By Andrew Aaron
"Unity of effect was what he strove after in
his stories, and he stressed the importance of craftsmanship in the
construction of a story no less than Hoffman. But, unlike the German writer,
there is nothing whimsical in his work, no different levels of intensity, no
trace of romantic irony."1
This is the commonly accepted view of Poe's work. He
is a dark, brooding writer, who takes the reader on fearsome journeys that
almost invariably end in gruesome circumstances (for the narrator at least).
The photographs that we have the writer do not help matters. The lank hair, the
heavy bags under the eyes, the somber mouth, the wide forehead all lead one to
conclude that this is no dashing dandy of the writing life. The biography put
together by Rufus W. Griswold made Poe into a monster of excess, with few if
any redeeming qualities. It is perhaps ironic that the writer who so feared
forced entombment, had his reputation buried for many years under a hateful
biography, that reputation being resurrected well after its owner was long
gone.
Yet, Poe was not a happy man, the biography was not
wrong on all accounts. He did drink. He did not always make the best use of
himself. In short, he was human. Unfortunately, between the accepted view of
the man, the success of his tales of terror, and the occasionally difficult
writing style have all combined to make the quotation from above all too
frequently accurate in the minds of readers.
As to the notions (from the quotation above) that
there are "no different levels of intensity, no trace of romantic
irony," well this seems to be simply wrong. Poe would be a very boring
writer if he did not change the level of his writing voice.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is clearly
a serious story as it details the explanation of the two violent deaths of the
mother and daughter, Esplanade. Yet, early on in the story, there is an example
given by the narrator as to Duping’s mental acuity, in a somewhat wry, somewhat
smile-invoking manner. The phrase "he is a little fellow" is not
without its comic overtones. Poe loves language. He loves the way words and feelings
go together. If this is not the case, how to explain the third paragraph, from "Thou
Art the Man" that begins on page 728 and concludes on page 729. This paragraph
is nothing more than a meditation on the name Charley Goodfellow. It is somewhat
sarcastic and somewhat caustic, and a little witty. Everywhere in this story, Poe
slyly plays with the reader.
If Poe wishes to make the reader ponder on the
merits or demerits of Mr. Goodfellow, he does not write that Mr. Goodfellow was
a bad man or a user but rather states some little observation and follows it
with a corollary: "for 'Old Charley' never let a day pass without stepping
in three or four times to see how his neighbor came on, and very often he would
stay to breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner;" (pg. 729). The
reader has already been informed that the neighbor never steps over the other
way, so that by slyly constructing the sentence so, Poe wittily gives us an
insight into "old Charley's" makeup. Poe will do this throughout the
story. At every instance, Poe's narrator will by careful modulation of his
voice use sarcasm to reveal old Charley's character. Charley will speak and
unaccountably the opposite of his entreaties will happen. He will act and his
action's go unaccountably awry but always Poe is making the reader wonder if
this is truly the case. Finally, Poe will in this story, give us fine examples
of his delight in rhyming, in playful onomatopoeia as in the wine merchants
that deliver Chateau-Margeau to old Charley: Hoggs, Froggs, Boggs, & Co.
Rhyming and sarcasm are not the only tools of Poe.
He has a vast store of philosophical knowledge, it is only reasonable to think
that occasionally he uses this to poke fun at himself and other
"philosophes.” "Bon-Bon" is just such a story. Poe begins the
story with his usual bit of quotation, in this case from French vaudeville. It
is a quote on wine's power to make one think oneself wise than one truly maybe.
It prefigures the whole story. Bon-Bon is a cook and a philosopher. He is a
restaurateur who stores books in frying pans and treatises in mixing bowls. He
is also "barely three feet in height" and very round. Between his
dress and his physical attributes, he looks to me like a Christmas tree
ornament, multi- colored and sparkling. Of course, being round, small, and
French, he may look very much like his name, a bon-bon. Our hero is ridiculous
then, it is only fitting that his meeting with the Devil is equally ridiculous.
Although there are sinister undertones to the
meeting, as when the Devil's book cover changes titles from “Rituel Catholique”
to “Regitre des Condamnes,” on the whole this is a witty meditation by Poe on
philosophy and its discontents. The devil dismisses the Romans and is
contemptuous of the metaphysical notions of our drunken hero (pg. 176). The
story also seems to provide information about the dark side of Poe's philosophy
of religion and the afterlife. The human soul seems fit only for consumption by
those beyond this world. It is dangerous, I think, to speculate this way too
much but this does give another example of why reading the lighter-seeming
pieces is important.
When Poe is not attempting to give psychological
underpinnings to his serious work, as in the story "The Imp of the
Perverse", his guard may be lowered in the lighter ones making his asides
all the more revealing of the man and his thinking. We leave Monsieur Bon-Bon
trapped under a lamp, drunk but not dead, perhaps a little wiser probably not,
though, the devil departing for regions unknown. This Devil is the forerunner
of Shaw's; of "Oh God, You Devil"; and the many gentlemen "of
wealth and taste" that have seduced, offended, charmed and frightened
readers, theatergoers and movie watchers in the last hundred years. His tail is
tastefully hidden, his horns absent, and his eyes nowhere to be found. This
devil tutored Plato and was Epicurus. He is a gourmet when he has the means to
eat well. This story is not serious but it is certainly vaudevillian.
A life of tragedy was Poe's with few triumphs and
many heartbreaking defeats. He died in poverty and was impoverished a great
deal of the time. It is easy for those defenders of the thesis that real horror
begot literary horror and that the drug-induced dreams of Poe found their way
to paper to become the all-too real nightmares of his narrators and characters.
This is all probably true. Yet, Poe could also write things where darkness was
nowhere to be found. He could write pieces that are full of word play, puns,
and the tricks that late would make Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Ogden Nash
so widely read and enjoyed.
My favorite of these "word-play plays" is
"The Devil in the Clocktower.” In this story that details the fall of what
was once "the finest place in the world,” Poe uses all his tricks but
calls on word-play more often than not. The paragraph that deals with the
town's name "Vondervotteimittis" (pp. 298-299) is as effective a
satirical piece on philology, place name origins, and stuffed-shirtism as one can
find. It is a joy of children to divide and cram together words. Who did not
either trick someone or was tricked into saying "O Wha Ta Goo Si Am"
five times fast? Here, Poe uses the stuff of childhood to elicit a very
laughable town name for a very laughable town. A town made up, as far as I
could tell, of Dutch versions of yard gnomes. Everything goes well in town, so
much so that Poe is able to get off a few cracks about complacent town-councils.
Like the perfect clock-work of the town clock, perfect is the life of the
people of the town. Between the breeziness of the devil who ruins things, the startled
exclamations of the people, and the confusion of the clocks, Poe has given us a
story that could almost be described as cute. It is not surprising that Poe
quotes a piece of vaudeville, French though it maybe, since he uses tricks
borrowed from vaudeville to make this story work. High-sounding rhetoric
(shades of Irwin Corey), a fake foreign language with a funny accent, and
punning are brought together to make the reader smile. I think of Thurber, I
think of Benchley, I think of Joyce when I read this story. In the end, I
wonder if Twain read this before he wrote "The man who corrupted Hadleysville”?
But should not we use "The Devil in the Clocktower"
as the exception that proves the rule? There is only a handful of these
humorous pieces to hold against the many tales and stories of death, despair,
destruction, and the final dropping into the Maelstrom. Ligeia, William Wilson,
Usher, the Red Death, each has taken their proper place in the halls of what is
called" great literature.” Poe’s influence on Doyle is quite clear. Bierce
and Lovecraft owe him a great debt as well. Poe is, and hopefully will be, remembered for
his contribution to the short story, horror and otherwise. However, a case can
and must be made for remembering Mr. Lackobreath and Mr. Windenough, for
remembering Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head and his city of Alexander-the-Great-onopolis,
for Poe’s Scheherezade and her last tale. The richness of his writing and the vividness
of his depictions are excellent for highlighting the shadows of humanity, but
they are also made to do yeoman’s work in showing us the sunnier, the funnier
side of humanity.
1 Franz Rottensteiner, the Fantasy Book (Great
Britain: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1978) 37.
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