Celebrate Poe

Poe's Two Universities

September 19, 2022 George Bartley Season 2 Episode 131
Celebrate Poe
Poe's Two Universities
Show Notes Transcript


This episode continues looking at Poe’s time at the University of Virginia and compares that period with his time at Fordham University.  This episode concentrates on  Poe’s final days at UVA - especially his debts.


  • What  do Fordham University and the University of Virginia have in common in Poe’s life?
  • Who was the librarian at the University?
  • Which debts did John Allan REFUSE to pay?
  • What did Poe do when he returned to Richmond?
  • What does “The Bells” have to do with Fordham?
  • What did the monks at Forrdham think of Poe?


  • 00:00 Intro
  • 01:06 Poe andd Fordham University
  • 03:34 Examinations at the University of Virginia
  • 06:38 Last days at the University
  • 14:21 Jeffersons looks back
  • 15:53 Arthur Quinn on Poe’s education
  • 17:32 Skipping ahead to Fordham
  • 18:40 The Bells
  • 22:48 Early years at Fordham
  • 26:40 Next episode
  • 27:12  Sources
  • 28:12 Outro

00:01  Introduction

Welcome to Celebrate Poe.  My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 131 - Poe’s Two Universities

The opening and outro music for this episode is from Come Rest in This  Bosom - said to be Edgar Poe’s favorite song.

I believe I mentioned in an earlier episode that I planned to leave the topic  of Poe and the University, but have come across some other information about Poe’s life at the University that I just couldn’t leave out - largely because the influence of Poe’s relatively brief time at the University of Virginia cannot be underestimated.

01:06 Poe andd Fordham University 

But first, I’d like to give a shoutout to Ed - a friend who was a professor at Fordham University - a place that Edgar Poe certainly frequented during the later part of his life.   I had kinda set the subject of Fordham University aside, and planned to cover it much, much later - because chronologically the events surrounding Poe’s life in his cottage at Fordham, and friendship with the monks at Fordham seemed way down the road - and it might appear at first glance that they don’t have that much to do with the University of Virginia.

And while I will have several episodes dealing with the events surrounding Poe and Fordham University on down the road - probably WAAAY on down the road, It hit me that the University of Virgina and Fordham were institutions of higher learning that basically acted as bookends for Poe’s writing career - the 17 year old Poe as an eager, aspiring writer at the University of Virginia, and an experienced, somewhat world weary poet and teller of short stories at Fordham University.  In other words, I thought it might be a good idea to briefly talk about the roles of the University of Virginia, as well as Fordham University in the writer’s life.

GHOST OF POE ENTERS

Well, Hello, Mr. Poe

ˆGreetings, Mr. Bartley

Yes, I know this podcast has not been dealing with your life during the last month of two - largely due to my recent illness and experiences wiith the Indianapolis Shakespeare Company before that, but I want to get back to your days at the University of Virginia - especially the final exams.

03:34 Examinations at the University of Virginia

Ah yes, as December approached in Charlottesville, there was a most feverish preparations for the examinations of which you speak.  Now during the previous session the Board of Visitors had decreed that there should be public examinations, which they themselves would attend. In issuing invitations, preference was to be given parents and guardians.  

Oh, did that include women?

Mr. Bartley - surely you jest.  This was during 1826..

The public examinations began on Monday, December 4, in the elliptical room of the Rotunda, and were attended during that week by James Madison (rector), and James Monroe, Joseph Cabell, and General John H. Cocke. The examination in modern languages was held on Tuesday, December 5. I believe that ancient languages came on the previous day.

Impressive.

The examinations were over on December 13 or 14, and on the next day, December 15, the Faculty met. The very first resolution offered indicates that the method of examination had not proved satisfactory, and provided for material changes next session. It was further resolved “that, for publishing the result of the examinations, a brief statement from each professor be subjected to the Faculty.” The reports of the several professors were then submitted. 

For example, Mr. Long made a report regarding the examination of the classes belonging to the school of ancient languages and the names of the students who excelled at the examination of these classes. In the Faculty minutes for 1826 my name appeared, as fourth in a list of nineteen who excelled in Senior Latin. Such distinguished students were divided into groups, and I was third in the second group, Gessner Harrison standing alone in the first group. At the same meeting “the names of the students who excelled in the Senior French class” were reported by Professor Blaetterman. The eight names were arranged alphabetically, so I stood sixth in the list.  While there is some controversy regarding my graduation, and I was not necessarily a graduate in the languages I studied, I had definitely excellent in the examinations

That must have been an extremely high honor. So these must have been your final days at the University.

06:38 Last days at the University

Ah yes, perhaps my last days at the University of Virginia were best expressed by Mr. Wertenbaker - tthe highly respected librarian

He was to later write regarding me -  

I can testify that he was tolerably regular in his attendance, and a successful student, having obtained distinction at the Final Examination in Latin and French; and this was at that time the highest honor a student could obtain. The present regulations in regard to degrees had not then been adopted. Under existing regulations he would have graduated in the two languages above named, and have been entitled to diplomas. On one occasion Professor Blaettermann requested his Italian class to render into English verse a portion of the lesson in Tasso, which he had assigned for the next lecture. He did not require this of them as a regular class exercise, but recommended it as one from which he thought the students would derive benefit. At the next lecture on Italian the Professor stated from his chair that Mr. Poe was the only member of the class who had responded to his suggestion, and paid a very high compliment to his performance. As Librarian I had frequent official intercourse with Mr. Poe, but it was at or near the close of the session before I met him in the social circle, After spending an evening together at a private house, he invited me in on our return to his room. 

Now he is talking about YOUR room, Mr. Poe?

Yes.  Let me continue.

It was a cold night in December, and his fire having gone pretty nearly out, by the aid of some tallow candles, and the fragments of a small table which he broke up for the purpose, he soon rekindled it, and by its comfortable blaze I spent a very pleasant hour with him. On this occasion he spoke with regret of the large amount of money he had wasted and of the debts he had contracted during the session. If my memory is not at fault, he estimated his indebtedness at $2,000, and, though they were gaming debts, he was earnest and emphatic in the declaration that he was bound by honor to pay, at the earliest opportunity, every cent of them. He certainly was not habitually intemperate, but he may occasionally have entered into a frolic. I often saw him in the lecture-room and in the library, but never in the slightest degree under the influence of intoxicating liquors. Among the professors he had the reputation of being a sober, quiet and orderly young man, and to them and the officers his deportment was uniformly that of an intelligent and polished  gentleman. Although his practice of gaming did escape detection, the hardihood, intemperance and reckless wildness imputed to him by his biographers, had he been guilty of them, must inevitably have come to the knowledge of the faculty and met with merited punishment. The records of which I was then, and am still, the custodian, attest that at no time during the session did he fall under the censure of the faculty. Mr. Poe’s connection with the University was dissolved by the termination of the session on the 15th of December, 1826. He then wanted little over a month of having attained to the age of eighteen: the date of his birth was plainly entered in his own handwriting on the matriculation book. Were he now living, his age on the 19th of this month (January, 1869) would be sixty. He never returned to the University, and I think it probable that the night I visited him was the last he spent here. I draw this inference not from memory, but from the fact, that having no further use for his candles and table he made fuel of them

I guess that it is logical to assume that if yo are burning your table and candles, you are probably going to not stay in that room.  And I assume you were soon planning to leave Charlottesville for Richmond.

Yes, but first Mr. Allan came to Charlottesville, inquired into my activities, and paid some of my debts.

You mean he paid ALL your debts?  I’m confused.

You often are, Mr. Bartley. No, John Allan only paid debts he thought should be paid.

John Allan certainly had more than sufficient funds - so what debts did he refuse to pay?

John Allan refused to pay some of my gambling debts. - which many people believe amounted to as much as $2,500.

What did John Allan do then?

He took me away that December to begin working in Ellis and Allan’s Richmond counting room where they were engaged in winding up their old business. 

After going to the University of Virginia?

John Allan seemed to have more incentive in giving me some knowledge of book-keeping accounts, and commercial correspondence.

Mr. Poe, from what I understand, this was a period of life when you began to seriously write verse  - an interest in literature that you nourished your entire life.

Yes, Mr. Bartley - the following year I wrote "Tamerlane and other Poems” But that is a subject for another day. Farewell, Mr. Bartley.  I needs must take my leave.

GHOST EXIT SOUND

14:21 Jeffersons looks back

I’d like to end the first portion of this episode about Edgar Allan Poe at the University of Virginia the way I began the first episode about the school - written by the aging Thomas Jefferson to the aging John Adams

Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious, but while writing to you I lose the sense of these in the recollections of ancient times, when youth made health and happiness out of everything. I forget for a while this hoary winter of age, when we can think of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm by the fire and how to get rid of our heavy penalties until the friendly hand of death shall rid us of it all at once. Against this tedium vitce, however, my dear friend, I am now fortunately mounted on a hobby, which, indeed, I mounted some thirty or forty years ago, but whose amble is still sufficient to give exercise and amusement to an octagenarian writer. This is the establishment of a university for the education of all succeeding generations of youth in this Republic.”

15:53 Arttur Quinn on Poe’s education

The great Arthur Hobson Quinn has commented on the role of the University of Virginia in Poe’s development as a writer.  In Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Dr. Quinn wrote:

With the close of Poe’s term at the University of Virginia, his regular education was over. It has not been observed that this training both in school and college was limited largely to those subjects, the ancient and modern languages, whose main purpose, for an American at least, has been the development of the power of expression. This limitation was on the whole not altogether unfortunate for an artist who was to become one of the greatest creators of phrases the world has known. The training was probably thorough, and is distinctly a form of education which makes for power and skill in the choice of words. A broader curriculum might have given Poe wider interests, and more specific information, in history and science. The former he apparently sought in his reading, to judge from the books he drew from the library. But information obtained in college soon vanishes, if not immediately applied — power, particularly linguistic power, lasts longer, especially if, as in Poe’s case, he was already beginning to write verses.

17:32 Skipping ahead to Fordham

Now skip ahead twenty years later from 1826 to 1846.  After an extremely productive - although not necessarily financially rewarding career in writing - Poe  moved his family to a small cottage at Fordham, some thirteen miles outside of New York City.  His wife, Virginia, became even more seriously ill as a result of consumption, and died at twenty four.  Although Poe become dangerously ill himself after her death, was nursed back to health by Mrs. Marie Louise Shew, a kindly, unsophisticated woman with medical training, but no interest in literature. 

18:40 The Bells

And according to many sources, the BELLS at nearby Fordham University served as inspiration for one of Poe’s masterpieces, The Bells - 

Hear the sledges with the bells—                Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

        How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

           In the icy air of night!

        While the stars that oversprinkle

        All the heavens, seem to twinkle

           With a crystalline delight;

         Keeping time, time, time,

         In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinabulation that so musically wells

       From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

               Bells, bells, bells—

  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.


Hear the mellow wedding bells,

                 Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

        Through the balmy air of night

        How they ring out their delight!

           From the molten-golden notes,

               And all in tune,

           What a liquid ditty floats

    To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

               On the moon!

         Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

               How it swells!

               How it dwells

           On the Future! how it tells

           Of the rapture that impels

         To the swinging and the ringing

           Of the bells, bells, bells,

         Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

               Bells, bells, bells—

  To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!


         Hear the loud alarum bells—

                 Brazen bells!

What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

       In the startled ear of night

       How they scream out their affright!

         Too much horrified to speak,

         They can only shriek, shriek,

                  Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

            Leaping higher, higher, higher,

            With a desperate desire,

         And a resolute endeavor

         Now—now to sit or never,

       By the side of the pale-faced moon.

            Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

            What a tale their terror tells

                  Of Despair!

       How they clang, and clash, and roar!

       What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

       Yet the ear it fully knows,

            By the twanging,

            And the clanging,

         How the danger ebbs and flows;

       Yet the ear distinctly tells,

            In the jangling,

            And the wrangling.

       How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—

             Of the bells—

     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

            Bells, bells, bells—

 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!


          Hear the tolling of the bells—

                 Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

        In the silence of the night,

        How we shiver with affright

  At the melancholy menace of their tone!

        For every sound that floats

        From the rust within their throats

                 Is a groan.

        And the people—ah, the people—

       They that dwell up in the steeple,

                 All alone,

        And who tolling, tolling, tolling,

          In that muffled monotone,

         Feel a glory in so rolling

          On the human heart a stone—

     They are neither man nor woman—

     They are neither brute nor human—

              They are Ghouls:

        And their king it is who tolls;

        And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

                    Rolls

             A pæan from the bells!

          And his merry bosom swells

             With the pæan of the bells!

          And he dances, and he yells;

          Keeping time, time, time,

          In a sort of Runic rhyme,

             To the pæan of the bells—

               Of the bells:

          Keeping time, time, time,

          In a sort of Runic rhyme,

            To the throbbing of the bells—

          Of the bells, bells, bells—

            To the sobbing of the bells;

          Keeping time, time, time,

            As he knells, knells, knells,

          In a happy Runic rhyme,

            To the rolling of the bells—

          Of the bells, bells, bells—

            To the tolling of the bells,

      Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—

              Bells, bells, bells—

  To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

22:48 Early years at Fordham

While Poe was never enrolled at Fordham University, he was accepted by the faculty and became a welcome sight on campus.  While Poe certainly had worked hard - he was not wildly popular  among the public . But the monks were certainly aware of Poe, and appreciated his talents and perceptions.  There are even reports that he spend a great deal of time in the library - even to the point of staying all night.

In A History of St. John’s College, Fordham, New York” by the Rev John Scully, the Rev. Scully writes of  We now reach a period in the history of St. John's the what he calls “the association with the college and its professors of that most unfortunate and most maligned of men, and most fascinating of poets, Edgar Allan Poe.   

His succesor, Father Doucet, wrote

" I knew him well," " In bearing and countenance he was extremely refined. His features were somewhat sharp and very thoughtful. He was well informed on all matters. I always thought he was a gentleman by nature and instinct." 


The History of Saint John’s goes on to say that Poe’s enemies, for he had many, made capital out of his weakness, and hounded him with an 

animosity and a persistency that would have broken a less sturdy spirit. Father Doucet always indignantly denied the statement so freely made that Poe looked like one worn out by dissipation and excess - in other words, quite different from the image we often have of the writer duing this period - the image of Poe the wasted and burnt out poet.

I will go into Poe’s time at Fordham later - MUCH later and in more detail - but I wanted to introduce Fordham for comparison purposes right after looking at Poe’s time at the University of Virginia.  Poe was a teenager then and was just starting a career - when Poe became associated with Fordham he had spent several decades writing some of the greatest works ever written by an American.  Most of the works were really not that accepted - except by the fathers who really appreciated Poe’s genius.

And Poe never was a student or teacher at Fordham - but he is certainly associated with the area.  He had a small cottage at Fordham - the cottage where his wife died.  And the area around Fordham gave him a great deal of peace and comfort.  To summarize, both the University of Virginia and later Fordham University played important roles in the development of Poe’s literary career.

TRANSITION SOUND

26:40 Next episode:  

In the next episode, Celebrate Poe will examine a fairly recent book about Poe’s days at the University of Virginia called ROT, RIOT, AND REBELLION: The book seems to be quite well-researched, but with words like riot, rot, and rebellion in its title, it has a slightly different perspective.

27:12 Sources for this episode include

A History of St. John’s College, Fordham, New York” by the Rev John Scully “Poe’s Student Days at the University of Virginia” by Charles W. Kent, The Young Man Poe by Southall Wilson from the Virginia Quarterly, 1926, Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe by James A. Harrison, Edgar A. Poe and His College Contemporaries by William McCreery Burwell, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: The Man by Mary E. Phillips, Life of Edgar A. Poe by Eugene L. Didier, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Dwight Thomas and David K. Jackson, Poe and Place by Phillip Edward Phillips, and New Glimpses of Poe by James A. Harrison

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.