Edgar Allan Poe: The Lost Soul Of America

 

In Europe it is often said that you can tell the spirit of a region by its wine. If that is true, then you most assuredly must be able to discern the true soul of a nation by the way in which it honors its poets. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the great poet Friedrich Schiller’s memory and spirit are kept as a living tradition, albeit by a small and aging core of devoted followers. In Italy, despite attempts to purge the Commedia of Dante Alighieri from the public schools, there are still enough who know him that we may band together to prevent such an occurrence.

In Greece, there is still great pride among sections of the population that their country was the birthplace of perhaps the greatest poet of them all, Plato.

In Spain, Cervantes is still revered by an admittedly too small elite. I think that even in the Soviet Union some still take pride in the work of the great Russian poet Pushkin.

But in America, here in America, which has, for the last 200 years, been the recipient of the benefits of the best minds the rest of the world has to offer, the nation has allowed its only poet to be treated in such a despicable manner that one can argue that the very soul of the country has disparted.

This statement is not what some may wish to call hyperbole, others poetic license, still others, metaphor. It is a simple statement of fact.

I do not hold you, the reader, responsible in this matter, because you have been lied to on the subject of poetry and art in general, to the point that most of you recoil with visions ofAndy Warhol’s soup cans or some group of nuts performing a pagan ritual on stage accompanied by electronic grunts, groans, and screams.

To prove that most of you have been lied to, what do you think of when you hear the name Edgar Allan Poe?

The great majority of you have been told, perhaps by an ignorant or misinformed junior high school teacher, that Poe was some sort of alcoholic or opium eater. A greater majority of you have images of Vincent Price’s performances on the Late Late Show or Chiller Theater. In fact, your minds have been filled with so much of this garbage that you have forgotten the intense joy and excitement you experienced when you first read a poem or a tale written by Mr. Poe.

It is my purpose in this excerpt to give an accurate account of who Edgar Allan Poe really was, as well as to show you exactly how, by whom, and for what purpose you have been deliberately misled.  (more...)

Edgar Allan Poe: The Lost Soul Of America

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