Complete Essays, Literary Criticism, Cryptography, Autography, Translations & Letters. Эдгар Аллан По
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And of our Quarterlies what shall we say?—of the aid which they are likely to afford us in investigating the condition of our poetical literature? The articles here are anonymous. Who writes? Who causes to be written? Who but a fool would put faith in tirades which may be the result of personal hostility—or in panegyrics which, nine times out of ten, may be laid, directly or indirectly, to the charge of the author himself? It is in the favor of these saturnine pamphlets that they contain, now and then, a good essay de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, which may be looked into, without decided somnolent consequences, at any period not immediately subsequent to dinner. But it is useless to expect criticism from periodicals called Reviews, from never reviewing, as lucus is lucus ànon lucendo. Besides all men know, or should know—that these books are sadly given to verbiage It is a part of their nature—a condition of their being—a point of their faith. A veteran reviewer loves the safety of generalities. He is, therefore, rarely particular. “Words, words, words,” are the secret of his strength. He has one or two ideas of his own, and is both wary and fussy in giving them out. His wit lies, with his truth, in a well, and there is always a world of trouble in getting it up. He is a sworn enemy to all things simple and direct. He gives no ear to the advice of the giant MOULINEAU—“Belier, mon ami, commencez au commencement—Ram, my friend, begin at the beginning.” He either jumps, at once, into the middle of his subject, or breaks in at a back door, or sidles up to it with the gait of a crab;—no other mode of approach has an air of sufficient profundity. When fairly into it, however, he becomes, dazzled by the scintillations of his own wisdom, and is seldom able to see his way out. Tired of laughing at his antics, or frightened at seeing him flounder, the reader at length shuts him up with the book. “What song the Syrens sang,” says Sir THOMAS BROWNE, “or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture”—but it would puzzle Sir THOMAS, backed by ACHILLES and all the Syrens in Heathendom, to say, in nine cases out of ten, what is the object of a Quarterly Reviewer.
But should the opinions promulgated by our Quarterlies, and by our press at large, be taken, in their wonderful aggregate, as an evidence of what American literature absolutely is and it may be said that, in general, they are really so taken—we shall find ourselves the most enviable set of people upon the face of the earth. Our fine writers are legion. Our very atmosphere is redolent of genius, and we, the nation, are a huge well-contented chameleon, grown pursy by inhaling it. We are teretes et rotundi, enwrapped in excellence. All our poets are Miltons, neither “mute nor inglorious;” all our poetesses are “American Hemanses;” nor will it do to deny that all our novelists are either great Unknowns or great Knowns, and that everybody who writes, in every possible or impossible department, is the admirable CHRICHTON, or at least the admirable CHRICHTON’S ghost. We are thus in a glorious condition, and will remain so until forced to disgorge our ethereal honors. In truth, there is some danger that the jealousy of the Old World will interfere. It cannot long submit to that outrageous monopoly of “all the decency and of all the talent in which the Gentlemen of the press give such undoubted assurance, of our being busily engaged.
But we feel angry with ourself for the jesting tone of our observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust. Its buckling yet dogmatical character—its bold, unsustained, yet self-sufficient and wholesale laudation,—is becoming, more and more, an insult to the common-sense of the community. Trivial as it essentially is, it has yet been made the instrument of the grossest abuse, in the elevation of imbecility—to the manifest injury—to the utter ruin of true merit. Is there any man of good feeling and of ordinary understanding—is there a single individual who reads these remarks—who does not feel a thrill of bitter indignation, apart from any sentiment of mirth, as he calls to mind instance after instance of the purest—of the most unadulterated quackery in letters, which has risen to a high post in the apparent popular estimation—and which still maintains it—by the sole means of a blustering arrogance—or of a busy, wriggling conceit—or of the most barefaced plagiarism—or even through the mere immensity of its assumptions—assumptions not only unopposed by the press at large, but absolutely supported—supported in proportion to the vociferous clamor with which they are made—in exact accordance with their utter baselessness and untenability?
So firm, through a long endurance, has been the hold taken upon the popular mind—at least so far as we may consider the popular mind reflected in ephemeral letters—by the laudatory system which we have deprecated, that what is, in its own essence, a vice, has become endowed with the appearance, and met with the reception of a virtue. Antiquity, as usual, has lent a certain degree of speciousness, even to the absurd. So continuously have we puffed, that we have, at length, come to think puffing the duty, and plain-speaking the dereliction. What we began in gross error, we persist in through habit. Having adopted, in the earliest days of our literature, the untenable idea that this literature, as a whole, could be advanced by indiscriminate approbation bestowed on its every effort—having adopted this idea, without attention to the obvious fact, that praise of all is bitter, although negative censure to the few alone deserving, and that the only possible result of the system, in the fostering way, would be the fostering of folly—we now continue our vile practices. through the supiness of custom, even while, in our national self-conceit, we repudiate that necessity for patronage and protection, in which originated our conduct. In a word, the press throughout the country has not been ashamed to make head against the very few bold attempts at independence which have been made, from time to time, in the face of the reigning order of things. And if, in one or two insulated cases, the spirit of a severe Truth, sustained by an unconquerable Will, was not to be so put down—then, forthwith, were private chicaneries set in motion:—then was had recourse, on the part of those who considered themselves injured by the severity of criticism—and who were so, if the just contempt of every ingenious man is injury—recourse to arts, and to acts of the most virulent indignity—to untraceable slanders—to ruthless assassination in the dark. We say these things were done, while the press in general looked on, and, with a full understanding of the wrong perpetrated, spoke not against the wrong. The idea had absolutely gone abroad—had grown up, little by little, into toleration—that attacks, however just, upon a literary reputation however attained, however untenable, were well retaliated by the basest and most unfounded traduction of personal fame. But is this an age—is this a day—in which it can be necessary even to advert to such considerations as that the book of the author is the property of the public, and that the issue of the book is the throwing down of the gauntlet to the reviewer—to the reviewer whose duty is the plainest—the duty, not of approbation, nor of censure, nor even of silence at his own will, but at the sway of those sentiments—whether of admiration, whether of scorn or of contempt—which are derived from the author himself, through the medium of his written and published words? True criticism is the reflection of the thing criticised upon the spirit of the critic.
Turning, in our search for just information, upon our poetical literature, from the Newspapers, from the Monthly Magazines, and from the Quarterly Reviews—turning from these in despair, we encounter certain books, professing to select, or compile, from the works of our native bards; and no better evidence can be adduced, of the general interest felt in my present subject, then is found in the fact that even these volumes are eagerly received by the public. They meet with success—at least with sale—at periods when the general market for literary wares is in a state of stagnation. The “Specimens of American Poetry,” by KETTELL—the “Common-Place-Book of American Poetry,” by CHEEVER—Selection by General MORRIS—another by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT—the “Poets of America,” by Mr. KEESE—and the “Poets and Poetry of America,” by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD—all these have been widely disseminated—and sold. In some measure, to be sure, we must regard their success as an affair of personalities. Each individual honored with a niche in the compiler’s memory, is naturally anxious to possess a copy of the book so honoring him—and this anxiety will extend, in some cases, to ten or twenty of the immediate friends of the complimented; while, on the other hand, purchasers will arise, in no small number, from among a very different class—a class animated by very different feelings. We mean the omitted—the large body of those, who, supposing themselves entitled to mention, have