Three Dimensional Poe by Haldeen Braddy (review)

THREE DIMENSIONAL POE BY HALDEEN BRADDY (El Paso, Texas: Texas Western Press, 1973. Hardbound. 86 pages.) In Three Dimensional Poe, Haldeen Braddy guides the reader through the intense, ill-fated life of Poe. There are the women whom Poe sought out and who purportedly inspired many ofhis poems, yet who failed as an answer to the author's obvious quest. There is the Poe whose stories throb with Gothic suspense and horror in death. There is Poe, the critic, at his most mature, ambitiously devising guidelines for the world of readers and writers. Braddy might have added, too, aiourth dimension, editing, at which Poe was reportedly brilliant. His work appeared in prestigious magazines of the day, but he lost jobs because of disagreements with publishers. Braddy carefully names the illnesses that "plagued Poe (tuberculosis and a possible brain lesion)" and adds that "he may have died from a diabetic attack." Perhaps Poe may have been born to devise the nightmares he wrote, but it is more likely that he responded to public taste and even evolved into what he wrote. Whatever the truth may be, there is too much of the "Poe myth" in Braddy's version of an alcoholic feverishly fearful in life and fearful of death, reflecting in this work his terrors and flights into the supernatural, and seeking refuge in women. As Braddysays, though, "art, pure and abstract, was the woman Edgar Allan Poe desired." That, indeed may be the final answer to the Poe question. The book also contains a chronological outline of Poe's biography, and an extensive bibliography covering 1949 through 1970. This latter, and the 1849-1949 bibliography in Glorious Incense: The Fulfillment ofEdgar Allan Poe, give the reader a bibliography ofPoe criticism dating from his death and valuable to student, scholar, and any reader of Poe. LINDA J. ROBINSON* *LINDA J. ROBINSON is Professor of Englishat EasternNew Mexico University. Her degrees are from Texas Western College and from Tulane University. Her main research interests are in Medieval Literature and in American Literature. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW83 ...