away from Major. Carefully without stirring a leaf, Mike looked under it--and saw the mutated form of the fawn. The heavy scent of blood and the lynx together confused Major.

Sighing, Mike left the fawn and continued his search. He was gaining on the lynx and was just a little behind it when dusk began to fall. But he decided to go on a few hours longer since he was so close.

The moon was full and the air was clear, which, Mike knew, would give him a definite advantage over th lynx. Major began to trot and Mike knew that they were closer--very close. Then Major stopped, sniffed the air and whined. This meant the wily lynx had back-tracked and was probably stalking them at this very moment. Suddenly, a shadow flicked behind a tree and Mike saw the lynx at the very same moment it saw him. Major, sensing the danger to his young master, roared and charged at the lynx. Mike barely had time to whip his gun up to his shoulder and aim--straight at the cat's head. A split second before Major and the cat met, Mike fired. But Major, unable to stop, tore right into the cat. The cat's reactions, although the bullet had hit its mark, were to tear a long rip in Major's right shoulder. Then the lynx fell dead in a heap at the surprised pup's feet. Mike rushed over and examined the slash in Major's shoulder. It went with the muscle, so it wasn't as serious as it might have been if it had torn across the muscle. Major would be all right when Mike could get home to put something on it to stop infection.