Poe
Edgar Allan Poe. A Critical Biography. By Dame Una Pope-Hennessy. (Macmillan. 10s. 6d.) BIOGRAPHER QUOTING J. R. LOWELL :
" Here comes Poo with his raven like Barnaby Budge.
Three-fifths of him genius, two-fifths sheer fudge. REVIEWER : Query ? Is a man who is only three-fifths genius a genius ? BIOGRAPHER : if you are suggesting that Poo was not one of the greatest poets you have no business reviewing my book. REVIEWER : Let us agree to differ.
BIOGRA_PHER : Proceed.
ACCORDING to the wrapper, this book takes Poe as " one of the great formative influences on modern literature," and sets out to analyse " the sources and development of Poe's own creative capacity." The second portion of her object the biographer has done with striking competence —in so far as anyone could analyse the sources and meandering development of a writer whose work is as varied, both in quality and kind, as Poe's. If there is a weakness in the book it is that Poe was certainly not one of the great formative influences on modern literature, though he did have a limited influence on a particular section of modern poetry ; and to have taken him for what he was not could not fail to give this biography a quality of overstatement.- One hastens to say that in the case of Dame Una Pope-Hennessy so much enthusiasm has its recompense. She writes quietly, and of all matters of fact judicially, and as she is not given to dramatic effect she sometimes even underwrites—of the last days of Poe for example. In . such a biographer a somewhat over-warm admiration for Poe's work is a welcome offset to the strange calm with which she describes what to others must seem the details of a terrible and harrowing life.
But, though it is welcome, is it well-found ? Dame Una Pope-Hennessy has chosen to keep her emotions intact for the works of Poe and for them alone. Are they big enough for that ? The labour, for instance, that she devotes to such " fudge " as those barbaric and over-romantic red- velvet-and moonlight-tales is altogether disproportionate to their merit. One feels, in fact, that there has occurred here a certain atrophy of the critical faculty, and that had the biographer shared some more of her emotional surge with the drama of Poe's life it would have been far better, since the sad truth is that this poet's life is far more interesting than his work. To give another example, where former biographers saw three villains in Poe's life, his guardian, his mother-in-law, and himself, Dame Una Pope-Hennessy refuses to see any villains at all: 'And this is not merely because she is trying to be just—as she .undoubtedly is trying—but simply because 'she is absorbed in the task of writing another Road to Xanadu. Poe, to her, apparently, is so important that the business of assessing blame here and blame there is a trivial affair beside the business of tracing the development of his genius.
To give one last example, only in one place does she really let, her emotions engage themselves actively in the circum- stances of Poe's life, and that is when. she is angered by those silly New York blue-stockings who -pestered Poe in his last years. There she is inconsistent, for they had no influence on his life, whereas Allan or Mrs. Clenun had, and if it is a question of upbraiding folly the most foolish person of all was Edgar Poe himself. It may be replied that one must not blame a thwarted genius. But, as Lowell observed, l'oc had genius, though he was not one ; and can you thwart three-fifths of a genius ?
This, to be sure, is a criticism of premises, rather than a criticism of a book, and I willingly admit that it is therefore a debatable criticism. Leaving it aside, this may be regarded as a thoroughly competent study containing everything of value now known about Poe. Its most pleasing qualities are a dry sense of humour and a warm personal feeling for the American scene. It is the fate of some such books to be skimmed rather than read and given away rather than housed. This contains too much solid matter to be one of them.
BIOGRAPHER (coldly) : I admire your conclusions but I do not approve of your criticism. REVIEWER (warmly) : I do not approve of your conclusions but 1 admire your book. TOGETHER (sweetly) : Let us agree to differ.
_ . SHIN 0 ItIADIAIN..
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