Like Taylor Swift

This episode looks  at how Edgar Poe was directly influenced by the works of William Shakespeare. This episode deals with a list of quotes from Shakespeare in Poe’s handwriting that can be seen at the Poe Museum in Richmond (when the author of this podcast saw that list, he became as excited as a young girl at a Taylor Swift concert!). George points out that Poe (a definite admirer of Shakespeare) later began to concentrate on writing shorter stories to produce “a unified effect.”

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Poe.  My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 237 - Like Taylor Swift

Today I hope to finish - for now - a look at how Edgar Poe was influenced by the works of William Shakespeare.

There is no question that the young Edgar Poe at Stoke Newington boarding school in England would have been immersed in Shakespeare.
He would have also have been exposed to Shakespeare’s use of rhetorical devices - for example - parrallelism - with parrallism, the speaker or writer uses two - often contrasting statements - to communicate an idea.  An example of parallelism in Shakespeare’s Hamlet would be to be or not to be - basically to live or to die.  A modern example of parallelism might be John F. Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”   Poe used rhetorical devices throughout his works - in fact the only two writers I know of who have book length studies of their use of rhetorical devices are Shakespeare in Shakespeare and His Use of Language by Sister Miriam Joseph and Poe: Rhetoric and Style by Brett Zimmerman.

PLAY GREENSLEEVES

Now, I believe I mentioned in the very first episode of Celebrate Poe that I was living in Richmond when I applied for what I thought would be my dream job - working at the Apple Store.  A few weeks later, I got a letter from the store that they had decided on someone else - that I did not appear to have the qualities of a salesman.  And looking back, I can see that they were right.  I would have been a HORRIBLE salesman.   But my husband told me about an opening at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, and I applied.  For some reason, they had this thing going by advertising Poe as America’s Shakespeare.  And I had just graduated with a masters degree in Shakespeare Education from the American Shakespeare Center.   In fact, I was hired right on the spot - I like to think that I must have made an impression, but in reality, I think they must have really needed someone.

After the interview, the director of the Poe Museum, a great guy by the name of Chris Semptner started showing me around pointing out some of the many original books and documents that the museum had in its collection - and when I mean original - I mean words in Poe’s own handwriting.

But getting back to Edgar Poe as a youth - it is believed that in his 20’s he started carrying a list of passages from Shakespeare that must have especially impressed him.  Chris showed me that list that Poe had jotted down, and I got a strange feeling - here I was looking at Poe’s actual handwriting while in his 20s - a paper where he listed passages from Shakespeare than especially impressed him.  I mentioned in the last episode that I must have felt like an awestruck teenage girl seeing her first Taylor Swift concert - except I did not have a cellphone.

It is said that while Poe was influenced by Shakespeare’s words and mastery of literary expression, Poe felt that a piece of literature should be short enough to be read at one sitting.   An example today might be a movie, where the viewer usually takes in the whole work without interruption, whereas with a movie on Netflix - you might watch the movie and take constant breaks.   Poe felt that a work should be read at one sitting for maximum effect.   To me that is one reason that works like The Tell Tale Heart are so scary - with The Tell Tale Heart, for example, the entire work can be read in less than 10 minutes - even a spoken version takes less than 12 minutes!

The list is certainly too long to read in its entirety - but I would like to take a few of my favorite plays by Shakespeare, and read the brief passages that Poe wrote on his list.

The Tempest

The very rats
Instinctively had quit it.   
 
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

And but he's something stained
With grief that's beauty's canker, thou mighst [[might'st]] call him
A goodly person.   
 
Most sure the Goddess
On whom these airs attend.   
 
Look! He's winding up the watch of his wits
And by and bye it will strike.   
 
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labors
Most busyless when I do it.

I do beseech you
Chiefly that I may set it in my prayers
What is your name?

Every third tho’t shall be my grave

 Yet writers say as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating Love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all

12th Night
 
He plays on the viol de gambo, and speaks
3 or 4 languages word for word without
book — and hath all the good gifts
of nature.

 It shall become thee well to act my woes

 And these that are foods let them use
their talents.

 Two faults madonna
That drink and counsel will amend

 Misprison in the highest degree

I think his soul is in hell madonna —
I know his soul is in heaven, fool

 Lady you are the cruellest she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.

I see you what you are — you are too proud
But if you were the devil you are fair

I am a gentleman — I’ll be sworn thou art.

Antonio: let me but know of you whither
you are bound. Sebastian: No sooth, Sir,
My determinate voyage is mere extravagancy.   
 
Poor lady! She were better love a dream!

Do not our lives consist of the 4 elements?
I’ faith so they say — but I think
it rather consists of eating and drinking.

 O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip

 I pray you let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials, and the things of fame
That do renown this city.

 There comes the countess — now heaven walks on Earth

 More than I love these eyes — more than my life
More by all mores than e’er I shall love wife.

 A contract of eternal bond of love
Attest by the holy close of lips

Since when my watch hath told me towards my grave,
I have travelled but 2 hours.

We took him for a coward
But he's the very devil incarnate

 Pardon me sweet one even for the vows
We made each other yet so late ago

 One face — one voice — one habit — and 2 persons

 What countryman? what name? what parentage?

But we do learn
His givings out were of an infinite distance
From his true meant design.
Measure for Measure
 
Falling in the flames of her own youth.

 Lets write good angel on the devil's horn.

 An’ he had been a dog that should have
howled thus — they would have hanged him.

Much Ado about nothing.
 
O what me may do! what men dare do!
what men daily do — not knowing what
they do!

 The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination.

 Done to death by slanderer's tongues
Was the hero that here lies.

 And in the spiced Indian air by night
Full often has she gossip’d by my side

Mid: Night's Dream
 
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.

 And those things do best please me
Which befall preposterously

 And one in all the world's new fashions planted
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain

Love's Labor Lost
 
But I protest I love to hear him lie
And I will use him for my minstrelsy

 Devise wit — write pen — for I am for whole
volumes in folio

 What judgement shall I dread doing no wrong?

Merchant of Venice.

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears — soft stillness and the night
Becomes the touches of sweet harmony

 And this our life exempt from public haunts
Finds tongues in trees — books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones — and good in every thing

As You Like It
 
Tho’ in thy youth thou wert as true a lover
As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow

 If he compact of jars turn musical
We soon shall hear of discord in the spheres

 What fool is this
O worthy fool one that hath been a courtier

The heathen philosopher when he had a
desire to eat a grape would open his
lips when he put it into his mouth — meaning
thereby that grapes were made top eat and
lips to open.

 And hath been tutored in the rudiments
Of many desperate studies.

King Lear

What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent.

 Let me if not by birth have lands by wit

 
Some time I shall sleep out — the rest I’ll whistle

 
Mishapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Romeo and Juliet
 
O teach me how I should forget to think.

 Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.

 O she doth teach the torches to burn bright

 Your worship in that sense may call him man

 Heaven and yourself
Had part in the fair maid — now Heaven hath all.

 I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault

 O here
Will I set up my everlasting rest.

So Shakespeare and Poe definitely differed in the overall lengths of most of their works.  But Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare shared several notable similarities in their writing styles and influences. Both Poe and Shakespeare were masters of using descriptive language to convey specific moods and emotions in their works. They employed controlled patterns of meter, with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, to create a poetic melody.  And of course, they both had a strong understanding of the use of rhetorical devices.

I think it is especially interesting that In "The Masque of the Red Din The Masque of the Red Death, is directly named after the character Prospero from Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Both characters are isolated rulers who try to shield themselves from the outside world, only to have their seclusion disrupted.

However, there are also some key differences in writing style - and I am not just referring to the 300 year difference in language usage. While Shakespeare used fewer stanzas in his sonnets and varied his rhyme schemes, Poe tended to use more elaborate stanzaic structures, often with the same rhyme scheme repeated across multiple stanzas, as seen in poems like "The Raven".

Additionally, Shakespeare's plays often explored broad, universal themes of human nature, while Poe was more focused on the dark, macabre, and psychological aspects of the human experience.

Poe maintained a more ironic, detached relationship to his writings compared to Shakespeare's more autobiographical approach.

Despite these differences, Shakespeare's influence on Poe is evident. Poe's works, like Shakespeare's, have had a lasting impact on literature and continue to captivate readers with their poetic mastery and exploration of the human condition.

Join Celebrate Poe for episode 238 - 

Sources for this episode include Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Dwight R. Thomas and David K. Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe: The Man by Mary E. Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe by George E. Woodberry from the American Men of Letters series, and Life of Edgar A. Poe by Eugene L. Didier, 

I encourage you to ask questions from the character of Mr. Poe - or even myself - at celebratepoe@gmail.com   There no need to include your name, unless you specifically say you want a shout out.  I do have quite a few questions from my days at History Alive as Poe - but I want to deal with the subjects that YOU are most interested in.

Again, that’s celebratepoe@gmail.com    And please subscribe to this podcast so you will not miss any episodes of Celebrate Poe.

Well, thank you very much for making it this far, as we take a deep dive into the life, times, and influences of America’s Shakespeare, and how he has influenced our world.

Now I’d like to end with a version of “Nobody Coming to Marry Me” I arranged using Garageband .  This music was Eliza Poe’s big hit on stage.

NOBODY COMING TO MARRY ME