The Violence of Melancholy: Poe against Himself

Abstract

In the famous Ultima Thule daguerreotype of 1848, Edgar Allan Poe glares at us in sullen defiance, as if counting the thousand injuries done to him. His eyes betray both grief and scorn; not quite concealed by that crooked moustache, a sneer of contempt lurks in the curl of his lip, recalling his warning to a Baltimore journalist that he will up with nothing that [he] can put down (Letters 1: 114). There is no mistaking the gloomy menace of his gaze: Poe will shortly get even with someone for something.2 From the outset, Poe forged his professional identity through hostile relations, and during his relatively brief career as a magazinist, he managed to offend or antagonize an impressive segment of the American literati, either through slashing reviews, biting journalistic profiles, insulting letters, sober threats, or sodden incoherencies. He assailed beloved authors, lampooned literary coteries, and railed against the practices of the publishing world. About his critical rigor he once remarked to Frederick W. Thomas: Let no man accuse me of leniency (Letters 1: 193). Uncompromising in his opinions, Poe had dozens of friends but scores of critics and foes. At his death, the acidic memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold fixed the poet's image for posterity: Poe would long remain an object of derision, a lonely, amoral lunatic wandering the margins of American literature. High-toned educators banished him from the schoolroom and excluded him