Controversy Poe Vs. Longfellow By Don MacWilliams.

BY

DON

MacWilLIAMS

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Three Portland natives were intimately involved in the short, unhappy life of Boston-born Edgar Allan Poe: poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author-critic John Neal, and poet-publisher Nathaniel P. Willis. Poe regarded Neal and Willis as benefactors, which they were. The two gave timely help and support to Poe, Neal at the beginning of Poe's literary career and Willis at the end.

Poe felt differently about Longfellow, carrying on a long, one-sided feud with the placid P ortlander.

It was Poe who touched off the feud when he unexpectedly charged Longfellow with plagiarism. Poe wrote an article stating that Longfellow had used ideas contained in Tennyson's Death of the Old Year in the Mainer's poem, Midnight Mass for the Dying Year. The volatile Poe persevered with a similar accusation concerning his own poem, The Haunted Palace: "By 'Haunted Palace' I mean to imply a mind haunted by phantoms - a disordered brain - and by 'The Beleaguered City' Professor Longfellow means the same. But the whole tournure of the poem is based on mine, as you will see at once. The allegorical conduct, the style of its expression and verification - all are mine! "

It was to Longfellow's credit that he did not respond to the posed tirades leaving any riposte to members of his literary club, the Boston Brahmins, which boasted men like Hawthorne, Emerson, Whittier, James Russell Lowell and club leader Oliver Wendell Holmes. Well-bred as they were, however, they did not deign to enter the lists against Poe, leaving it to editors like William Evans Burton of Gentlemen's Magazine who felt that Poe was trying to gain attention by causing a sensation. When Burton and other editors refused to print more of Poe's comments, the poet's feud with Longfellow gradually died out. But not before a last diatribe from Poe:"Professor Longfellow or the Frog-pondian Professors collectively are in shameful practice on composing on the model of theGreek. Mr. L. is a man of imagination - but can he imagine that any individual with a proper understanding of the danger of lockjaw would make an attempt of. twisting his mouth into the shape necessary for the emission of such spondees as 'parents' and 'from the' and such dactyls as 'cleaned and the' and "Ioved ones of '? "

Poe mellowed somewhat following the acceptance and praise he received after publishing of The Raven, conceding that "Some of Longfellow's poems are perfect gems of their kind."

Poe credited John Neal with giving

him his first encouragement. The young poet, then 20 years old, sent one of his early poems to Neal who had begun publishing a literary monthly in PortlanJ and who had gained a reputation as a. critic of poetry. Commenting in the .September, 1829 issue of the magazine, Neal was obviously much impressed with the poem, going so far as to predict that Poe might someday write "a magnificent poem." Sixteen years later, The Raven was published, first in the American Revue and then in the New Mirror by Nathaniel Willis.

Willis, a poet in his own right, had given Poe a much needed job as subeditor on the staff of the Mirror, and encouraged Poe in his writing. In a letter to Willis a few months before his death, Poe wrote "I have not forgotten how a good word in season from you made The Raven."

After Poe's death in 1849, Willis wrote a tribute to the poet who, Willis opined, was a man "inhabited by both a devil and an angel."

STOLEN

BY JEANNE LAMBREW

The poem "The Midnight Mass for the Dying Year " belongs "to the most barbarous class of literary robbery; that class in which, while the words of the wronged author are avoided, his most intangible, and therefore his least defensible and least reclaimable property, is purloined." Plagiarism was the crime, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the criminal according to Edgar Allan Poe. Beginning with the accusation in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1840, Poe launched a public tirade against the Maine poet that lasted for years, at its height well known as the "Longfellow W " ar. "Poe is a monomaniac on the subject of plagiarism and Ithought it best to allow him to ride his hobby to death in the outset and be done with it." With "permission" of coeditor Briggs, Poe used weekly installments of the Broadway Journal in March of 1845 to fully articulate his charges. The writer of "The Raven" detailed, in a five-part response to a defender of Longfellow named "Outis", the old claims against "The Midnight Mass" and "The Beleaguered City". He also questioned a third, seeing shadows of his "Politian" in Longfellow's "The Spanish Student" . The attack on his poems didn't satisfy his obsession, though; a jab even criticizes Longfellow's editing of a collection of poetry: ". . . although full of beauties, it is infected with a moral taint -or is it a mere freak of our own fancy? We shall be pleased if it be so; - but there does appear in this little volume, a very careful avoidance of all American poets who may be supposed especially

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to interfere with the claims of Mr. Longfellow. These men Mr. Longfellow can continuously intimate (is that the word?) and yet never incidently commend."

Yet Longfellow was more a victim of the war than participant. He never published a remark on the subject, the rare letter almost denying its existence. To Rufus Griswold, a noted editor in 1850, he wrote: "for I do not remember ... that Mr. Poe ever accused me of taking my poem from his.... WhenMr. Poe's poem was written, and first published, I do not know. I am quite sure I never saw it, till long, long after mine was written."

Most critics agree that Poe's jealousy created these ghosts in the other's work. Yet, in 1935, an article appeared in the New York Colophon entitled "Longfellow's Orginal Sin of Imitation". It concretely traced his first published poem, "The Battle of Lovell's Pond" to Lovellspond" by T.C. Upham, a favorite of the young Portlander. Although he was thirteen at_ the time, it seemed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was familiar with the word plagiarism not just as an accusation but as a practice.

The New Fringe

Nightclubs Off Off Exchange Street

BY CHARLIE BROWN

Three new clubs opening here will greatly expand opportunities for live music around town. First up and longest awaited is The Tree, 45 Danforth St. This room, which many of you remember as The Checkerboard, has been completely redone to improve comfort, sound, and viewer sightlines to the stages. The decor is kinetic and menu eclectic Third World: tapas, Caribbean (especially Jamaican), and there's a champagne bar and homemade sangria. Owner Herb Gideon promises name reggae, jazz, and new rock. Sounds fine by me. Call 774-1441 for information. Okay, fun-loving but disaffected young men and women, patronize this place or forever hold your piece. Or go to Zootz, 25 Forest Avenue, next to the new Alberta's. Kris Clark's Ultimate Dance Parties find a permanent home - finally. With partner Jaap Helder, these guys threaten to turn the Performing Arts Center into a regular entertainment complex, for heaven's sake. I mean, eat a great meal, see a show, then go dancing and never leave the building. Wow. Zootz opened in mid-July and features regular DJs like WiDJaxon on Wednesdays and live music on Sunday nights A light menu prevails, but you're not there to eat. Call 773·8187. Finally, summer means the zenith of the seasonal places, which means the Beach, which means Old Orchard. Now, if you're like me, you basically avoid this place in Deep Summer, right? I mean, how long into adulthood can you eat fried dough and listen to Top-40 rock bands? Well, take notice that Paul Royer, formerly manager at Raoul's Roadside Attraction, is booking Captain Nick'. this summer, which means good music and good dancing. The schedule is simplicity itself. Every Thursday night brings you Vito and the Groove Kings; the Dani Tribesmen reggae jam willbe the Friday night attraction, foUowedby Saturday night reggae with Loose Caboose. Sundays willbe Latin jazz and Caribbean sounds with Charlie Brown and his nine-piece band; come early on Sunday - the music starts before the sun goes down. Captain Nick's is located across the street from the Brunswick. Other recommended events for July include John Zorn, July 24, at the Performing Arts Centerj Livingston Taylor, July 23; and Rock & A H.P., July 24, at Raoul's. The Red Lite Review holds down Wednesdays at Raoul's and now Thursdays at the Beachcomber, O.O.B. Watch for Roy Orbison and Bonnie Raitt at the Casino Royale in Saco, and take the Casco Bay Lines Booze Cruise with the Jensons. Support your local bands!

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