Poe’s “Life” and Hawthorne’s “Death”: A Literary Debate

Richard Fusco Poe’s “Life”and Hawthorne’s “Death”: A Literary Debate In April 1842EdgarAllan Poe,the editor of Graham 5 Magazine,inserted a seven-hundredword notice on the reissue of NathanielHawthorne’s TwiceToZd Tales. Poe’s tone is curious: “Anaccident has deprived us, this month, of our customary space for review; and thus nipped in the bud a design long cherished of treating this subject [tale writing] in detail; taking Mr. Hawthorne’svolumes as a text. In May we shall endeavor to carry out our intention. At present we areforced to be brief.”’Whatwas the ”accident”that robbed a scrupulous and thorough Poe of copy space?Whywas it soimportant for Poe to announce, almost superfluously, that he would greatly expand his review in Graham’snext number?Although Hawthorne ’s star had somewhat ascended, his fame in 1842was not at a level that would guarantee a boost in Graham’ssales.CertainlyPoe himself had achieved a modicum of notoriety, but not to the extent that a review of a respected but still under-appreciatedtale writer would generate excitement and anticipation in the American literaryworld.2Whybother wasting precious copyspace?Why notjust wait until the May issue to print the completed review-an essay that would eventuallyprove to be one of the more significant assessments of the short storypublished in the nineteenth century? At the height of his powers in the early 1840s, Poe was not one to squander literary opportunities, even those attendingthe most trivialof circumstances and editorial responsibilities. In his May review, he assertsthat “[iln thewholecompositionthere should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect,isnot to the onepreestablished design”(ER, 572). Poe demands his audience’s complete attention and rewardsthis effortwith textconstructedwith integrity and care. I submit that the April notice is part of a larger,“indirect”design,which contributes to a unity of effect that fuses critical and fictive discourse : Poe wanted to compel readers to think of Hawthornebecause the extended reviewof TwiceToZd Taleshad alreadybegun in thatAprilissueof Graham’s, carefully disguised as a new offering from the macabre pen of its editor-the tale “Lifein Death,”later greatly revised and retitled “TheOval Portrait,”as it is better known today.3 Here I must caution the reader that the following argument does not rely on known biographical data to substantiateits legitimacy.It is a reasonedspeculation -a scenario, if you prefer-that synthesizes and orders circumstances and textual readings in order to illuminatethe differingstancesPoeand Hawthorne took in their selfconceptions as artists. My methodology owes a great deal to Robert Regan and his notable essay “Hawthorne’s‘Plagiary’;Poe’s Duplicity,” where he writes: “The theory I am constructingas a possible explanation for Poe’s conduct in the matter of Hawthorne’s ‘plagiary’-let me acknowledge it emphatically-is hypothetical and heuristic. What I propose to put forwardis not a conclusiondrawn from data we have in hand but a con&xt in which this and otherinstancesof Poe’sduplicitymaybe e~plicable.”~ The incubus of “Life in Death” resides in Poe’s reaction to the philosophical import of one particular tale in Hawthorne’s book, ”The Prophetic Picture ~.”~ Thisresponsearisesfrom the unusuallygood circumstances of Poe’s life during the early 1840s, summarizedsowell by G. R Thompson.Duringthese years, Poe enjoyed (ina relative sense)a decentreputation and somesecurity.Hewas adequatelypaid. His problem with alcohol was under control. Until his wife,Virginia,broke a blood vesselwhile singing,signaling a more virulent stage of her tuberculosis, his home lifebrought him comfort.Although not ranked among America’s literary leaders, he was still recognized asan importantman of letters-particularly for his intellectual prowess, a reputation earned by such escapades as publishing cryptogram solutions and purporting to solve the mystery of Charles Dickens’s BarnabyRudgeover ayear before the serializednovel’s completion. 6 31 During this period, Poe created C. Auguste Dupin , the first detective of modern literature, in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Dupin (aswell asWilliam Legrande, his fictional cousin in “TheGold-Bug”) represents Poe’s consummate artist, or at least one as perfect as possible in a decaying universe. The worldly but alienated Dupin is similar to the gothic victims in Poe’sarabesques, such as Roderick Usher or the unnamed narrator of Ligeia. In fact, his reclusively poetic...