Communities of Death: Whitman, Poe, and the American Culture of Mourning

Abstract

Whereas some critics view Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman as writers who rejected the popular sentimentalism of nineteenth-century America, Adam Bradford takes issue with that approach, pointing out various ways in which Poe and Whitman “created, disseminated, and expected their work to be read within the literary, interpretive, and cultural registers provided by” sentimental expression (6). An important characteristic of this mode is a “preoccupation with death and mourning,” subjects that fascinated Poe and Whitman, but these writers share more than mere thematic material with their sentimentalist counterparts (7). According to Bradford, nineteenth-century mourning practices involved not only the expression of grief but also the pursuit of comfort through communal memorializing, and these consolatory endeavors shaped sentimental literature as well as Poe's and Whitman's writings about death. Noting that Poe associated poetic expression with the longing for immortality, Bradford interprets texts such as “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Premature Burial” as pieces that “inspire a reader to think about and to desire what Poe characterized … as ‘the glories beyond the grave’” (49). Read along these lines, such writings and sentimental literature bear striking similarities, and as Bradford suggests, Poe's interest in the healing powers of writing influenced Whitman, who wrote mourning verse and employed sentimental devices such as apostrophes in his journalism as well as in his poetry. Bradford also finds evidence of Whitman's debts to his sentimentalist forebears in the poet's writings about war and national reconciliation.Communities of Death contains effective commentary on Whitman, and there is plenty of evidence to link the good, gray poet, whose early works included a number of sentimental pieces, to popular forms associated with what Bradford calls the “culture of mourning and memorializing”; but the case for reading Poe as a sentimental writer is less compelling (22). For example, Bradford does not offer strong evidence that Poe wrote “The Raven” in order to solace the bereaved, and, indeed, the poem, with its recurring “Nevermore,” presents little hope for a reunion for lovers beyond the grave. Acknowledging that this poem does not, on the surface, seem thematically consonant with affirmative mourning poems in the sentimental vein, lyrics that mention joyous reunions with lost loved ones in a Christian heaven, Bradford notes that many antebellum readers of “The Raven” nevertheless interpreted this poem along such lines. Such responses may be unreliable guides for discerning Poe's intentions, and nineteenth-century efforts to make “The Raven” a consolation piece through (mis)reading or actual rewriting, some of which efforts Bradford discusses in detail, appear perverse. More problematic, Bradford does not mention other poems such as “The Conqueror Worm” and “Ulalume,” to name only two, in which death is a terrifying reality before which conventional consolations seem powerless.Equally questionable are Bradford's interpretations of Gothic stories through which Poe supposedly tried “to bring his readers to a sense of their immortal nature and to inspire them to imagine a transcendent afterlife” (55). Illustrating how Poe pursued these ends, Bradford analyzes “The Premature Burial.” In this tale, the narrator initially appears to describe the experience of being buried alive. For Bradford, these descriptions frighten readers, whom Poe expected “to actively wrestle with and resist such horror” before turning elsewhere for solace, and his terror tale has an inspirational effect (59). This effect is, Bradford argues, part of “Poe's [conscious] design for such literature” (67). This interpretation does not, however, adequately account for the surprising conclusion of “The Premature Burial,” in which the narrator mentions waking and discovering that his harrowing experience was only a dream. With this ending, Poe warns readers against putting too much faith in sensory experience and personal visions. Such a tale, the expression of a skeptical mind, seems an unlikely source of comfort for readers seeking the certainties of faith. Bradford does not offer close readings of other Poe tales, and for some reason he omits references to angelic dialogues such as “The Conversation of Eiros and Charimon” and “The Colloquy of Monos and Una.” Both texts deal with the afterlife, a subject of great import to sentimental writers who produced mourning verse.Such criticisms aside, Communities of Death offers an intriguing record of contemporary responses to Poe's writings, and Bradford's interest in textual reception helps readers understand the milieu in which Poe operated. Truly impressive, however, are Bradford's interpretations of Whitman, which include considerations of the bindings and typographical features of the poet's publications. Supplementing this commentary on matters related to print culture are Bradford's close readings of paintings and other mourning objects that offer readers of the twenty-first century insights into the nineteenth-century work of memorializing the dead. Most important, Bradford relies on the sound assumption that understanding Poe and Whitman requires learning more about the discursive powers shaping the worlds they knew.