[Lewis Gaylord Clark], review in the Knickerbocker Magazine

The author of this slender volume is of course one of the ‘sundry citizens of this good land, meaning well, and hoping well, who, prompted by a certain something in their nature, have trained themselves to do service in various essays, poems, histories, and books of art, fancy and truth;’ for we find this very remarkable passage as a motto on the cover of his poems. But the ‘certain something’ which has prompted him to publish, according to his preface, is not the ‘paltry compensations nor the more paltry commendations of mankind.’ These have been powerful ‘somethings’ with most poets, but we think that the author of ‘The Raven’ has wisely chosen to regard them as nothings; for the amount of either likely to be bestowed upon him as a poet by the ‘mankind’ he esteems so lightly we fear will be small. Mr POE says in his preface: ‘Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious efforts in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.’ This is very pitiable, but entirely incomprehensible. According to the biographies of Mr POE, he must be very near the age at which BYRON died, and beyond that at which all the great poets produced their greatest works; and according to his own story, he began writing poetry at an age much earlier than any poet of whom we know anything. His whole life has been spent in literary pursuits, and here we have the results of his poetical career. At what period he commenced writing verses we do not know; but he tells us in a note that it was in his ‘earliest boyhood’, which begins we believe with the jacket-and-trousers, generally at three or four years. If Mr POE wrote the ‘Ode to Science’ at that early period, he was certainly a remarkable boy, but hardly a poet. We have heard that, in the paper of which he is the editor, he has stated that he wrote ‘Al Aaraaf’, the poem with which he professes to have humbugged the poor Bostonians, in his tenth year. The Boston Post thought it must have been produced at a much earlier age. We have no opinion on the subject ourselves, not having read it, but are disposed to believe the author, and should believe him if he said the same of the poems which we have read. We see no reason why they might not have been written at the age of ten: children are more apt, in remembering words, than men; and as there have been infant violinists, pianists, mimics and dancers, we see no reason why there should not be an infant rhythmist. A talent for versification may exist without a genius for poetry; and according to our own estimate of Mr PoE's abilities, his poetical constitution is nothing more than an aptitude for rhythm. We should judge as much, from reading his criticisms of poetry, which seem to have been written after a very thorough cramming of Blair's lectures and the essays of Lord Kames In several instances he has asserted that there cannot be such a thing as a didactic poem. This demolishes at one swoop about nine-tenths of what the world has heretofore considered the highest poetry. If we can glean any distinct meaning from Mr Poe's criticisms and verses, respecting his ideas of what constitutes a poem, it is this: a poem is a metrical composition without ideas. The Haunted Palace’ and other of his best performances were certainly composed upon such a principle; and the same might be said of many of his prose essays, words being the sole substance in them. One of the reasons which he gives for publishing the ‘poems written in youth’ is a ‘reference to the date of Tennyson's first poems’. Whether he means by this to clear his own or Tennyson's skirts from the taint of plagiarism, we do not understand. But we do not believe that anybody has ever dreamed of charging Mr Poe with imitating Tennyson in any of these ‘poems written in youth’. It will not be a very easy matter, however, for him to convince the readers of Tennyson that he did not draw largely upon that poet when he wrote ‘Lenore’. It is a much more palpable imitation than Longfellow's in his ‘Midnight Mass for the Dying Year’, which Mr Poe has made so much noise about. Mr Poe's tendency to extreme vagueness, which is the antipodes of poetical expression, shows itself plainly in the titles of his poems: one is addressed ‘To the River—’, as though there were something mighty private or naughty in his address to a running stream, which might compromise its character, if known. There are poems addressed ‘To —% which, according to our author's theory, is a highly poetical designation,‘—’ being hazy to the last extreme: there is a poem addressed ‘To F—’ and another ‘To F—s S. O —d’. This last is suggestive of a lady's name, Frances S. OSGOOD, and being a poetess herself, we extract the poem, both as a specimen of Mr Poe's matured powers, and of the kind of epistle which a poet sends to a poetess: Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being every thing which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love — a simple duty.