Edgar Allan Poe

Me:
Thank you Mr Poe, for giving me a few moments of your time to hopefully get an insight into the brilliance of your life in terms of your great literature – you are a legend you know.(smiles)

E.A.Poe:
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.

Me:
Hmmm, yes well, I’d certainly question some of the intellects I have the misfortune to interact with - I read somewhere that Henry Charles was quoted as saying “An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. Baudelaire thought him a profound philosopher.... Poe was much the greater charlatan of the two, as well as the greater genius.” – You have a comment to make on his comment?

E.A.Poe:
There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago - Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

Me:
I most certainly shall, thank you for that…do you mind very much if we talk about your poetry?

E.A.Poe:
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty. With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.

Me:
That’s a truly beautiful way to put it (sighs)…It’s been said and is I suppose reflected in a lot of your work - that much of it is due to your concern of romanticism with the occult and the satanic – that it owes much also to your own feverish dreams, to which you applied a rare faculty of shaping plausible fabrics out of impalpable materials.

E.A.Poe.
(repeats) Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear….If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered - I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.
It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream….Invisible things are the only realities

Me: (shivers) You’re making me go all goose bumpy!!.

E.A.Poe.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be - There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. There are moments when even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of Hell. Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

Me: I know , I know “believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear” but you have been described as having a lack of principles, irritable, self centred, unstable…blah, blah, blah….What that really does though just enhances your mana ( one of my culture’s words meaning esteem/prestige). (smiles)

E.A.Poe:
In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me. Stupidity is a talent for misconceptions (Me nods in agreement). To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness (Me sensed a cheeky wink here)

Me:
Your sensitivity to the beauty and sweetness of women inspired in your lyrical works*(To Helen, Annabel Lee, Eulalie, To One in Paradise* and the full-toned prose hymns to beauty and love in Ligeia and Eleonora tells me a lot about the romantic Mr Poe – care to share a little on this?

E.A.Poe:
“For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world -sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears - there are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.

Me:
What could I ever say to ever come close to trying to express with such eloquence, anything, as wonderful as you have?…this has been an experience I will never forget – and I’d like to leave the last words to you Mr Poe please….

E.A.Poe:
It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.
We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams - the ninety and nine are with dreams, content, but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.

Me: *whispers* PERFECT!