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GOTH POE
Brian Aldrich
We of PoeForward and Midnight Special Bookstore welcome you to Goth Poe.
The primary mission of PoeForward is to showcase the work of artists who have been influenced by the mind and work of Edgar Allan Poe. We believe that Edgar Poe, through his editorial criticism as well as his multi-genre fiction and poetry, defined the foundations of all American literature.
Our secondary mission, but just as important, is to present the true character of Edgar Poe, the uncompromising, hard-working, virulent critic and writer, instead of the melodramatic, “tortured artist” of 19th century romantic mythology. This falsehood has followed Poe since his arch rival and chief enemy, the Reverend Rufus Griswold, lied about Poe and maligned his reputation in an obituary subsequent to the poet’s death.
In the years since, his friends and associates, as well as scholars and historians through to today, have sought to clear his name.
Certainly, like each of us, Poe had his demons as well as his troubles with women and alcohol, but rather than dwell on his mortal shortcomings, we endeavor to illuminate the eternal genius of Poe.
Tonight, we are going to experience the Gothic tide of literary history. We are going to present some of the works of art which influenced Poe himself as well as perform work that has been influenced by him.
We are going to take you on a short ride from the Graveyard Poets of the early18th century to the decadents of the late 19th century.
At Eton College in the 1720’s and 30’s, four young brilliant English gentlemen, THOMAS GRAY, HORACE WALPOLE, RICHARD WEST, and THOMAS ASHTON, formed a friendship and referred to themselves as the Quadruple Alliance, perhaps an early version of the Dead Poets Society.
Out of their fellowship was born the Graveyard Poets, a melancholy school of poetry whose principle poetic objects included graves, churchyards, ruins, ghosts, the night, and death.
Quoting from Fred Botting’s work of non-fiction, THE GOTHIC:
“They marked the limits necessary to the constitution of an enlightened world and delineated the limitations of neoclassical perceptions. Darkness, metaphorically, threatened the light of reason with what it did not know. Gloom cast perceptions of formal order and unified design into obscurity; its uncertainty generated both a sense of mystery and passions and emotions alien to reason.
Night gave free reign to imagination’s unnatural and marvellous creatures, while ruins testified to a temporality that exceeded rational understanding and human finitude. These were the thoughts conjured up by Graveyard Poets.”
Other 18th century Graveyard Poets included MARK AKENSIDE, JAMES BEATTIE, ROBERT BLAIR, WILLIAM COLLINS, WILLIAM COWPER, JAMES MACPHERSON, THOMAS PARNELL, WILLIAM SHENSTONE, JAMES THOMSON, JOSEPH WARTON, THOMAS WARTON, and EDWARD YOUNG.
The Graveyard Poets laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the Gothic movement. In fact, Horace Walpole wrote what is considered the first Gothic novel, THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO, in 1764.
Then, the word “Gothic” originally implied “medieval”, but by the later 18th century, its meaning altered until its emphasis lay on the macabre.
From the Graveyard Poets we shall travel through the Romantic era, touch on the Symbolists and conclude with the Decadents.
I will begin with a short letter a young Edgar Poe wrote to the poet JOHN NEAL in 1829:
Edgar Allan Poe to John Neal
October - November 1829
…I am young…not yet twenty…am a poet -- if deep worship of all beauty can make me one -- and wish to be so in the common meaning of the word. I would give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination.
(By the way, do you remember, or did you ever read the exclamation of Shelley about Shakespeare, "What a number of ideas must have been afloat before such an author could arise!")
I appeal to you as a man that loves the same beauty which I adore -- the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth -- there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother -- it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent -- their affections are always running in the same direction -- the same channel and cannot help mingling.
I am and have been from childhood, an idler. It cannot therefore be said that "I left a calling for this idle trade" or "A duty broke -- a father disobeyed" -- for I have no father -- nor mother.
I am about to publish a volume of "Poems" -- the greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking about "Heaven", the Editor of the Yankee says, "He might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent poem" -- (the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard). I am very certain that, as yet I have not written either -- but that I can, I will take my oath -- if they will give me time.