Edgar Allan Poe the Proto-Modernist

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Edgar Allan Poe the Proto-Modernist:
An argument on behalf of the inclusion
of Edgar Allan Poe into the
historiography of Modernism
By Stuart Kilmartin
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements of the degree of
English MA
2016

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Contents
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................. v
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................. vi
List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ vii
Preface ................................................................................................................................................. viii
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................1
(Mis)Interpretations of Poe.................................................................................................................1
Academic Criticism of Poe...................................................................................................................3
American & English Criticism ..........................................................................................................3
French Criticism...............................................................................................................................5
Modern Criticism.............................................................................................................................6
What is Modernism?...........................................................................................................................9
Chapter 1 – Time ..................................................................................................................................12
“How to Write a Blackwood Article (A Predicament)” .....................................................................15
“The Devil in the Belfry”....................................................................................................................18
“The Angel of the Odd”.....................................................................................................................21
“The Pit and the Pendulum” .............................................................................................................23
“The Bells”.........................................................................................................................................25
Concluding Remarks..........................................................................................................................28
Chapter 2 – Science vs Mythology .......................................................................................................29
“Sonnet – To Science”.......................................................................................................................32
“The Island of the Fay”......................................................................................................................34
“The Conqueror Worm”....................................................................................................................37
“Eldorado”.........................................................................................................................................39
Chapter 3 – The City.............................................................................................................................42
“The Man of the Crowd”...................................................................................................................45
“Doings of Gotham – Letter V” .........................................................................................................48
“The Domain of Arnheim” ................................................................................................................51
“Landor’s Cottage”............................................................................................................................54
Final Thoughts ......................................................................................................................................58
Bibliography .........................................................................................................................................60
Primary Sources ................................................................................................................................60

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Secondary Sources ............................................................................................................................62
Chronology of Texts .............................................................................................................................67

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For Niamh
Thank you for your unconditional love and support throughout this entire process

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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support and guidance of my supervisor Dr Muireann
O’Cinneide over the course of this entire process. I would not have been able to complete
this dissertation without her insightful direction at key junctures over the course of the past
few months. I would also like to thank Dr Clíodhna Carney for her assistance and help
throughout the entire academic year. I would not have arrived at my dissertation topic
without her.
I would also like to recognise the support of my father Neil Kilmartin. Without whom
I would not have had the opportunity to pursue my passions in life, nor would I have had the
backing to do this MA. For that I am eternally grateful.

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Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine a collection of the lesser known works
of Edgar Allan Poe in relation to three prevalent Modernist themes: fascination with time,
the conflict between science and mythology, and the urban metropolis. Modernist
historiography has thus far largely ignored the clear influence Edgar Allan Poe had on a
number of key Modernist artists and splinter movements. It is my hope that this work will
help illuminate the substantial impact of Poe’s work through close textual analysis of a
number of Poe’s forgotten texts.
The introduction examines misconceptions regarding Poe’s legacy, as well as
highlighting the colossal gap between academia of the English-speaking world, and French
academia. The introduction closes with a brief look at the meaning of Modernism, its
characteristics and definitions, particularly within the context of this work. Chapter one
begins with an explanation of the importance of time in relation to the Modernist movement
before it moves to examine Poe’s relationship with time through examination of a number of
his works. Chapters two and three take the same approach, but this time in relation to the
struggle between science and mythology, and the growth of the city respectively.
The dissertation concludes with the importance of recognising Poe’s massive
contribution to both the emergence and development of the Modernist movement in the late
nineteenth century, as well as acknowledging Poe as a key inciting proto-Modernist writer.

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List of Abbreviations
“How to Write a Blackwood Article” “HWBA”
“The Devil in the Belfry” “TDB”
“The Angel of the Odd” “TAO”
“The Pit and the Pendulum” “TPP”
“The Island of the Fay” “TIF”
“The Man of the Crowd” “TMC”
“Doings of Gotham – Letter V” “DGLV”
“The Domain of Arnheim” “TDA”

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Preface
When I first began to think methodically about the topic for my dissertation I found
myself trapped in a limbo regarding precisely what I wanted to do. I always knew that
nineteenth century Gothic literature, with its combination of horror, the uncanny, and erotica,
had been my primary literary passion throughout my academic life, and decided that that
would be the focus of my studies. Once I had contented myself that I had tackled all the
masterpieces of the genre, I began to think of issues and themes that had fixated in my mind
during my reading of these widely lauded texts. Though study and research I happened upon
various Edgar Allan Poe short stories which I had encountered during my undergraduate
degree. At this point my only intention was that further reading would expand my horizons
for a broader work on Gothic literature, not a dedicated work on Poe exclusively. However,
after reacquainting myself with some of Poe’s most famous work, I became convinced that an
emphasis on Poe’s work would be the path I would pursue. I soon arrived at a similar
problem as before: What would be the focus of the work? Through re-familiarisation with
Poe’s work I was engrossed by the repetition of the dying woman motif littered across much
of his work. I conceded that the sexualisation of death, specifically the death of a woman,
would be my topic of dissertation.
Beginning, as most students of Poe do, I began to read all the tales I was familiar
with, not only from my studies, but also from popular culture: “The Raven”, “William
Wilson”, etc. I found that, as I suspected, most of these dealt with the topic of death in some
way or another. However, as I read further and further into the volume, I began to encounter
texts that were unfamiliar to me; texts that did not seem to fit the mould of what I had been
led to believe Edgar Allan Poe was all about. Many of these texts, numerous as they are, did
not focus solely on death, mutilation, or nihilism; but rather centred on other issues, many of
which I found to be synonymous with the Modernist movement of the early twentieth

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century. The stylistic manner, in which Poe tackled these issues, resonated with me as being
distinctly Modernist in execution. Issues such as: urban anxiety, an awareness of the
changing state between science and mythology, and a consciousness of time, all featured
heavily in many of these stories. Being familiar with Modernism, I was fascinated by the
multitude of texts I encountered, of various styles and genres, which reflected many
Modernist anxieties prevalent during the movement’s peak at the beginning of the twentieth
century, the period commonly referred to as High Modernism. Seeing as many of those texts
that explored Modernist sensitivities were unfamiliar to wider audiences, myself included, I
decided to focus my efforts on the lesser known works of Poe, long neglected by academics,
and analyse them in connection with the Modernist movement. Wondering if the issue of Poe
and Modernism had been explored in any great detail unbeknownst to myself, I researched
articles such as Kevin Hayes’ “One-Man Modernist” and Louis A. Renza’s “Poe and the
Issue of American Privacy”; both of which engaged with Poe and Modernism in a manner
that was interesting and fresh; yet ripe for further exploration, particularly in close textual
analysis of Poe’s work. I decided to focus my efforts on three strands of Modernism which
resonated with me strongly: the urban experience, the fascination with time, and the conflict
between science and religion. All of this I decided upon in an effort to generate a new
understanding of Poe’s work, in keeping with recent academia relating to Poe; academia that
seeks to ride negative stereotypes from intellectual understanding pertaining to Poe’s work.
In fact, in light of my previous academic positioning, I feel a great responsibility to help
eradicate this popularised misinterpretation of Poe’s personae, since I was originally planning
on adding to the canon of academic works concerning Poe and death.

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Introduction
(Mis)Interpretations of Poe
What does one think of when they think of Edgar Allan Poe? Variations of mad
genius, alcoholic, pessimist, and Gothic icon, are probably the most common word
associations we have in today’s culture regarding the brilliant Edgar Allan Poe. But, why do
we associate Poe with ideas of insanity, an obsession with mortality, and Gothic culture?
This is a complicated question, with origins stretching from Poe’s time, and the manner in
which his work was received, right up to the present day, and the manner in which Poe, and
his work, is commonly portrayed in today’s media. However, it is not solely the problem of
popular culture that Poe’s work came to be regarded primarily in terms of death, mutilation,
and insanity. The common held stereotype regarding Poe as a man fascinated to the core
with the concept of mortality has evidence in many of his notable works, such as: “The
Raven” and “The Masque of the Red Death”, among others. In Poe’s own words: death,
particularly the death of a beautiful woman, was ‘unquestionably the most poetical topic in
the world’ (Poe, Philosophy). Is it any wonder then that Poe’s legacy has come to be
associated, solely, with his treatment of death. Many still believe that Poe had nothing of
substance to say about anything other than death, hence why the tales mentioned above are
probably among the most widely known, and among the most widely parodied in treatments
of Poe. One need only look at depictions of Poe in popular media, such as The Raven (2012),
in order to see this characterisation of Poe as a socially awkward melancholy individual
obsessed with death. This misinterpretation of Poe is one that the focus of this work will seek
to challenge, and hopefully help erode; shifting focus away from Poe’s treatment of death
onto other topics he widely discussed and engaged with. The primary concern of this work is

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to prove that not only did Poe engage with other literary themes, but that he acted as a
precursor to an entire literary movement – Modernism.

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Academic Criticism of Poe
American & English Criticism
For an author of such reputation and popularity, the work of Edgar Allan Poe has
largely been underexplored by “serious academics”, because of its alleged inferiority in the
wider sphere of “high literature”. Poe has long been relegated to a supporting role in the
canon of great English writers, considered suitable for juveniles only. T.S. Eliot, in his 1947
article “From Poe to Valéry”, describes Poe as a ‘minor’ (Eliot 329) in the canon of great
authors, while referring to his work as material which appeals to adolescents ‘at that period of
life when they were just emerging from childhood’ (Eliot 335). This sentiment is further
shared other prominent literary figures such as Henry James, who commented that ‘an
enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection’ (Regan 2), Ralph
Waldo Emerson, who mockingly referred to Poe as ‘the jingle man’ (McGann 2) and Robert
Browning who asserted, in relation to Poe, ‘There is poetry in the man, though, now and then
seen between the gaps of bathos’ (Meyers 187). Due in part to accounts such as these, Poe’s
reputation as a serious writer has never risen to the same literary heights as his notoriety in
pop culture, in which he often eclipses many of his more critically acclaimed contemporaries.
This lack of literary appreciation has left a large body of his work devoid of careful
consideration for its artistic merits, and wide range of subject matter. Academic criticism of
Poe in the English speaking world has been extremely unkind in scrutiny of his work, to the
point where a geographical fracture between French criticism and American/English criticism
has emerged since Poe’s death in 1849.
Criticism of Poe within the English speaking world has focused primarily on the
negative attributes of his writing. Even those academics who acknowledge Poe’s literary
achievements, nevertheless insist on degrading much of his work. Much of this criticism can

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be traced back to the initial reactions to Poe’s work. This negativity surrounding Poe is
saturated in the writings of Rufus Wilmot Griswold, whose scathing obituary following Poe’s
death helped consign his figure to a footnote in the canon of great authors for the subsequent
decades, while simultaneously spreading falsehoods about his life still present today:
He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in
indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers (never for
himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned)
(Griswold 299).
Griswold’s writings no doubt created an atmosphere of contempt, and even hatred,
when the name of Edgar Allan Poe arose in conversation. Indeed the vast majority of
academic work undertaken concerning Poe since his death has been skewed by this initial
response to his work. Floyd Stovall, while recognising Poe’s talent, still regards much of his
work as ‘trivial, artistically crude and often in bad taste’ (Stovall 174). Eliot considers Poe’s
work in a similar vain to Stovall, highlighting how academia regards Poe ‘as a man who
dabbled in verse and in several kinds of prose, without settling down to make a thoroughly
good job of either genre’ (Eliot 330). However, the majority of English-speaking academics
writing about Poe still acknowledge his talent in one way or another; Eliot, who appears
apprehensive to include Poe among the authors he considers direct influences upon his work,
nevertheless emphasises his ambiguity regarding Poe’s position among his own influences:
‘about Poe I shall never be sure’ (Eliot 327); and even Griswold referred to the first collection
of Poe’s poetry as ‘among the most wonderful exhibitions of the precocious developments of
genius’ (Griswold 296). There are those however, such as Laura Riding, who loath Poe’s
presence within the realm of distinguished academia. Riding heaps criticism on those who
write about Poe, more than the man himself, who she considered ‘plainly insignificant’
(Riding 93):

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The mystery is not Poe, but how Poe, with all the evidence we have had from
the beginning, ever came to be a legitimate literary subject at all with serious
readers and still more serious critics (Riding 95).
For Riding, the blame of Poe’s elevated standing within the sphere of academia rests solely
on the work of French academics, such as Charles Baudelaire, who plucked Poe from relative
obscurity, and positioned him as a key influential figure within European literature for the
following decades of the nineteenth century.
French Criticism
Poe’s prominence, and continued notoriety, in the realm of popular culture no doubt
owes significant debt to the work of French academics and intellectuals who saved Poe’s
work from oblivion in the decades preceding the author’s death. This has been one of the
most baffling mysteries regarding Poe’s position in the canon of great English writers; the
clear divide that has emerged between the worlds of French academia, and the academia of
the English speaking world. In trying to disclose the reasoning behind this gap in intellectual
understanding, T.S. Eliot proposes that the French favoured Poe because he was a poète
maudit (Eliot 337); a poet living on the fringes of civilised society. Certainly Charles
Baudelaire’s description of Poe as ‘a doomed alienated artist in a materialistic society’
(Baudelaire, Poe 404) seems to corroborate Eliot’s statement. But, could there be something
else that Baudelaire, and many of his contemporaries, saw in the character of Poe?
Baudelaire’s championing of Poe was not founded solely on his position as a poète maudi;
although that was most certainly a factor. Poe’s opposition to the materialistic nature of the
United States enshrined his personality as a martyr in artistry’s fight against materialism: ‘I
add a new saint to the holy army of martyrs’ (Baudelaire, Poe 405).

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Most accounts relating to the origins of Modernism refer to Baudelaire in some
manner as a founder, or facilitating force, in the formation of the movement; but I believe it is
through the work of Poe that Baudelaire initially became concerned with many of these
obsessions that would later form the creed of Modernism’s doctrine. The following passage
from Baudelaire expresses precisely what I am talking about:
All the documents I have studied strengthen me in the conviction that the
United States was for Poe only a vast prison through which he ran, hither and
thither, with feverish agitation of being created to breathe in a purer world
(Baudelaire, Poe 406).
Baudelaire’s description of Poe’s life in the United States being comparable to life in
shackles allies closely with the perceptions of Modernist writers in the early twentieth
century; a pervading sense of alienation in a world not suited to their particular perception
regarding the way the world should function; a perception that was in sharp contrast to the
dominating force of modernity.
Modern Criticism
So where has this long history of debate and disagreement within the world of academia left
criticism of Poe’s work? Well, surprisingly, the current state of academic criticism relating to
Poe’s work is varied, multifaceted, and complex. A movement away from previous areas of
study relating to Poe has transpired; what we are presented with now is a vast catalogue of
academic articles and books concerning Poe’s work in connection with a whole variety of
different topics and themes. The types of texts published within the last twenty years
pertaining to Poe’s work have been revolutionary in their intent to focus on aspects of his
work previously unchecked, or unnoticed by academics. We can see this in the publication of
books in recent years concerning Poe and racism: Romancing the Shadow: Poe and Race

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(2001); but also relating to Poe’s influence and impact in regions of the world previously
unexplored in academic studies, as is the case with Emron Esplin’s Borge’s Poe: The
Influence and Reinvention of Edgar Allan Poe in Spanish America (2016). Both of these
texts, in their introductions, acknowledge the fact that their respective subject matter appears
unusual on the surface, in that Poe’s name is seldom thrown around in conversations relating
to race or Spanish literature. Yet, these stereotypes and preconceptions regarding Poe’s life,
his influence, and his literature, are exactly the kind of biases these respective texts seek to
corrode through their research. In the introduction to Romancing the Shadow, Co-editors J.
Gerald Kennedy and Lilliane Weissberg highlight how Poe’s name is unlikely to feature in
academic studies in relation to racism in American literature: ‘While Edgar Allan Poe seems
at first glance an unlikely figure around whom to organize a discussion of race and racism in
our national culture’ (xii); and yet, Poe’s effect on early American representations of African-
American slaves is crucially important in the illustrations of marginalised peoples in
American fiction; a fact that Toni Morrison emphasises in Playing in the Dark (1992): ‘No
early American writer is more important to the concept of American Africanism than Poe’
(Morrison 32).
Similarly, Esplin explores the fact that despite the widespread popularity and impact of Poe’s
writings in Spanish America, academia has spearheaded its focus to discussions pertaining to
Poe and his connection to French literature through Baudelaire. Esplin’s text explores the
far-reaching influence of Poe’s writings outside of American, English, or French literary
spheres: ‘No other U.S. writer has enjoyed the same level of influence on and affinity with
Spanish American letters for such a lengthy time period as Edgar Allan Poe’ (Esplin 1).
Particular attention must also be paid to the work done by The Poe Studies Association, who,
since 1972, have published articles detailing Poe’s effect on a wide variety of different
academic fields, and the publication of The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe

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(2002), which contained numerous articles concerning Poe and issues of aesthetics, humour,
race-relations, etc. These two publications highlight the changing tide in relation to academic
studies of Poe; gone is the pigeon-holing of Poe’s work into discussions of mortality and
women. Vicki Hester and Emily Segir’s article from The Poe Studies Association, “Edgar
Allan Poe: “The Black Cat” and Current Forensic Psychology”, examines the psychopathic
tendencies and cerebral rational of the text’s narrator through the lens of modern
psychological thinking and scientific thought. Joseph Meyer’s article, “The Marian
Aesthetics of Edgar Allan Poe”, examines the moderately untouched topic of Poe and
religion, by probing visons of the Virgin Mary in two of Poe’s lesser discussed texts:
“Morella” and “Hymn”. Similarly, the work of The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan
Poe has brought attention to Poe’s aesthetics, in the case of Rachel Polonsky’s “Poe’s
Aesthetic Theory”, or Poe’s science fiction, in John Tresch’s “Poe invents science fiction”.
The doors of discussion have been opened, and Poe’s work is free to dissect from all manner
of angles. It is from this current wave of unrestricted academic thought that I pursue the topic
of Poe and Modernism; a field glimpsed at by other academics, yet never probed in great
detail.

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What is Modernism?
Before we look at Poe’s work in the context of Modernism, it is imperative that we
take a moment to address an obvious question: What is Modernism? Michael Levenson
emphasises in the opening chapter of his text, Modernism (2000), that ‘no book on
Modernism can ever be ambitious enough; there will always be much more to say and to
write’ (Levenson 11). Modernism is fluid; it is constantly changing and evolving, despite the
fact that many consider the phenomenon a relic of the early twentieth century. Indeed,
because of Modernism’s loose definition, it is difficult to create a definite canon of authors.
Difficulties inevitably arise in discussions on Modernism when you decide upon a certain
date as to when the movement began.
Peter Childs contests that there are two ways of situating the Modernist phenomenon.
The first postulates that Modernism is a time bound concept, beginning in the late 1800’s,
and ending before the Second World War. This line of thought seems to be the most widely
accepted version of Modernism’s history, shared by many academics, including David
Bradshaw. Indeed, most books on Modernism focus intensely, if not exclusively, on works
produced during this period of High Modernism. The second method of situating
Modernism, Childs identifies as a timeless concept; whereby Modernism has no discernible
beginning, and no foreseeable conclusion. For the focus of this work, Modernism will be
viewed as a timeless phenomenon, since many of its ideas are universal, regardless of the
author’s position in history. I do however concede that Modernism was most prevalent
during the early part of the twentieth century with writers such as T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats,
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, among others, who brought Modernism into the
mainstream, and facilitated a boom in new and experimental literature. Looking at
Modernism as a timeless concept, our scope for including authors is extended beyond the

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limitations of a defined period of time. Utilising this timeless view of Modernism, we can
insert Poe into the canon of proto-Modernist figures who paved the way for others, like Joyce
and Eliot, by laying the foundation for their artistic revolution. Consideration of Poe as a
proto-Modernist is not an idea I claim to have fashioned. Many recent academic works on
Poe tend to consider him a precursor author for many of the ideas Modernist writers would
later extrapolate and explore during the early twentieth century. Michael Levenson, on the
origins of the Modernist movement, cites Poe as a potential ancestor of Modernist writers of
the twentieth century: ‘We look back to Edgar Allan Poe’ (Levenson 1) as a possible
progenitor of the movement. Kevin Hayes, similarly, highlights the connections between
Poe’s writing in the eighteen forties, and its effect on artists in the early twentieth century.
Hayes’ article, “One-Man Modernist”, tracks the influence of Poe across a wide range of
literary and artistic movements from the middle of the nineteenth century until the period of
High Modernism: ‘for major figures in virtually every artistic movement since the mid-
nineteenth century have conveyed their indebtedness to Poe in word and image’ (Hayes 225).
Now that we have established, within the confines of this work, Modernism as a
timeless concept, in that its consideration for inclusion stretches beyond the High Modernism
of the nineteen twenties, it is imperative to examine the criteria for what makes a novel,
painting, or poem, distinctly Modernist? Modernism can best be defined by one of its most
influential figures, Ezra Pound, and his assertion to “make it new”. This statement of intent
to “make new” implies an older model to be superseded; these models to be surpassed were
the artistic modes of representation in the nineteenth century, specifically Realism and
Romanticism. Child’s definition of Modernism is inclusive, if rather vague; regarding what
constitutes a Modernist text, Child’s states:
It is experimental, formally complex, elliptical, contains elements of
decreation as well as creation, and tends to associate notions of the artist’s

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freedom from realism, materialism, traditional genre and form, with notions of
cultural apocalypse and disaster (2)
The vagueness of Child’s definition is part of the point of Modernism; it is not meant
to be rigid and unyielding, rather audacious and daring.
For the purpose of this work, I am choosing three key themes prevalent across a
number of key works from the High Modernist period: The urban experience, fascination
with time, and the conflict between science and superstition. In choosing these topics, I am
not declaring that they are philosophical imperatives of Modernist writing, nor that a failure
to engage with these themes discounts an author, or a text, from being considered Modernist.
Analysing these topics in connection with Poe’s writing will hopefully help elevate Poe’s
reputation as a proto-Modernist figure, who foresaw the emergence of the movement, from as
early as the eighteen forties. Indeed Kevin Hayes cites a quote from painter Robert
Motherwell, who referred to Poe as a “One-Man Modernist”. While he states that
Motherwell doesn’t elaborate on this statement any further, he ‘seems to have been
suggesting that Poe had taken an avant-garde approach in his work that anticipated modern
art’ (Hayes 225). As we have now moved into, what Marjorie Perloff refers to as, a
revisionist period within the historiography of Modernism (154), the current realm of
academia has begun to loosen its tight-knit canon of key Modernist texts and authors, leading
to the inclusion of other notable texts and authors in the canon and history of Modernism. It
is here, at the cusp of entry, that we find the figure of Edgar Allan Poe currently positioned;
acknowledged as a possible purveyor of Modernist aesthetics and ideologies; yet not widely
accepted as a proto-Modernist figure.

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Chapter 1 – Time
The first theme of Modernism pervasive across a large body of Poe’s catalogue that I
have chosen to examine is: the Modernist fascination with the concept of Time, coupled with
the presence of the clock as an omniscient fixture prevalent across numerous key Modernist
texts, including: Wallace Steven’s “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” and Virginia Woolf’s
To the Lighthouse. All of these texts engage with the theme of time from a distinctly
different position from the Realist authors of the nineteenth century. Time, for Modernist
writers, was a threat against personal freedom, a controlling presence in an automated world,
a great hindrance to mankind’s pursuit of eternal happiness. But, why was time such a
contentious issue for these Modernist writers? What had changed that made the concept of
fleeting time a frightening phenomenon? What was it about time that made Modernist
writers, to quote Georg Lukács, indulge in ‘the wildest of orgies’ (78) regarding the
understanding and representation of time? Well, there are a number of factors which led
Modernist writers to a position of questioning, and challenging, the definiteness of time, as
the movement swiftly gathered momentum, including: the widespread implementation of
Greenwich Mean Time after the International Meridian Conference in 1884, the publication
of H.G. Well’s The Time Machine (1895), and the introduction of Fordism in the early
twentieth century. Perhaps the most important change that stirred the public imagination
during the period of Modernism’s growth was the publication of Einstein’s Theory of Spatial
Relativity in 1905, which concluded that time was not definite, but relative to ones position in
space. The previously held belief which regarded time as a static, unvarying, unchangeable
force of nature, governed by the mechanised workings of the clock, dissipated from the finite
laws of nature. However, before any of these occurrences transpired, Poe had already
engaged with many of these ideas, in some shape or form. The Modernist conceptualisation
of time was no doubt influenced by Poe’s writings. As everything changed for mankind, and

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our understanding of time forever altered, Poe’s words rang truer than ever for writers who
saw the similarities and connections between Poe’s characterisation of time, and the reality of
time in the early twentieth century.
The impact of Einstein’s revolutionary discovery inspired the imaginations of millions
of individuals, none more so than Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who, in 1909,
declared on behalf of the Futurist movement, that ‘Time and Space died yesterday’ (Marinetti
3). Marinetti’s claim was predicated on the belief that mankind, through immense
technological advancement, now controlled the properties of time. In the Futurist Manifesto,
he declares: ‘We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal,
omnipresent speed’ (3); declaring mankind’s domination over time. However, the idea of
mankind controlling time was coupled with another debate among other Modernists: The
extent to which time controlled us. The influential writings of Henri Bergson, particularly
Time and Free Will (1889), were widely debated and influential among Modernist writers of
the period. Bergson’s writings led the manner of time’s depiction to become of paramount
importance to the movement: ‘how time is analysed or represented was a cornerstone of
modernist culture’ (Gilles 101). Thus, extending outwards from this quote, which regards
time as a pillar of Modernist ideology, I will examine the works of Edgar Allan Poe through
this Modernist understanding of time.
Despite the fact that a number of Poe’s texts deal with the presence of the clock,
whether explicitly or implicitly, there exists a distinct lack of widespread academic
examination regarding this topic; the exception being Jean-Paul Weber’s “Edgar Poe or The
Theme of the Clock”, published in 1967. In fact, during the opening of this piece, Weber
highlights the scarce absence of attention paid to Poe’s use of clocks, and proceeds to rectify
that through a thorough examination of a number of Poe’s texts. Weber comments on how
‘Poe was haunted by the terrifying and prodigious presence of the clock which he confronted

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everywhere’ (Weber 81). The constant presence of the clock, from the schoolyard to the
church, was an unforgettable fixture during Poe’s youth, extending to adulthood, which
clearly had an influencing effect on his writing, particularly during his later years. This
section will build upon Weber’s analysis, with a critical look at five of Poe’s more obscure
texts relating to the theme of time and the clock. The focus of this section will be on a
careful examination of “How to Write a Blackwood Article (A Predicament)” (“HWBA”),
“The Devil in the Belfry” (“TDB”), “The Angel of the Odd” (“TAO”), “The Pit and the
Pendulum” (“TPP”), and “The Bells”. These texts all engage with the concept of time in a
manner befitting a text from the period of High Modernism.

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“How to Write a Blackwood Article (A Predicament)”
Let us first begin with an analysis of one of Poe’s most bizarre stories, “HWBA”, and
its paired companion piece, “A Predicament”. The stories in question were originally
published in 1838 under the titles of “The Psyche Zenobia”, and “The Scythe of Time”,
respectively. They did not appear under their current titles under 1840, when Poe revised and
retitled the two pieces into the state they appear in today. These stories are leading examples
of Poe’s satirical capacity, and parodic aptitude; particularly in the treatment of artistic
inspiration, and the “how to” formula of writing in “HWBA”, where the protagonist, Signora
Psyche Zenobia, is advised to kill herself in order to analyse the sensations of the experience,
to which she replies ‘Here I assured him I had an excellent pair of garters, and would go and
hang myself forthwith’ (Poe, Complete 272). The second part of the story, “A Predicament”,
marvels in its parodic handling of Gothic sensationalist fiction prevalent during the early
nineteenth century in Britain and the United States. Here, returning protagonist, Signora, is
decapitated by the dials of a gigantic clock, and yet retains the ability to think and speak,
while her headless body wanders aimlessly animate. Due to the peculiar nature of the story,
it is difficult to discern what Poe intended to be taken literally, or what was intended to be
ironic, parodic, or satiric. For the purpose of this work, I will be focusing on the second
chapter of Signora’s story, “A Predicament”. On a literal level, the story concerns Signora,
accompanied by her servant, Pompey, and her poodle, Diana, as they travel up a clock tower
into the belfry. Signora proceeds to stick her head through the mechanical clock in an effort
to look out over the city of Edinburgh, at which point the dials of the clock severe her head.
However, when we begin to look at the story from a Modernist standpoint, various details
and imagery illuminates before us. For starters, Signora begins her travels, in true Modernist
fashion, with a ‘solitary walk through the city’ (Poe, Complete 277). Signora’s lonesome

16
wandering through a large city is very reminiscent of numerous Modernist texts; however,
this section will focus exclusively on the treatment of the clock throughout the piece.
The clock present in the story is located upon a Gothic cathedral ‘with a tall steeple,
which towered into the sky’ (Poe, Complete 278), instantly affiliating the clock with a divine
other-worldliness; a tactic Poe employs similarly in a number of his other texts, such as:
“TDB”, and “TPP”. This association between the clock and some kind of divine power, or
celestial authority, is further cemented in Signora’s description of the clock tower, which she
refers to as ‘A vast quantity of wheels, pinions, and other cabalistic-looking machinery’ (Poe,
Complete 279). The key word which stands out from the description above is cabalistic; a
word which denotes an air of mystery, or secrecy; but the word also refers to cabala, or
Kabbalah, a school of thought within the Jewish faith which stresses the presence of fixed
laws governing the nature of the material world, in much the same way as the clock, through
its unwavering repetition, governs the nature of the world of modernity. Signora, upon
gazing out over the city, as the clock does, is overtaken by an aura of supremacy:
I observed also, with surprise, the immense size of these hands, the longest of
which could not have been less than ten feet in length, and, where broadest,
eight or nine inches in breadth. They were solid steel apparently, and their
edges appeared to be sharp. Having noticed these particulars, and some
others, I again turned my eyes upon the glorious prospect below, and soon
became absorbed in contemplation. (Poe, Complete 280)
She begins to feel the power the clock has in our world, as it surveys the landscape of the
city, like an all-seeing spotlight, in a fashion similar to the personified figure of Death in
“The City in the Sea”: ‘While from a proud tower in the town / Death looks gigantically
down’ (Poe, Complete 53). The imagery used by Poe in “A Predicament” to describe the
clock is eerily similar to the language he uses to describe Death’s throne in “The City in the
Sea”; allying the concept of time with the presence of an otherworldly phantom, who towers
above the world of mankind. Going back to the story’s publication history mentioned above,

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it is significant to note that this section of the story was originally published under the title
“The Scythe of Time”. A title that denotes the aggressiveness of time, but also brings to
mind, at least for me, the idea of the dials of the clock being Time’s choice of weapon; similar
to the hammer of Thor, or the lightning bolt of Zeus. Time is the deity of the new world, and
the clock is his weapon of judgement.

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“The Devil in the Belfry”
Continuing on from the discussion of the clock functioning as Time’s preferred
weapon of choice in subjugating mankind, we find ourselves at the Dutch town of
Vonderwotteimittis, the centre of action in “TDB”, where the clock, more obviously than in
“A Predicament” assumes the position of Time’s hypnotic weapon of control. The story’s
epigraph ‘What o’clock is it?’ (Poe, Complete 284), instantly establishes our expectations for
the kind of story we will encounter; a story concerned with time, and mankind’s fascination
with keeping track of it. The story was initially published in 1839 with the subtitle “An
Extravaganza”, which would be removed from the text when it was republished the following
year in 1840. This is an important detail worth keeping in mind, especially when it comes
time to discuss “TAO”, and the argument for pairing these texts together. The story of
“TDB” concerns the travels of an unnamed protagonist, who journeys to ‘the finest place in
the world’ (Poe, Complete 284), the Dutch town of Vonderwotteimittiss, where the
inhabitants live religiously by the ticking of a large clock with seven faces that watches over
the citizens from the ‘steeple of the House of the Town-Council’ (Poe, Complete 286). The
story, while told in a humorous and light-hearted manner, examines the serious consequences
of mankind’s reliance time for structuring and purposing our lives. Vonderwotteimittiss,
much like the Modernist world of the early twentieth century, perceives itself as paradise,
devoid of problems; yet, its citizens are oblivious to the fact that their town is, essentially,
structured like a panopticon prison, with the belfry-man serving as the guard, while Time
embodies the position of the warden. This method of control is accomplished under a guise,
without the townspeople’s knowledge concerning their imprisonment at all.
Let us examine Poe’s description of the town in order to see if one could perceive it
ala Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon design. The town is described as having ‘sixty little

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houses’ (Poe, Complete 285) separated from the clock in the centre of the town by a distance
of ‘sixty yards’ (Poe, Complete 285), representing the sixty minutes constituting one hour,
while all gardens are adorned with ‘a circular path, a sun-dial, and twenty-four cabbages’
(Poe, Complete 285); all three have connotations to time, from the circular nature of watch, to
the sun-dial’s measurement of time, to the twenty-four cabbages representing the twenty-four
hours of the day. The authoritarian nature of Time’s control of the town is best exemplified
in the town’s resolutions, which highlight that ‘That there is nothing tolerable out of
Vondervotteimittiss’ (Poe, Complete 287) and ‘That we will stick by our clocks and our
cabbages’ (Poe, Complete 287). The clock has stood at the centre of the town since its
inception; it has existed ‘time out of mind’ (Poe, Complete 287) for its citizens. The citizens
cannot remember a time when the great dials of the clock did not strike rhythmically on the
hour. They live in blissful ignorance of their dependence on the clock; they all keep at least
one eye ‘resolutely bent upon a certain remarkable object in the center of the plain’ (Poe,
Complete 286). The presence of the clock, and its tedious ticking, is observed by the citizens
as pious devotees of a religion, where the belfry-man, much like the priest, ‘is the most
perfectly respected of any man in the world’ (Poe, Complete 287), and the coming of the hour
is greeted by its ‘obedient followers’ (Poe, Complete 287) with ‘absolute and pre-eminent
necessity’ (Poe, Complete 288).
The nature of the townspeople’s reliance on the clock is only exposed after the arrival
of the ‘diminutive foreign-looking young man’ (Poe, Complete 287) who sabotages the
clock’s rhythmic progression which keeps the citizens of the town regimented. Once the
“devil”, who has not ‘the remotest idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time’ (Poe,
Complete 288), enters the belfry and subdues the belfry-man, he proceeds to topple the
monotonous nature of the clock’s control over the people by showing them that time, which
the people believed to be an unchangeable force of nature, is in fact adjustable, leading the

20
inhabitants of Vondervotteimittiss to fly into a ‘lamentable state of uproar’ (Poe, Complete
289). Looking at the story from this perspective, the figure of the “devil” is transformed into
a saviour figure, akin to the character of Freder from the Modernist film Metropolis (1927),
who heroically attempts to speed up the dials of the factory’s clock in an futile effort to free
his fellow workers from laborious ten-hour shifts. Georg Lukács describes the nature of time
as a ‘remorseless machine which flattens, levels and destroys all personal plans and wishes,
all singularity, personality itself’ (Lukács 79), and this is certainly the image we are presented
with in Poe’s tale: a town consumed by the worshipping of a clock lacks individuality or
freedom, it is in essence – a prison. Thus, the “devil” of the title is the hero of the story,
desiring to free mankind from the callous nature of Time’s hold on the individual, much to
the distain of the narrator, who adulates Time’s careful management of the world, and aspires
for the return of Time’s control:
Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust, and now
appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and fine kraut. Let us proceed in a
body to the borough, and restore the ancient order of things in
Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little fellow from the steeple (Poe,
Complete 290).

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“The Angel of the Odd”
Building upon the discussion relating to “TDB”, and the efforts of the “devil” to free
the town of Vondervotteimittiss from the control of the clock, we move now to “TAO”, a
story I believe can function as a companion piece to “TDB”, in much the same way that
“HWBA” and “A Predicament” are paired together. As I mentioned earlier, “TDB” was
originally published with a subtitle “An Extravaganza”; a throwaway fact if it were not for
that same subtitle appearing on “TAO”, four years after it was removed from “TDB”. I
believe that Poe was far too intelligent for this to be merely a coincidence, and since Poe,
throughout the last decade of his life, was re-examining some of his previous work, the
appearance of “An Extravaganza” on “TAO” is a clue for us, the reader, to see the parallels
between this tale, and the happenings of Vondervotteimittis.
The narrative of “TAO” is similar to “TDB” in a number of ways. Firstly: it concerns
an individual(s)’s life regimented by a clock; secondly: it features an outside figure liberating
the captive(s) from the clutches of Time; and thirdly: it is told in a humorous and farcical
manner which inhibits our ability to properly grasp Poe’s true intent. The story concerns an
unnamed narrator who lives a dull and boring life, adhering unbendingly by the turning hands
of the clock, much like the citizens of Vondervotteimittiss. The narrator’s life is controlled
by the movements of his clock. All of his daily undertakings are dictated by ‘glancing
upward at the clock on the mantel-piece’ (Poe, Complete 662). This is highlighted best after
the narrator’s first encounter with the “angel”, during which he recounts his forthcoming
schedule, ‘It was half-past five; I could easily walk to the insurance office in five minutes;
and my usual siestas had never been known to exceed five and twenty’ (Poe, Complete 662).
The narrator’s life is dictated by his clock until the arrival of the “angel”, who frees
the narrator from Time’s clasp. After the symbolic destruction of Time’s hold over the

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narrator, ‘the demolition of the crystal which protected the dial of the clock upon the mantel-
piece’ (Poe, Complete 661), the narrator’s life is suddenly infused with excitement and
unconventionality, characteristically opposed to his usual state of affairs. Although the
narrator loathes the new state of his life, in which he misses an insurance appointment, his
house burns down, he fails to secure two separate marriage proposals, and his suicide attempt
is thwarted by the appearance of a bird, he is, if nothing else, free from the regimented
control that his clock has precipitated. Once the “angel” reappears, he asks the narrator if he
now believes in oddities and haphazardness, to which the narrator reluctantly agrees; but,
once the narrator fails to commit to the demands of the “angel”, he cuts him loose, releasing
him back into the previous state of his being, realising that the man had not changed at all.
Sure enough, the “angel” was correct; the narrator returns to his house, and he immediately
checks for the reassuring and comforting presence of the clock: ‘Upon coming to my sense
(for the fall had very thoroughly stunned me). I found it about four o’clock in the morning’
(Poe, Complete 666). The narrator, much like the narrator of “TDB” who laments the loss of
conformity within the town after the arrival of the “devil”, fails to see the error of his ways in
abiding by the rule of the clock. The enlightenment which the “angel” affords the narrator is
wasted by an individual who fails to perceive the prison to which he is an inmate. Therefore,
we can view the “devil” in “TDB”, and the “angel” in “TAO”, as forewarning figures,
attempting to reveal the true face of the world to its inhabitants, but to no avail. Much like
world of modernity in the early twentieth century, which refused to acknowledge the impact
that changing technological advancements were having on the individual, so too do the
inhabitants of Vondervotteimittiss, and the narrator of “TAO”, fail to see the oppressive and
restrictive world in which they live in, regulated tyrannically by the hands of Time.

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“The Pit and the Pendulum”
Keeping in mind the idea of mankind failing to perceive the true nature of Time’s
totalitarian control, coupled with the confrontation with the reality of time that Poe affords
his protagonists, giving them the tools to see through the membrane of Time’s imprisonment,
we move to a perfect visualisation of this reality, in the form of “TPP”; a story which
actualises the previously discussed idea of Time possessing a weapon, which he uses to
control mankind’s free will. The following discussion is a departure from the previous texts
examined, in that “TPP” is generally considered one of Poe’s “better” works by academics,
and certainly features more prominently in critical works on Poe than some of the other texts
that I have selected. Despite my insistence on focusing on the lesser known works of Poe, I
found it unavoidable to discuss Poe’s treatment of time without referencing one of Poe’s most
time centric texts. Whereas some of the other texts that have been discussed allude to Time’s
control over their lives, “TPP” openly examines a scenario where the figure of Time, literally,
has the life of the protagonist in his hands. As has been previously stated, Poe’s depiction of
Time controlling our lives is often comparable to life in a prison; such is the case in “TDB”.
“TPP” openly presents us with a prison setting, with Time reigning as sovereign over the
narrator’s world isolated within four walls:
Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some thirty or
forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side walls. In one of its
panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention. It was the painted
figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he
held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge
pendulum, such as we see on antique clocks. (Poe, Complete 449)
These few sentences are flooded with time related imagery consistent with the other stories
discussed, particularly in the manner of Time’s depiction as an overlord presiding over the
realm of man. Whereas the presence of the figure of Time is elusive and symbolic in the
other stories, in this story, every ticking, every tolling, registers with the narrator as he

24
watches the gigantic pendulum swing back and forth. Despite the narrator’s awareness of
Time’s authority over his life, he still, much like the protagonists of “TDB” and “TAO”,
refuses to abandon the careful management of his own time, ‘It might have been half an hour,
perhaps even an hour (for I could take but imperfect note of time)’ (Poe, Complete 449).
The entire scenario is quite similar to other stories discussed: Time reigns supreme
over a world where the inhabitants worship him; yet, while the inhabitants of the other stories
remained ignorant, or oblivious, of Time’s controlling presence, the twist in this tale is that
the narrator is acutely aware of Time’s control, since he is confronted with the reality of the
movement of time, in the form of the pendulum’s gyrations; and yet he continues to adhere to
its demands. One can look at the setting of “TPP” as a microcosm of the Modernist world of
the early twentieth century, which was beginning to emerge during Poe’s era, with Time
occupying the position of a deity, the prison cell representing the slime and filth of the
modern city, and the rats symbolising the greedy capitalists that have overrun the world.
Looking at the story in this manner, the pit comes to embody change, or revolution; change
from Time’s control, change from the modern city, and change from the capitalist system.
Yet, much like mankind’s fear of revolution, the pit, and the potential change it embodies, is
what frightens the narrator above all else: ‘the pit, whose horrors had been destined for so
bold a recusant as myself – the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule
of all their punishments’ (Poe, Complete 449). The unknowability of the pit is what alarms
the narrator more so than the relentless swinging of the pendulum. In much the same way
that the monotony of the clock eases mankind’s anxieties and reservations through stability,
so too does the clock inspire fear concerning an alternative method of being, leading the
narrator, much like those characters previously discussed, to be content under Time’s
established world order.

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“The Bells”
Following on from the “TPP”, and the reality of Time’s control over the individual’s
life, we turn our attention to one of Poe’s greatest poems: “The Bells”; a poem that explores
how time is a controlling force in our lives. In much the same way that the other texts
explored Time’s control over an individual, or individuals, “The Bells” exposes the reality of
time as a regulatory force over all of us; dividing our lives into quarters, with each stanza of
the poem representing fifteen minute periods, comprising one hour, which tracks the
trajectory of any one life, until that moment when the hour changes, and your life is no more.
The poem is seldom discussed in serious academia relating to Poe, presumably because of its
apparent inferiority in comparison to Poe’s short stories, which compose the bulk of primary
texts utilised in academic discussions relating to Poe’s work. Indeed, Poe biographer Jeffrey
Meyers referred to “The Bells” as a ‘mechanical, onomatopoeic, forced tour-de-force’ (193).
The poem is about the same length as “The Raven”, within Poe’s one hundred lines rule on
poetry, and is heavily onomatopoeic as Meyers states; however, whereas Meyers finds this
onomatopoeic mechanical style forced, I see it as a deliberate choice by Poe in order to ally
the bells with the ticking of the clock, serving as a reminder of the passing of time. The
tolling of the bells in the poem at critical junctures in our lives recalls the persistent passing
of time, of which no individual is spared. Poe reminds the reader throughout the poem of the
passing of time, both within the context of the poem, as the ‘mellow wedding bells’ (Poe,
Complete 79) are replaced by ‘tolling of the bells - / Iron bells!’ (Poe, Complete 80), but also
in the repetition of ‘bells’ and ‘time’ again and again throughout, reminding the reader that
real-world time is passing as they read the poem aloud.
The poem emphasises how the significant moments of our lives are signalled by the
tolling of different bells, with each bell’s metal element representing different stages in our

26
lives: silver representing youth, gold embodying adulthood, brass expressing old age, and
iron symbolling death. Thus, the tolling of each bell plots a course in all our lives, and when
we hear the tolling of the final bell we know our time has come. The bells, much like the
clock in “TDB” and “TAO”, have become the deity of the people:
They are Ghouls: –
And their king it is who tolls: –
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls
A Pæan from the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme, (Poe, Complete 81)
In other words, the bells occupy the position of monarch, reigning over the realm of man,
tracking the trajectory of his life, just as the angels in Poe’s “The Conqueror Worm” ‘Sit in a
theatre, to see / A play of hopes and fears,’ (Poe, Complete 64).
Despite T.S. Eliot’s doggedness regarding Poe’s direct influence on him, it is difficult
to read Eliot’s magnum opus The Waste Land, and not be reminded of Poe’s “The Bells”.
From a purely visual standpoint, the poems are very similar in terms of indentation, the use of
sectioning, and repetition of certain words or phrases. In the case of The Waste Land, the
repetition of the phrase ‘HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME’ (Eliot, The Waste Land)
throughout Section II “A Game of Chess”, and in the case of “The Bells”, the persistent
echoing of ‘Keeping time, time, time, / In a sort of Runic rhyme,’ (Poe, Complete 81).
Throughout Eliot’s poem, as in Poe’s, the repetition of that particular phrase draws the
reader’s attention to the passage of time, of which both poems are gravely concerned. If one
needed further convincing that Poe was an influencing factor on the formation of The Waste
Land, they need look no further than Section V “What The Thunder Said”, where Eliot
describes how ‘tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours’ (Eliot, The Waste Land) monitor

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the passing of time, in exactly the same way as the ‘tolling of the bells’ (Poe, Complete 81) in
Poe’s poem catalogues and follows key moments of our lives. I feel that in rejecting to
acknowledge Poe’s influence upon himself, Eliot is simply continuing a long standing
American tradition of bashing Poe needlessly; because it is clearly obvious, even in Eliot’s
inconclusiveness, that Poe had a clear and direct effect on the composition of, conceivably,
the greatest piece of Modernist literature ever composed. For that reason alone Poe deserves
to be acknowledged as an early precursor of the Modernist movement.

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Concluding Remarks
Concluding this discussion relating to Poe’s engagement with the theme of passing
time, and the control of Time, in a manner which is reminiscent of Modernist writing, I feel it
necessary to state once more, that Poe’s writings predate the influential events at the end of
the nineteenth century by some fifty years; Poe’s texts precede Einstein’s theory of relativity,
along with Wells’ The Time Machine. The impression we get from Poe’s tales concerns a
great threat to mankind’s freedom; a threat not yet understood by those who are subservient
to it. Adherence to the dominating force that is Time is presented by Poe as religious
dedication to a power that masks the reality of its presence. In all the texts discussed, we are
presented with scenarios controlled by the relentless authority of Time, from the clock
controlling the citizens of Vondervotteimittiss, to the bells beckoning the trajectory of life;
everywhere, Time is meticulously surveying our lives. Poe’s intent as author, like the “angel”
and the “devil”, is to shine a light on the problem of mankind’s reliance on time for structure
and purpose; revealing it to the masses; a problem, which, during Poe’s own time, was not
perceived as problematic at all. However, when we position Poe’s debate regarding time in
the context of Modernist studies, it suddenly becomes clearer, and more manageable in terms
of engagement. Poe’s interpretations are better suited to Modernism, where sensitivity to
time is a dominant topic of artistic stimulation.

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Chapter 2 – Science vs Mythology
‘At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind’ (Marinetti
1); a proclamation declared by The Futurist Manifesto in 1909, underlining a fundamental
change of thought that occurred during the early twentieth century as scientific advancement
replaced all other forms of explanation in society; diminishing, or indeed abolishing, the
reputations of older institutions of thought, such as: religion and myth. The modern world of
the early twentieth century had done much to obliterate the myths, superstitions, and
occultism, characteristic of mankind’s previous millennia of existence, principally through
technological advancement and scientific discovery, highlighted by Tim Armstrong, who
cites the ‘abolition of superstition and the mastery of nature’ (2) as one of the primary creeds
for the burgeoning state of modernity. However, the cost of this new world order, with
science perched atop the pinnacle of human ingenuity, was the loss of inspiration, the
mysterious, and the unknowable, that had inspired generations of artists since the dawn of
civilisation. André Breton, in his Surrealist Manifesto, counters the assertions of the Futurists
who championed the loss of myth; he emphasises the role of myth for artistry, by stating that
the desire for explanation has dulled our brains (7), and that science has precipitated a
catastrophic decline in human imagination. In a passionate cry for the return of mythological
wonders to the world, he testifies:
Under the flag of civilisation, accompanied by the spirit of progress, we have
managed to banish from the spirit everything that might rightly or wrongly be
termed superstition, fancy, forbidding any kind of research into the truth
which does not conform to accepted practice (7)
Breton’s zealous cry of tolerance for the mythological wonders of the past to remain in the
bustling world of the modern was a cry echoed by many of his contemporaries, particularly
within the Modernist movement, such as Yeats and Eliot.

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Modernism’s insistence on the lasting presence of mythology in the modern world
was, at least partially, precipitated by a belief that scientific practice could not, and never
could, accurately explain the condition of man, and his place in the wider cosmos. Peter
Childs explains how Modernism is sceptical of the natural world being explained through
scientific practice: ‘mathematics, the purest science, does not adequately represent the world’
(9). In the introductory chapter to Laura Riding’s book, editors Laura Heffernan and Jane
Malcolm discuss the changing landscape of the nineteenth century, where suddenly science
and mythology came to loggerheads, as ‘scientific empiricism began to take precedence and
to popularize the false idea that all life might be measured and known’ (xiv). Whereas
previously, science and myth lived side by side in relative harmony; the outset of the
nineteenth century, in a post-Enlightenment era, brought these juxtaposed beliefs into direct
opposition with one another for control of the public’s imagination. Thus, the Modernists of
the twentieth century took it upon themselves to reclaim the ability to explore and explain the
ways of the world, devoid of the microscope, utilising myth and legend, as had been the case
for artists in centuries gone by.
But how does Poe feature into this debate? Poe was well acquainted with the conflict
between science and mythology, primarily due to the fact that the conflict’s origins, as
mentioned above, can be traced back to the Enlightenment period of the late eighteenth
century. Poe, composing in the early nineteenth century, was well aware of cultural, social,
scientific, and ideological changes that originated in Europe during the Enlightenment period,
and their effect on the world of the nineteenth century. J. Gerald Kennedy shines light on the
reality that Poe was writing during a time when ‘modern science and social science began to
establish empirical methods that challenged religious beliefs’ (11). This challenge by science
was not exclusive to religion, and extended to any, and all, beliefs unverifiable by modern
science, abolishing anything which did not adhere to science’s strict limitations and

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methodology. The reality of a world devoid of phenomena cosmic or otherworldly was a
potential reality that truly terrified Poe. Poe’s strenuous relationship to science and myth will
be the focus of the following section, with detailed analysis of four pieces of Poe’s writing:
“Sonnet – To Science”, “The Island of the Fay” (“TIF”), “The Conqueror Worm”, and
“Eldorado”.

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“Sonnet – To Science”
Beginning, I have chosen to focus on, arguably, Poe’s most obvious example of
wrestling with science’s dominance over popular thought, and the impact this reversal of
fortunes will have on mankind, and more specifically: the artist. While this poem first
appeared as early as 1829, it did not appear under its current title and in its current state until
1843. The subject of the poem is a discussion between the narrator and Science, who is
personified in the text as a free-thinking individual. Poe’s use of the sonnet structure is a
deliberate attempt to subvert our expectations regarding the content of the poem. Whereas
sonnets are usually love poems, singing the praises and glories of the lover; Poe’s sonnet
concerns the heartache of the poet, as his romantic inspiration is slowly washed away from
the plane of existence: ‘Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,’ (Poe, Complete 22).
The personified figure of Science is revealed in the poem to be an unstable force upon the
world, ‘Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.’ (Poe, Complete 22). Science exposes
that which was never meant to be detectable, robbing the world of mystery, uncertainty, and
wonder. Science has torn the mythological creatures from the earth, leaving them to perish,
such as the Hamadryad, a tree dwelling creature from Greek and Roman mythology, who is
‘driven… from the wood / To seek shelter in some happier star?’ (Poe, Complete 22).
Indeed, Jeffrey Meyers has referred to this poem as ‘a romantic protest against scientific
rationalisation, which destroys the mythology that nourishes and sustains the creative
imagination’ (177). Poe’s protest against science’s relentless cull of mythological figures is
felt throughout the poem as he weeps for the various creatures, such as the elf, and the naiad,
banished from their habitats by science’s tenacious pursuit for dominion over the earth.
Apart from science’s rejection of mythological creatures, the poem also explores the
fallout of this eventuality for the artist, who now finds himself robbed of poetic or artistic

33
inspiration, in a world of ‘dull realities’ (Poe, Complete 22). Science is depicted by the
narrator as a ‘Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?’ (Poe, Complete 22), highlighting the
growing discontent between the world of the artist: a world of fairies, elves, and fantasy; and
the world of science, who refuses to allow the artist to soar through the crowds like Icarus on
high: ‘To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,’ (Poe, Complete 22). The poem delves into
the changing landscape of the poet’s relationship with science, triggered by Enlightenment
ideas and theories, as the narrator appeals to science on behalf of artists everywhere: ‘How
should he love thee? Or how deem thee wise,’ (Poe, Complete 22), when science is
fundamentally opposed to his belief system, seeking to tear down the trees of the Hamadryad,
scything the grass of the Elfin, destroying those things that are profoundly part of the artist’s
identity, depriving the artist of his ‘summer dream’ (Poe, Complete 22), de-romanticising all
those things which the artist has, for centuries, held in the highest of esteem. The artist’s
fancies are reduced to mere relics of a bygone era of human civilisation, with little, or no,
relevance in the modern world.

34
“The Island of the Fay”
Whereas “TDB” and “TAO” can be thought of as companion pieces, due of their
similarities in theme, authorial intent, and a shared subtitle; “TIF” and “Sonnet – To Science”
are literally companion pieces in the same way that “HWBA” and “A Predicament” are. Poe
includes his own poem as the epigraph to “TIF”; albeit untitled, altered slightly, and without
a known author. The epigraph to the story is an almost identical copy of Poe’s “Sonnet – To
Science”, with a few altered lines towards the end; altered to further emphasise the tragic loss
of the mythological creatures in our world. Whereas the original ending puts emphasis on the
artist’s plight:
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? (Poe, Complete 22)
The altered version present in “TIF” retains the emphasis of the poem on the banishment of
the fairy-tale beings:
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood?
The elfin from the grass? – the dainty fay,
The witch, the sprite, the goblin – where are they? (Poe, Complete 364)
Suddenly the importance of the artist’s struggle is replaced with the struggle of the mythic
creatures as being centrally imperative.
“TIF” opens with the narrator evoking romantic conceptions of the beauty of nature
and the opulence of the scenery, and how he regards the presence of man as ‘a stain upon the
landscape’ (Poe, Complete 365). The narrator believes in a vast interconnected network of
ecological beings where the rivers, the mountains, the tress, and the fairies, are all united in
harmony: ‘one vast and sentient whole’ (Poe, Complete 365). The narrator goes on to
question the logical reasoning of science, which questions the state of the universe and the

35
nature of being, discarding that which it finds unexplainable. This includes the soul of man,
which science refutes existence ‘for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it
in operation’ (Poe, Complete 365). Poe’s narrator, much like the narrator of “Sonnet – To
Science”, becomes a vessel for Poe the author, as he questions science’s rational and
methods, which discounts and belittles the nature of the unseen world. The story progresses
from the narrator’s debate with science, to his wanderings across the distant landscapes of the
world. During one of his travels, the narrator happens upon an island, trapped within the
mountains of some far off region. The narrator discovers that the island is divided in two,
with the western half bestowing a beauty as ‘It glowed and blushed beneath the eyes of the
slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers’ (Poe, Complete 366); while the eastern half is
‘whelmed in the blackest shade’ (Poe, Complete 367). The island personifies the state of art
in Poe’s contemporary world; a world which finds itself at a crossroads between tradition,
and modernity. The island’s western half embodies the traditions of the past, the beauty of
poetic and romantic expression, and the creatures which inspired and motivated it; while the
eastern half embodies the modern age, with its nuanced colours, lack of imagination, and the
absence of poetic beauty. The eastern half of the island represents what will happen in the
future, when the western half collapses from existence, and becomes consumed by the rising
tide of modernity. The fairies, who once populated the solemn island, are described as a
‘wreck of the race’ (Poe, Complete 367) they once were, lacking the creative once found in
the muses of ancient Greece. Instead, they appear content at the reality of their imminent
extinction at the hands of science. The fairy, at the conclusion of the story, who journeys
around the island, becoming more and more sorrowful as she does, personifies the artist’s
knowledge regarding the true state of modernity, coupled with his ineptitude to do anything
about the changing state of the world:

36
And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed
down to his slumbers); and at each issuing forth into the light, there was more
sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler, and far fainter, and more
indistinct; and at each passage into the gloom, there fell from her a darker
shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when
the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self,
went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood – and that
she issued thence at all I cannot say – for darkness fell over all things, and I
beheld her magical figure no more. (Poe, Complete 368)

37
“The Conqueror Worm”
Carrying on from the sense of helplessness we found in “TIF”, regarding the artist’s
inability to do anything meaningful to change the inevitable changes which will consume the
world around him, we find ourselves at a poem that similarly explores a lack of proactivity,
this time on the part of the divine. “The Conqueror Worm”, much like the texts discussed
above, engages with a fundamental anxiety present in a multitude of Poe’s texts regarding the
state of a world lacking a divine order, whether that be God, or something else entirely. The
poem was published in 1843, the same year that “Sonnet – To Science” reappeared in its
finalised form, and relates the story of a group of angels who watch the lives of man unfold
from theatre in heaven: ‘a play of hopes and fears’ (Poe, Complete 64). The angels watch the
events reluctantly; they gaze upon the trials and tribulations of man ‘downed in tears’ (Poe,
Complete, 64), infuriated by their inability to influence, or aid mankind in any way; mankind,
seen by the angels as mere ‘Mimes’ (Poe, Complete 65), act as though they were ‘God on
high’ (Poe, Complete 64). This newfound arrogance of mankind regarding his own
superiority, characteristic of post-Enlightenment thinking, in which man, like Prometheus,
has usurped the power of God; and like Prometheus, who was punished by the gods for his
crime, mankind too is punished in this fabled tale. The angels watch as a ‘crawling shape’
(Poe, Complete 65) intrudes upon the lives of man, ‘A blood-red thing that writhes from out’
(Poe, Complete 65) and ‘The mimes become its food’ (Poe, Complete 65). The horrific
creature that the poem describes is Death, and because of the nature of the world, absent of
God, Death’s presence is remorseless and callous. Without the influence of the angels and
God, Death is the only remaining definite otherworldly force remaining in the realm of man,
and he relentlessly pursues everyone.

38
The poem explores the reality of man’s existence in a world devoid of forces other
than that which science can explain in her doctrine of definable beliefs. The life of man,
without the possibility of eternal salvation in God’s domain, becomes a horror play,
characterised by madness and sin, and the inescapable reality of the ‘crawling shape’ (Poe,
Complete 65) of death that stalks us at every corner. This iteration of man’s life, the poem
refers to as a tragedy, and this tragedy knows only one saviour: ‘its hero, the Conqueror
Worm’ (Poe, Complete 65). There is no God, there are no angels; man’s life is a struggle,
and the only escape is death. This is the inevitable consequence of the bargain mankind is
making in forsaking God for scientific advancement. The relinquishment of anything which
has proven unexplainable to science has led mankind into a position where life has become
but a simple battle against the overwhelming behemoth that is Death, with no hope of victory
or deliverance.

39
“Eldorado”
The losses that the world will incur if she continues down her path of mythological
abandonment will be the loss of artistic beauty explored in “TIF”, iscontinued in “Eldorado”;
a poem which explores the effects of artistic destitute on a mythical figure, the gallant knight
of yore. Published in 1849, the same year as “The Bells”, and the year of Poe’s death, the
poem centres on the state of myth and superstition in artistry now that the arrival of
modernity is forthcoming. “Eldorado” is a poem that positions the lack of wonder and
mystery in the modern world as its primary subject of focus. The poem explores the modern
realities of a ‘gallant knight’ (Poe, Complete 88) and his quest ‘In search of Eldorado’ (Poe,
Complete 88) in the modern age now that myth and wonder have vanished from the public’s
imagination. The poem functions in a similar way to Wallace Steven’s 1915 Modernist poem
“Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”; a poem which equally highlights the lack of marvel and
strangeness in the early twentieth century, as the only figure free from the ‘white night-
gowns’ (Stevens) is the drunk old sailor, who ‘Catches tigers / In red weather’ (Stevens). In
Stevens’ poem, the drunk sailor is presented as the embodiment of the artistic personae,
valiantly attempting to escape the monotony of the ‘haunted houses’ (Stevens), and all that
they symbolise. Similarly, the knight in Poe’s poem symbolises the artist of old, strenuously
searching for unexplainable and mysterious things, such as the lost city of Eldorado, in a
world that has rendered all things explainable and illuminated. The world of the fabled
knight has changed, and ‘No spot of ground /That looked like Eldorado’ (Poe, Complete, 88)
can be found. These bygone fancies are a remnant of a forgotten time, a time of Arthurian
romance, where the heroic knight would slay the dragon and save the day; the world of Poe’s
poem is nothing like this. The knight of Poe’s poem, by the time the second stanza arrives,
has grown old in his pursuit of this ancient city of gold: ‘But he grew old – / This knight so
bold –’ (Poe, Complete 88).

40
It is at this point in the poem that the knight encounters the ‘pilgrim shadow’ (Poe,
Complete, 88), who advises the knight to journey:
Over the mountains
Over the moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride, (Poe, Complete 88)
However, this pilgrim shadow is merely the physical form of Death, inviting the knight to his
demise now that his function in the modern, faithless, world has vanished. The sole finale
left for the knight is to ride ‘Down the Valley of the Shadow’ (Poe, Complete 88); a statement
that evokes Psalm 23 of the Old Testament, and the journey through the valley of the shadow
of death. Whereas the speaker in the Bible had the benevolent figure of God guiding him
through the valley of darkness, the knight in “Eldorado” is alone; his journey down the valley
implies his departure from our world. The new world order, characterised by its adherence to
the laws of science, has no place for this mythic knight of yore, or his ventures into distant
lands of legend. In much the same way Stevens’ poem highlights the lack of respect and
appreciation for the drunken old sailor, who dreams and conceives of impossible ideas; so too
does Poe’s poem emphasise a lack of admiration for the chivalrous knight of legend. The
poem, like “Sonnet – To Science”, and “TIF”, demonstrations mankind’s alacritous
abandonment of its fables and parables to scientific reasoning, brought upon us by the age of
modernity.

41
Concluding Remarks
The resulting feeling we are left with after engagement with these texts is a sense of loss, the
loss of artistic creativity, the loss of mythological wonder, and the loss of superstitious
fantasies. The imminent reality regarding the state of modernity that these four texts
represent is a kind of cultural and artistic apocalypse, in which science has incorporated all
creative enterprises, rendering them mute in the new world order. The texts explore the harsh
realities facing artistry in a world devoid of unexplainable phenomena. The world of the
modern will closely resemble the worlds of Poe’s texts, in which artistry has lost in muses
and characters, while the divine order is unable to inject faith into the world of man, leaving
only the unforgiving realities of science to cater to the needs of the people. Poe’s texts
actualise the world of the modern; an actualisation that would not appear in subsequent
literature for another fifty years or so, when Modernist figures began to explore ideas of
mythological devastation and scientific imperialism.

42
Chapter 3 – The City
In comparison to the other two sections of this work, the topic of the city in relation to
Poe’s work has, at least moderately, been discussed by a number of notable academics,
including: J. Gerald Kennedy and Louis A. Renza. However, these discussions relating to
Poe’s treatment of the city invariably focus, almost exclusively, on “The Man of the Crowd”
(“TMC”), the most obvious example of Poe exploring the flourishing concept of the city in
the early nineteen hundreds; a worldwide phenomenon on the cusp of full throttle by the time
Poe was writing. This section will focus on building upon the existing foundation of
academic work pertaining to Poe’s engagement with the urban experience, most notably
“TMC”. The intention of this section is to flag similarities in conception and execution
between three of Poe’s lesser known works in conjunction with “TMC”, principally in
relation to the urban/rural divide present in a variety of Poe’s work. The texts that will frame
this argument will be: “TMC”, an obvious example of Poe grappling with the concept of the
modern city; “Doings of Gotham – Letter V” (“DGLV”), the fifth in a series of seven letters
published by Poe while he was living and working in New York during the summer of 1844,
cataloguing his experiences and sensations regarding city-life; “The Domain of Arnheim”
(“TDA”), a somewhat obscure tale recounting the journey of Ellison as he attempts to create
an earthly paradise in the modern world; and finally, an analysis of “Landor’s Cottage”, a
companion piece to “TDA”, in which the narrator explores Mr. Landor’s idyllic cottage
concealed from the modern world.
These texts were chosen because they explore the evolution of the modern city, as
dealt with in “TMC” and “DGLV”, and the possibilities of an alternative to the urban
metropolis, as presented in “TDA” and “Landor’s Cottage”. It is also important to note that
all these texts were composed in the last decade of Poe’s life, when the effects of the
industrial revolution in the United States were becoming more and more noticeable in

43
everyday life. As Raymond Williams highlights in The Country and the City (1973), the city
became the visual representation of the radical economic, political, and technological changes
that were sweeping early nineteenth century societies: ‘It is also the altered, the critically
altered relationship between man and things, of which the city was the most evident social
and visual embodiment’ (163).
The choice of the city as a section worthy of discussion as an important feature of
Modernist writing, ideology, and exploration, was taken in part due to its prevalence in the
literature of key Modernist texts, such as Ulysses (1922) and Mrs Dalloway (1925); but also
because a reaction to the phenomenon of urban growth and the presence of the modern
metropolis is identified as a key feature of Modernist innovation, identified by both Peter
Childs (20) and Desmond Harding, who refers to the analysis of the city and urban life as
‘modernism’s primary subject’ (13). The choice to fixate on the city as a key topic for
discussion among Modernist writers of the early twentieth century was no doubt influenced,
at least in part, by the writings of Modernist forefather Charles Baudelaire, who championed
artistic engagement with the city in his significant text: The Painter of Modern Life (1863).
This text championed the figure of the flâneur, the urban wanderer, as a heroic figure, a true
artist who ‘gazes upon the landscapes of the great city – landscapes of stone, caressed by the
mist or buffeted by the sun’ (Baudelaire, Painter, 11). As Carl Schorske states, Baudelaire
‘contributed to a new appreciation of the city as a scene of human life’ (52). It is through the
influential writings of Charles Baudelaire that we can integrate the figure of Edgar Allan Poe
into the lore of Modernist origins. As has been established previously, Baudelaire was a
great admirer of Poe’s, calling him ‘the most powerful pen of our age’ (Painter 7),
characterising “TMC” as an artistic painting (Painter 7). Poe’s “TMC” acts as a framing
device for the rest of Baudelaire’s subsequent argument regarding the artistic figure of the
flâneur, skulking through the urban landscape, searching for that quality which Baudelaire

44
refers to as ‘modernity’ (Painter 12). Through the following pages of close textual analysis
of a selection of Poe’s texts, we can begin to see that quality of Poe’s which Baudelaire
glimpsed as early as 1863. It is my desire that this concluding section will further support the
integration of Poe into the history of precursor Modernist figures, such as Charles Baudelaire
and Joseph Conrad, by highlighting texts which inspired Baudelaire, and his followers by
proxy, in the literary representation of the modern city; a representational technique that
persisted until the period of High Modernism.

45
“The Man of the Crowd”
Any discussion regarding Poe’s inclusion within the historiography of Modernist
literature often sustains itself through heavy reference to “TMC”, primarily due to its content
(exploration of the figure of the flâneur) and location (the populated urban metropolis); both
of which are highly evocative of literature from the High Modernism period. J. Gerald
Kennedy’s text A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe (2001) pinpoints “TMC” as a story
that engages intensely with Modernist obsessions of the High Modernist Period. Kennedy
expresses how the text ‘conveys a prescient awareness of metropolitan alienation, in which a
voyeuristic narrator regards passerby society as social types, describes the city as a desolate
dehumanized place’ (9). Similarly, Louis A. Renza highlights the extent to which “TMC”
exposes, what Raymond Williams refers to as the great paradox of the city. Williams’ debate
regarding the intent of the city fixated on the fundamental paradox that the city’s inception
brought upon: alienation of the individual. Williams asserts that the city’s foundational goal
of uniting people under one roof fails inherently; instead the individual is forced inwards,
separated from the rest of his fellow man: ‘the great city itself, the very place of agency – or
so it would seem – of collective consciousness, it is an absence of common feeling, an
excessive subjectivity, that seems to be characteristic’ (215). Williams’ belief regarding the
failure of utopian collective consciousness in favour of excessive individual subjectivity in
the urban space allies with Renza’s analysis of Poe’s text: ‘Far from reflecting the republican
ideal of an interactive public sphere, the narrator and the old man personify the alienation
from public life identified with the capitalist marketplace’ (176).
“TMC” is a flood of Modernist ideologies, characterisations, language, and
allusiveness. The epigraph at the beginning of the text, ‘Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir
être seul’ (Poe, Complete 356), highlights the plight of the individual in the modern city; an

46
inability to live comfortably within oneself, needing the comfort of the anonymous crowd in
order to feel secure and accepted. Carl Schorske describes this symptom of modernity as: the
modern man becoming ‘dependent upon the spectacle of the ever-changing urban scene (53).
The old man in the story becomes the embodiment of this belief; he requires the anonymous
crowds of the city in order to give his own life meaning, and when those crowds dissipate
into the fog-laden cobbled streets of London, he assumes a vacant disposition. As the
narrator of the story notes, ‘Here a change in his demeanor became evident. He walked more
slowly and with less object than before – more hesitatingly’ (Poe, Complete 361). While the
old man, aimlessly wandering the streets of London in pursuit of throngs of people in which
to submerse himself, appears to be the Modernist subject of fixation, the narrator of the text
similarly shares many urban idiosyncrasies characteristic of the Modernist city-subject. Poe’s
narrator, like many of his others, appears to suffer from ennui, an intense sense of boredom,
characteristic of fin-de-siècle fears which pioneered many Modernist uncertainties, leaving
his character fixating on the details of the masses: ‘I descended to details, and regarding with
minute interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of
countenance’ (Poe, Complete 358). Poe’s narrator shares a similar desire to many literary
figures from the turn of the century, and the period of High Modernism, in his yearning to
“know everything”; a comparable aspiration for knowledge is expressed by Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes, who fantasises about possessing the ability of flight in order to peer into
the homes of London’s various citizens: ‘If we could fly out of that window hand in hand,
hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are
going on’ (Doyle 30). In much the same way that Sherlock Holmes disregards the
individuality of those he encounters in favour of signifying markers, such as visual
peculiarities, so too does the narrator of Poe’s tale disregard individual distinctiveness in
favour of identifiable occupations within the capitalist system; thus, their profession becomes

47
their identity in the narrator’s eye. The narrator mentions no names, only ‘noblemen,
merchants, attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jabbers’ (Poe, Complete 358).
Apart from the characteristic Modernist treatment of the main characters, the text also
presents a textbook example of what a Modernist description of a sprawling urban metropolis
should consist of. In sketches which could have been ripped straight out of Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes stories, or a Virginia Woolf novel, Poe’s London is foggy, hallucinatory,
and featureless. Poe’s narrator presents the city as a mirage, in which he peers ‘through the
smoky panes in the street’ (Poe, Complete 357), in order to perceive the ‘human heads’ (Poe,
Complete 357) floating to and fro. Coupled with the surrealist imagery involving the
appearance of the city, the sound of the city is similarly described utilising unnatural
terminology: ‘full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon the ear
and gave an aching sensation to the eye’ (Poe, Complete 360). The narrator’s description of
the city-sound is so brash that it pains his vison, such is the reverse sensation it imparts upon
his senses; rather than the sound appealing to the narrator’s hearing, it impinges upon his
sight. This unnatural, surreal, other-worldly, manner of depiction is carried throughout the
text, as normal urban occurrences are infused with a psychedelic twist, whereby inebriated
revellers lining the late-night streets, ‘whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes
hideously wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers’ (Poe, Complete 360), are
re-imagined as demons, inhabiting the fiery depths of a hellish landscape, in a manner
reminiscent of the nightmarish quality of George Grosz’s Modernist painting Metropolis
(1917); who, incidentally, composed an Expressionist painting entitled The Double Murder in
the Rue Morgue (1913), and dedicated the piece to Edgar Allan Poe.

48
“Doings of Gotham – Letter V”
Continuing on from Poe’s fiction regarding the state of the modern city in “TMC”, we
traverse genres into Poe’s prose, in the form of “DGLV”. If Poe’s fiction did not drive home
a sense that Poe had anything but nefarious things to say relating to the evolution of the city,
from an idealised utopian basin of harmony, into a abode of sin, squalor, and cerebral
numbness, then Poe’s prose will certainly stand as a steadfast testament to how strongly the
author felt about the deteriorating state of the modern city. Poe’s “Doings of Gotham” are a
series of seven letters published in the Columbia Spy in the summer of 1844, while Poe was
living and working in New York City. The letters are a personal commentary by Poe
regarding the reality of living, walking, and breathing, the streets of metropolitan New York
City in the mid-eighteen forties. These letters were published in 1844, a mere four years
following the publication of “TMC”, and the degree to which Poe’s opinions relating to idea
of the city having changed in that interlude appear non-existent. If anything, his resolve to
challenge the stark realities of city-life only intensified over the preceding years, and the
“Doings of Gotham” series can be seen as a honest and sincere attempt by Poe to express
frustration and bewilderment regarding, what he perceived to be, the deplorable state of the
modern city; a sentiment he expresses staunchly in the opening few lines of “DGLV”, in
which an infuriated Poe declares, ‘I know few towns which inspire me with so great disgust
and contempt’ (Poe, Doings of Gotham). The letter I have chosen to fixate upon for the
purposes of this discussion is the fifth letter of the series, simply entitled “DGLV”. The only
reason I chose this particular letter was because it expresses intensely Poe’s distain for the
city, while simultaneously highlighting his adoration for the simplistic world of the pastoral,
which will become the focus for the final two stories of discussion: “TDA”, and “Landor’s
Cottage”. I am also aware that “DGLV” was published two years following the first
appearance of “TDA” under the title of “The Landscape Garden”. While I have kept

49
chronologically true up until this point, I felt it necessary to digress from publication history
in this instant as the letter relates to Poe’s description of the city; whereas the themes of
“TDA” are more closely allied with “Landor’s Cottage”, in that they both explore tranquil
serenity in contrast to urban commotion.
“DGLV” is a, roughly, twelve hundred word essay on the various impressions and
moods instilled in Poe during his residence in the bustling metropolitan New York City of the
eighteen forties. It appears as though Poe was given free reign by his editor to write about
whatever he wanted, and that is certainly what we are presented with, as Poe mulls over
exterior home decoration, and other arbitrary things which evidently aroused a curiosity in
the author’s mind. The seemingly randomness of the content, coupled with the satirical tone
employed by Poe is, perhaps, why this text, and many others like it, are forgotten, or simply
ignored, in discussions of Poe’s work. The satirical tone of the piece should not be
understood as a tool chosen by Poe as an easy way to abstain from talking about the material
in a serious light, quite the opposite in fact. As was explored earlier in discussions of “TDB”
and “HWBA (A Predicament)”, Poe’s use of satire, or a satirical tone, should not be seen as a
reason to exempt these texts in critical analysis of his work. So while the text includes a
strikingly long section criticising the gaudy, ostentatious, nature of houses that litter the
streets of Brooklyn, of which ‘the majority, throughout, are several steps beyond
preposterous’ (Poe, Doings of Gotham); it should not be seen as a simple, light-hearted,
meaningless, piece of writing by Poe; rather understood more broadly, as a text that engages
with city-life and pastoral simplicity in an interesting journalistic manner.
The text draws attention to the lack of rustic merit in the city, symbolised by the
absence of any cottages: ‘You see nowhere a cottage – everywhere a temple…’ (Poe, Doings
of Gotham). The cottage, as will be explored subsequently in discussion of “Landor’s
Cottage”, becomes, for Poe, the symbol of mankind’s harmonious relationship with nature.

Edgar Allan Poe the Proto-Modernist

Edgar Allan Poe the Proto-Modernist

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