Edgar Allan Poe to Nathaniel Beverley Tucker — 1835-12-01

Edgar Allan Poe to Nathaniel Beverley Tucker — 1835-12-01 Local historical letter reading from the Poe Society’s manuscript-text page, with modern correction glosses and website material excluded. The scholarly checklist documents an early printed witness in Century Magazine, March 1924, pages 653–655. This record preserves the electronic letter text, not a scan of that printed witness or the autograph. Catalogue identity and date checked against the repository heading. Source brackets and manuscript deletion marks, where present, identify uncertain readings or revisions and are retained. Typography is simplified. The transcription has not been independently proofread word by word. Richmond Dec: 1. 35. Dear Sir, Mr White was so kind as to read me some portions of your letter to himself, dated Nov 29, and I feel impelled, as much by gratitude for your many friendly expressions of interest in my behalf, as by a desire to make some little explanations, to answer, personally, the passages alluded to. And firstly — in relation to your own verses. That they are not poetry I will not allow, even when judging them by your own rules. A very cursory perusal enabled me, when I first saw them, to point out many instances of the xxxxxxx you mention. Had I the lines before me now I would particularize them. But is there not a more lofty species of originality than originality of individual thoughts or individual passages? I doubt very much whether a composition may not even be full of original things, and still be pure imitation as a whole. On the other hand I have seen writings, devoid of any new thought, and frequently destitute of any new expression — writings which I could not help considering as full of creative power. But I have no wish to refine, and I dare say you have little desire that I should do so. What is, or is not , poetry must not be told in a mere epistle. I sincerely think your lines excellent. The distinction you make between levity, and wit or humour (that which produces a smile) I perfectly understand; but that levity is unbecoming the chair of the critic, must be taken, I think, cum grano salis. Moreover — are you sure Jeffrey was never jocular or frivolous in his critical opinions? I think I can call to mind some instances of the purest grotesque in his Reviews — downright horse-laughter. Did you ever see a critique in Blackwood's Mag: upon an Epic Poem by a cockney tailor? Its chief witticisms were aimed not at the poem, but at the goose, and bandy legs of the author, and the notice ended, after innumerable oddities in — “ha! ha! ha! — he! he! he! — hi! hi! hi! — ho! ho! ho! — hu! hu! hu”! Yet it was, without exception, the most annihilating, and altogether the most effective Review I remember to have read. Of course I do not mean to palliate such indecency. The reviewer should have been horsewhipped. Still I cannot help thinking levity here was indispensable. Indeed how otherwise the subject could have been treated I do not perceive. To treat a tailor's Epic seriously, (and such an Epic too!) would have defeated the ends of the critic, in weakening his own authority by making himself ridiculous. Your opinion of ‘The MS. found in a Bottle’ is just. The Tale was written some years ago, and was one among the first I ever wrote. I have met with no one, with the exception of yourself & P. P. Cooke of Winchester, whose judgment concerning these Tales I place any value upon. Generally, people praise extravagantly those of which I am ashamed, and pass in silence what I fancy to be praise worthy. The last tale I wrote was Morella and it was my best. When I write again I will write something better than Morella. At present, having no time upon my hands, from my editorial duties, I can write nothing worth reading. What articles I have published since Morella were all written some time ago. I mention this to account for the “mere physique “ of the horrible which prevails in the “M.S. found in a Bottle”. I do not think