WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:02.715 align:middle line:90% Yes, he liked Tennyson. 00:00:02.715 --> 00:00:06.810 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.810 --> 00:00:09.690 align:middle line:84% Some people accused him of-- well, actually, 00:00:09.690 --> 00:00:12.450 align:middle line:84% only one person accused him of this. 00:00:12.450 --> 00:00:15.630 align:middle line:84% He was particularly partial to female poets, 00:00:15.630 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% and he seemed to play with kid's gloves 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:20.655 align:middle line:84% when he was writing about female poets. 00:00:20.655 --> 00:00:23.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.220 --> 00:00:25.230 align:middle line:84% The only person who points this out 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:27.840 align:middle line:84% is Edgar Allan Poe himself, when he 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:30.383 align:middle line:84% writes a review of his own reviews 00:00:30.383 --> 00:00:31.800 align:middle line:84% from the point of view of somebody 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:34.140 align:middle line:84% else who's criticizing Edgar Allan 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:35.890 align:middle line:90% Poe for all of his mistakes. 00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:37.590 align:middle line:84% And he criticizes Poe for plagiarism. 00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:39.690 align:middle line:84% This is Poe, criticizing himself of plagiarism. 00:00:39.690 --> 00:00:41.460 align:middle line:84% Then he points out all of the places where 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:42.810 align:middle line:90% he has committed plagiarism. 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:43.925 align:middle line:90% It's bizarre. 00:00:43.925 --> 00:00:45.300 align:middle line:84% But one of the things he mentions 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:52.050 align:middle line:84% is, he seems to have different standards for men and women. 00:00:52.050 --> 00:00:54.780 align:middle line:84% He did like Coleridge, but here's the thing. 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:57.270 align:middle line:84% He liked some Coleridge poems, but not others. 00:00:57.270 --> 00:00:59.770 align:middle line:84% He liked some Longfellow poems, but not others. 00:00:59.770 --> 00:01:01.530 align:middle line:84% And this confused a lot of people, 00:01:01.530 --> 00:01:04.440 align:middle line:84% because he would say really great things about somebody's 00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:90% poem. 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:06.690 align:middle line:84% And then about that same poet, he 00:01:06.690 --> 00:01:09.210 align:middle line:84% would say horrible things about another poem. 00:01:09.210 --> 00:01:12.210 align:middle line:84% And it seemed like he hated the poetry. 00:01:12.210 --> 00:01:14.040 align:middle line:84% And he was trying to say, no, no. 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:17.220 align:middle line:84% I'm reviewing the poems themselves, 00:01:17.220 --> 00:01:18.720 align:middle line:90% independent of the author. 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:20.790 align:middle line:84% But nobody could quite get that at the time, 00:01:20.790 --> 00:01:24.240 align:middle line:84% because at that period of time, for one writer 00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:27.360 align:middle line:84% to say anything bad about another writer's work 00:01:27.360 --> 00:01:30.420 align:middle line:84% was an insult. And everybody had to be-- 00:01:30.420 --> 00:01:31.290 align:middle line:90% it was rude. 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:32.185 align:middle line:90% And he would say, no. 00:01:32.185 --> 00:01:33.060 align:middle line:90% It shouldn't be rude. 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:34.260 align:middle line:84% If we're going to be poets, if we're 00:01:34.260 --> 00:01:35.880 align:middle line:84% going to be good about this, we have 00:01:35.880 --> 00:01:39.680 align:middle line:84% to call out bad poetry when we see it and call out good poetry 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:40.680 align:middle line:90% when we see it, as well. 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.250 align:middle line:90% 00:01:43.250 --> 00:01:44.170 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:44.170 --> 00:01:48.730 align:middle line:84% Did he review the French poets like Baudelaire? 00:01:48.730 --> 00:01:49.950 align:middle line:90% No. 00:01:49.950 --> 00:01:56.350 align:middle line:84% Insofar as the reviews that I've read-- 00:01:56.350 --> 00:01:57.700 align:middle line:90% and I've read a lot of them-- 00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:00.040 align:middle line:90% I don't think he does French. 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:01.600 align:middle line:84% He reviews a lot of British poets. 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:05.860 align:middle line:84% He has some choice things to say about Wordsworth, 00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:07.270 align:middle line:90% but that's, I think, kind of-- 00:02:07.270 --> 00:02:09.550 align:middle line:84% he does British poets and American poets. 00:02:09.550 --> 00:02:11.890 align:middle line:90% And possibly this is due-- 00:02:11.890 --> 00:02:15.220 align:middle line:84% he could read French very well, but he 00:02:15.220 --> 00:02:16.540 align:middle line:90% was aware of his audience. 00:02:16.540 --> 00:02:18.850 align:middle line:84% And he was aware that his audience was not 00:02:18.850 --> 00:02:19.960 align:middle line:90% a French reading public. 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:23.470 align:middle line:84% And I think that he probably held back from that, 00:02:23.470 --> 00:02:25.180 align:middle line:84% to some degree, because he didn't want 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:26.830 align:middle line:90% to come off as ostentatious. 00:02:26.830 --> 00:02:29.170 align:middle line:84% He didn't want to come across as elite and privileged 00:02:29.170 --> 00:02:30.670 align:middle line:84% because he knew this other language. 00:02:30.670 --> 00:02:32.260 align:middle line:84% In fact, he calls it out all the time 00:02:32.260 --> 00:02:33.820 align:middle line:90% when other writers use French. 00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:35.827 align:middle line:84% He does use French himself, but he 00:02:35.827 --> 00:02:37.660 align:middle line:84% loves to call it out in others, when they're 00:02:37.660 --> 00:02:39.160 align:middle line:84% trying to sound bigger than they are 00:02:39.160 --> 00:02:41.520 align:middle line:90% by using a different language. 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:42.796 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:02:42.796 --> 00:02:44.630 align:middle line:90% How did Poe pass away? 00:02:44.630 --> 00:02:46.580 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows. 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:49.970 align:middle line:90% It's actually a mystery. 00:02:49.970 --> 00:02:53.180 align:middle line:84% He was on the verge of making this magazine dream of his 00:02:53.180 --> 00:02:54.680 align:middle line:90% come true. 00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:57.500 align:middle line:84% He was going to marry his childhood sweetheart. 00:02:57.500 --> 00:02:59.720 align:middle line:90% She had assented to marriage. 00:02:59.720 --> 00:03:03.882 align:middle line:84% He had procured a funder that was going 00:03:03.882 --> 00:03:05.090 align:middle line:90% to give him a bunch of money. 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:06.770 align:middle line:84% Everything was going right for him, 00:03:06.770 --> 00:03:09.200 align:middle line:84% and all he had to do was get from Richmond, Virginia 00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:13.940 align:middle line:84% to Boston to pick up his aunt, and then get back to Richmond. 00:03:13.940 --> 00:03:17.030 align:middle line:84% But somewhere along the way, for whatever reason, 00:03:17.030 --> 00:03:18.410 align:middle line:90% he shows up in Baltimore. 00:03:18.410 --> 00:03:21.050 align:middle line:84% And nobody knows why he went to Baltimore. 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:23.090 align:middle line:84% Somebody finds him three days later, 00:03:23.090 --> 00:03:26.180 align:middle line:90% and he's dying in the streets. 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:29.330 align:middle line:84% He's literally lying in the street, dying. 00:03:29.330 --> 00:03:30.590 align:middle line:90% They take him to the doctor. 00:03:30.590 --> 00:03:34.730 align:middle line:84% He mutters some things, and he says some things. 00:03:34.730 --> 00:03:36.320 align:middle line:90% He calls out a name, Reynolds. 00:03:36.320 --> 00:03:37.730 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows who Reynolds is. 00:03:37.730 --> 00:03:38.900 align:middle line:90% It's a clue. 00:03:38.900 --> 00:03:43.460 align:middle line:84% And then he dies shortly thereafter. 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:45.740 align:middle line:84% Lots of theories-- some think that he 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:48.800 align:middle line:84% had some kind of brain cancer, because he started 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:51.330 align:middle line:84% to seem much more crazy near the end of his life, 00:03:51.330 --> 00:03:53.540 align:middle line:84% including the episode with Sarah Helen Whitman. 00:03:53.540 --> 00:03:55.610 align:middle line:84% Some people think it was election day. 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:59.210 align:middle line:84% And election day, back in the 1840s, 00:03:59.210 --> 00:04:01.220 align:middle line:84% was very different from election day 00:04:01.220 --> 00:04:04.400 align:middle line:84% now, at least in some parts of the country. 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:07.640 align:middle line:84% It was common to drink a lot of alcohol on election day. 00:04:07.640 --> 00:04:10.910 align:middle line:84% In fact, political parties would offer alcohol 00:04:10.910 --> 00:04:13.970 align:middle line:84% at the polling booths to try to get people to come vote 00:04:13.970 --> 00:04:15.860 align:middle line:90% for their candidates. 00:04:15.860 --> 00:04:18.680 align:middle line:84% And there was a practice in which 00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:21.410 align:middle line:84% some of these political parties would 00:04:21.410 --> 00:04:23.332 align:middle line:84% kidnap somebody who had gotten drunk 00:04:23.332 --> 00:04:25.790 align:middle line:84% and then take them from polling station to polling station, 00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:27.290 align:middle line:90% having them vote multiple times. 00:04:27.290 --> 00:04:29.540 align:middle line:84% And they think that maybe that's what happened to Poe, 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:32.150 align:middle line:84% and he got so drunk that his body couldn't handle it. 00:04:32.150 --> 00:04:33.590 align:middle line:84% And then there are other theories. 00:04:33.590 --> 00:04:36.048 align:middle line:84% There are theories that, maybe, somebody was out after him. 00:04:36.048 --> 00:04:38.810 align:middle line:84% Near the end of his life, he did get a lot more paranoid. 00:04:38.810 --> 00:04:40.490 align:middle line:90% And we don't know. 00:04:40.490 --> 00:04:43.850 align:middle line:84% So short answer is, we don't know. 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:47.720 align:middle line:90% And it's still open for solving. 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:49.740 align:middle line:90% I read a book years ago-- 00:04:49.740 --> 00:04:50.240 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:50.480 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:50.980 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:50.980 --> 00:04:53.990 align:middle line:84% I read a book several years ago-- 00:04:53.990 --> 00:04:55.370 align:middle line:90% I think it was a novel-- 00:04:55.370 --> 00:04:58.310 align:middle line:84% that has Poe as a student at West Point. 00:04:58.310 --> 00:04:58.850 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:04:58.850 --> 00:04:59.850 align:middle line:90% Is it based on fact? 00:04:59.850 --> 00:05:00.350 align:middle line:90% Oh, yes. 00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:00.850 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:05:00.850 --> 00:05:03.170 align:middle line:84% He was at the University of Virginia, 00:05:03.170 --> 00:05:06.350 align:middle line:84% and then he went to West Point after that. 00:05:06.350 --> 00:05:08.125 align:middle line:84% He became distinguished at West Point. 00:05:08.125 --> 00:05:10.250 align:middle line:84% He didn't finish there, but he became distinguished 00:05:10.250 --> 00:05:13.010 align:middle line:90% in algebra and French. 00:05:13.010 --> 00:05:18.260 align:middle line:84% And he held some sort of record, that he boasts about a couple 00:05:18.260 --> 00:05:21.320 align:middle line:84% of times, about swimming a river. 00:05:21.320 --> 00:05:23.120 align:middle line:84% And I don't know West Point that well, 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:25.340 align:middle line:84% but there's some river there that he had swam-- 00:05:25.340 --> 00:05:27.680 align:middle line:84% some distance out to an island and back 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:29.330 align:middle line:90% in a record amount of time. 00:05:29.330 --> 00:05:31.153 align:middle line:84% And apparently, if you believe the legend-- 00:05:31.153 --> 00:05:32.570 align:middle line:84% there's so many legends about Poe. 00:05:32.570 --> 00:05:33.487 align:middle line:90% There's so many myths. 00:05:33.487 --> 00:05:36.620 align:middle line:84% You're never really quite sure what's fudge and what's genius. 00:05:36.620 --> 00:05:43.700 align:middle line:84% But he held that record up until the late 20th century. 00:05:43.700 --> 00:05:47.000 align:middle line:84% He was quite an athlete, and he was athletic. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:48.660 align:middle line:90% He was quite a swimmer. 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.830 align:middle line:84% I think he also at least claimed to have 00:05:51.830 --> 00:05:55.010 align:middle line:84% held some record in the standing broad jump, 00:05:55.010 --> 00:05:58.070 align:middle line:90% as well, which is odd. 00:05:58.070 --> 00:06:00.420 align:middle line:84% Also-- and this is at the University of Virginia. 00:06:00.420 --> 00:06:04.820 align:middle line:84% He apparently drew a portrait of Byron 00:06:04.820 --> 00:06:08.450 align:middle line:84% on his ceiling with charcoal, which 00:06:08.450 --> 00:06:09.850 align:middle line:90% would have been nice to see. 00:06:09.850 --> 00:06:10.350 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:10.350 --> 00:06:13.480 align:middle line:90% That's a good question. 00:06:13.480 --> 00:06:16.270 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:16.270 --> 00:06:18.570 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:06:18.570 --> 00:06:19.140 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:19.140 --> 00:06:20.130 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:20.130 --> 00:06:21.360 align:middle line:90% The microphone is on its way. 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:24.978 align:middle line:90% 00:06:24.978 --> 00:06:25.520 align:middle line:90% Oh, look at-- 00:06:25.520 --> 00:06:29.570 align:middle line:84% So I know that one consequence of his very pointed criticism 00:06:29.570 --> 00:06:32.810 align:middle line:84% was that he would get into these public arguments 00:06:32.810 --> 00:06:34.100 align:middle line:90% with the other literati. 00:06:34.100 --> 00:06:35.420 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:06:35.420 --> 00:06:38.510 align:middle line:84% Are there any particularly amusing anecdotes or reveries 00:06:38.510 --> 00:06:39.875 align:middle line:90% you care to share with us? 00:06:39.875 --> 00:06:42.320 align:middle line:84% You know about this, Safari. This 00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:43.820 align:middle line:90% was a setup question. 00:06:43.820 --> 00:06:45.650 align:middle line:84% There is a whole section of this talk 00:06:45.650 --> 00:06:47.510 align:middle line:84% that I had to cut out for matters of time, 00:06:47.510 --> 00:06:49.640 align:middle line:84% and it's called the Longfellow War. 00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:53.330 align:middle line:84% In this war, he called Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 00:06:53.330 --> 00:06:57.980 align:middle line:84% the Smith Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard University 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:03.050 align:middle line:84% and the esteemed center of the literary clique of Boston-- 00:07:03.050 --> 00:07:04.370 align:middle line:90% who was also really wealthy. 00:07:04.370 --> 00:07:06.860 align:middle line:84% He had just married this wealthy magnate's daughter, 00:07:06.860 --> 00:07:08.990 align:middle line:84% and he had received as his wedding gift 00:07:08.990 --> 00:07:11.540 align:middle line:84% a mansion which you can still go visit today. 00:07:11.540 --> 00:07:15.020 align:middle line:84% And they have chamber music out on the porch, and everything. 00:07:15.020 --> 00:07:18.770 align:middle line:84% Longfellow was the opposite of Poe, in so many ways, 00:07:18.770 --> 00:07:22.413 align:middle line:84% and Poe claims that Longfellow plagiarized 00:07:22.413 --> 00:07:23.330 align:middle line:90% a couple of his poems. 00:07:23.330 --> 00:07:27.200 align:middle line:84% And he prints these poems side by side and calls him out. 00:07:27.200 --> 00:07:30.440 align:middle line:84% And then Longfellow's friends come to Longfellow's rescue 00:07:30.440 --> 00:07:32.600 align:middle line:90% and write all of these letters. 00:07:32.600 --> 00:07:36.290 align:middle line:84% But the best letter is written by somebody named Outis. 00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:40.910 align:middle line:84% And Outis takes Poe to task and says, this isn't plagiarism. 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:44.850 align:middle line:84% But Outis also, curiously, kind of likes Poe's poetry. 00:07:44.850 --> 00:07:47.450 align:middle line:84% He's like, Poe, you write great poems. 00:07:47.450 --> 00:07:49.850 align:middle line:84% I just wanted to say, before I go, you write great poems. 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:51.890 align:middle line:84% But you're totally wrong about Longfellow. 00:07:51.890 --> 00:07:55.910 align:middle line:84% And then he shows a poem that he says that Poe 00:07:55.910 --> 00:07:57.740 align:middle line:90% plagiarized "The Raven" from. 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:00.920 align:middle line:84% This poem is called The Bird of the Dream." 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:02.510 align:middle line:84% And he prints a couple of the stanzas 00:08:02.510 --> 00:08:04.892 align:middle line:84% there that Poe is meant to have plagiarized. 00:08:04.892 --> 00:08:07.100 align:middle line:84% It's about a bird that comes to somebody who has just 00:08:07.100 --> 00:08:10.870 align:middle line:90% lost somebody who had died. 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:14.980 align:middle line:84% Poe spends the next four months replying to Outis, article 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:16.660 align:middle line:90% after article after article. 00:08:16.660 --> 00:08:19.090 align:middle line:84% This thing Outis got wrong, this thing Outis got wrong, 00:08:19.090 --> 00:08:20.770 align:middle line:90% this thing Outis got wrong. 00:08:20.770 --> 00:08:22.150 align:middle line:90% It's remarkable. 00:08:22.150 --> 00:08:24.490 align:middle line:84% And by the end of it, you start to think, at first, 00:08:24.490 --> 00:08:26.740 align:middle line:90% Outis seems totally legit. 00:08:26.740 --> 00:08:28.990 align:middle line:84% And by the end, you start thinking, 00:08:28.990 --> 00:08:30.250 align:middle line:90% Poe actually won this thing. 00:08:30.250 --> 00:08:34.299 align:middle line:90% I think Poe's got it. 00:08:34.299 --> 00:08:39.070 align:middle line:84% What scholars discovered-- and this is basically 00:08:39.070 --> 00:08:39.669 align:middle line:90% the consensus. 00:08:39.669 --> 00:08:41.020 align:middle line:90% It's not a full consensus. 00:08:41.020 --> 00:08:43.020 align:middle line:84% There are some people that don't think this-- is 00:08:43.020 --> 00:08:44.860 align:middle line:90% that Outis was Edgar Allan Poe. 00:08:44.860 --> 00:08:50.080 align:middle line:84% And Edgar Allan Poe had created this entire drama with himself 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:51.950 align:middle line:90% in order to sell magazines. 00:08:51.950 --> 00:08:56.155 align:middle line:84% He kept himself in the public eye by-- 00:08:56.155 --> 00:08:58.750 align:middle line:84% and what's so ironic about this is 00:08:58.750 --> 00:09:03.280 align:middle line:84% that that means that he wrote "The Bird of the Dream," 00:09:03.280 --> 00:09:04.900 align:middle line:90% which nobody has found anywhere. 00:09:04.900 --> 00:09:07.210 align:middle line:84% He wrote "The Bird of the Dream" to accuse himself 00:09:07.210 --> 00:09:11.770 align:middle line:84% of plagiarizing "The Bird of the Dream." 00:09:11.770 --> 00:09:15.280 align:middle line:90% It's baffling. 00:09:15.280 --> 00:09:18.520 align:middle line:84% But it also just sort of underlines the point 00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:23.440 align:middle line:84% that Poe is sort of like PT Barnum, who 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:24.940 align:middle line:90% understood popular culture. 00:09:24.940 --> 00:09:30.700 align:middle line:84% And he understood how scandal and the potential for scandal 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.687 align:middle line:84% had a grip on people's imagination. 00:09:32.687 --> 00:09:34.270 align:middle line:84% He understood, and he could manipulate 00:09:34.270 --> 00:09:35.440 align:middle line:90% that for his own benefit. 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:38.350 align:middle line:84% And he wasn't opposed to saying horrible things about himself, 00:09:38.350 --> 00:09:40.840 align:middle line:84% although Outis does say nice things about his poetry, which 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:44.140 align:middle line:84% in retrospect, seems like a clue. 00:09:44.140 --> 00:09:46.840 align:middle line:84% But he wasn't above saying bad things about himself 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:50.080 align:middle line:84% or treating himself as a character in this drama that 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.630 align:middle line:84% was the bad guy, just to keep himself 00:09:52.630 --> 00:09:55.880 align:middle line:90% in the middle of things. 00:09:55.880 --> 00:09:57.020 align:middle line:90% Well, that was so great. 00:09:57.020 --> 00:10:00.340 align:middle line:84% I wish that I could say, "for more, go online to our website, 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:02.350 align:middle line:84% and you'll see the extended interview," 00:10:02.350 --> 00:10:05.125 align:middle line:84% but really what I mean is, Paul's book is over there. 00:10:05.125 --> 00:10:07.000 align:middle line:84% I'm sure he'd love to stick around and answer 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:07.852 align:middle line:90% more questions. 00:10:07.852 --> 00:10:09.060 align:middle line:90% Thank you all for coming out. 00:10:09.060 --> 00:10:09.280 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:10:09.280 --> 00:10:09.780 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:10:09.780 --> 00:10:11.650 align:middle line:90% Paul, thank you. 00:10:11.650 --> 00:10:13.000 align:middle line:90%