Dreamland, Continued

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 242 - Dreamland, Continued .  Hopefully this should be the last episode regarding Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream Poems - at least for now.  And, hopefully, by the end of this episode, you will have an firm understanding of what Ultima Thule means.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

George - plain text
Ghost of Mr. Poe - bold text

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 242 - Dreamland, Continued .  Hopefully this should be the last episode regarding Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream Poems - at least for now.  And, hopefully, by the end of this episode, you will have an firm understanding of what Ultima Thule means.

I know I had talked about Dreamland as only having two stanzas - well, I just ran across a version that has the complete 5 versions - and  reading it just blew me away.

Previously, I was of the opinion that Poe’s “Dream-Land” was not at all clear if his land of dreams is the place from which the speaker has come, or is, rather, his longed-for destination — or if indeed it is the very mode and means and route endured along the way.  This may sound a little out there - but Dream-Land could therefore be Subject AND object, with a process that demonstrates the importance of desired ends. Poe writes about “Thule,” a northerly, arctic/Scandinavian sort of zone,] as apparently an origin "from" which the speaker has traveled, but it is also apparently “it” — a “wild clime” neither geographical nor temporal, “Out of SPACE— out of TIME.”

Many scholars have greatly admired Dreamland because the see the poem as an expression of something that is wild, but at the same time is very much in control or controlled. The poem seems to point to somewhere that can’t be defined - while at the same time, the poem will definitely go where it will (and that’s its point.). And if that sounds confusing to you, well, you doin’ just about right.

Of course we have no recordings of Poe reading this poem, and we’re not even certain he ever performed it in public, although Poe did enjoy giving  readings - and from what we understand, he only read his poetry and later from the essay Eureka - I seriously doubt that Poe would have read a short story like The Tell Tale Heart before an audience- tho that would make a great reading.

The 1844 version of Dreamland was first published in Graham’s Magazine and was the only poem that Poe wrote that year.  Dreamland consists of five stanzas, with the first and last being nearly identical. The poem was quickly republished in a June 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal.  And I hope that all these names of publishing houses where Poe worked will become 2nd nature to you by the end of this podcast.

But getting back to the poem, - the dream-voyager arrives in Dreamland - a place beyond time and space - and decides to stay there.  Poe believes that Dreamland is odd yet majestic, with "mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore". Even so, it is a "peaceful, soothing region"

By the way,  Poe biographer, the great Arthur Hobson Quinn called Dreamland "one of [Poe's] finest creations", with each phrase contributing to one effect: a human traveler wandering between life and death.

GHOST SOUND

Well, Hello Mr. Poe - glad you are here.

Greetings, Mr. Bartley.

Mr. Poe - it seem like you always know when to show up at the right time.
would you read your 1844 version of the poem Dream-land - this is the complete version.

Certainly, Mr. Bartley

And before we continue, Mr. Poe, I want to point out that Ultima Thoolee - a concept that you will refer to several times - can be pronounced two ways -

"UHL-tuh-muh THOO-lee" - This is the Latin pronunciation, with the stress on the first syllable of "ultima" and the second syllable of “Thule".  You can remember that this pronunciation has Thule rhyme with Julie.

"UHL-tee-mah TOO-lee" - This is the English pronunciation, with the stress on the first syllable of both words.

Mr. Poe, I believe you would have used the pronunciation - ultima thoolee -

Yes, Mr. Bartley

Now would you favor us with your 1844 version of dreamland

Certainly, Mr. Bartley.

Dream-land.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE— out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters— lone and dead,—
Their still waters— still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,—
By the mountains— near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—
By the grey woods,— by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp—
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,—
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy—
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth— and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region—
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis— oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not— dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

Mr. Poe - I noticed that you make Poe reference to the ultimate dim Thule near the beginning of the poem, as well as in the last line. So what exactly does ultima Thule mean?

Mr. Bartley - that is a most interesting concept -, the term “ultima Thule” in medieval geographies indicated any distant place located beyond the borders of the known world. In classical and medieval literature, ultima Thule (Latin for "farthest Thule") acquired a metaphorical meaning of any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world”. By the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, the Greco-Roman Thule was often identified with the real Iceland or Greenland. Sometimes Ultima Thule was a Latin name for Greenland, when Thule was used for Iceland. By the late 19th century, however, for some reason Thule was frequently identified with Norway.

Shall I continue, Mr. Bartley.

By all means, Mr. Poe.  Now, I assume you would have studied all this at Stoke Newington. 

That is a fair assumption.

Now I am going to go back for a minute to before the birth of Christ.

Polybius in his work The Histories (c. 140 BC), Book 34 cites Pytheas as one "who has led many people into error by saying that he traversed the whole of Britain on foot, writes about an area he refers to as Thule. He describes the region as one in which there was no longer any proper land nor sea nor air, but a sort of mixture of all three of the consistency of a jellyfish in which one can neither walk nor sail, holding everything together.

The first century BC Greek astronomer Geminus of Rhodes claimed that the name Thule went back to an archaic word for the polar night phenomenon – "the place where the sun goes to rest”.  Avienius in his Ora Maritima added that during the summer on Thule night lasted only two hours, a clear reference to the midnight sun.

The inhabitants or people of Thule are described in detail by the explorer Strabo: "the people (of Thule) live on millet and other herbs, and on fruits and roots; and where there are grain and honey, the people get their beverage, also, from them. As for the grain, he says, since they have no pure sunshine, they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of     sunshine and because of the rains".

In AD 77, Pliny the Elder published his Natural History in which he also claims that Thule is a six-day sail north of Britain. Then, when discussing the islands around Britain, he wrote: "The farthest of all, which are known and spoke of, is Thule; in which there be no nights at all, as we have declared, about mid-summer, namely when the Sun passes through the sign Cancer; and contrariwise no days in mid-winter: and each of these times they suppose, do last six months, all day, or all night.

The Roman historian Tacitus, in his book chronicling the life of his father-in-law, Agricola, describes how the Romans knew that Britain (in which Agricola was Roman commander) was an island rather than a continent, by circumnavigating it. Tacitus writes of a Roman ship visiting Orkney and claims the ship's crew even sighted Thule. However their orders were not to explore there, as winter was at hand.

The third-century Latin grammarian Gaius Julius Solinus wrote that"Thyle, which was distant from Orkney by a voyage of five days and nights, was fruitful and abundant in the lasting yield of its crops”.

Mr. Poe - for our listener’s benefit - Where is Orkney?

Ah, Orkney is one of the northern islands of Scotland, and the 4th century Virgilian commentator Servius also believed that Thule sat close to Orkney: he wrote - “Thule; an island in the Ocean between the northern and western zone, beyond Britain, near Orkney and Ireland; in this Thule, when the sun is in Cancer, it is said that there are perpetual days without nights..."

Other late classical writers describe Thule as being north and west of both Ireland and Britain, strongly suggesting that it was Iceland.

Solinus (d. AD 400) in his Polyhistor, repeated these descriptions, noting that the people of Thule had a fertile land where they grew a good production of crop and fruits.

The Irish monk Dicuil described Thule as follows, says "It is now thirty years since clerics, who had lived on the island from the first of February to the first of August, told me that not only at the summer solstice, but in the days round about it, the sun setting in the evening hides itself as though behind a small hill in such a way that there was no darkness in that very small space of time, and a man could do whatever he wished as though the sun were there, even remove lice from his shirt, and if they had been on a mountain-top perhaps the sun would never have been hidden from them. In the middle of that moment of time it is midnight at the equator, and thus, on the contrary, I think that at the winter solstice and for a few days about it dawn appears only for the smallest space at Thule, when it is noon at the equator.

In 1775, during his second voyage, Captain Cook named an island in the high southern latitudes of the South Atlantic Ocean, Southern Thule. The name is now used for a group of three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands, one of which is called Thule Island. The island group became a British overseas territory of the United King(in Spanish Islas Tule del Sur).

Mr. Poe - I am most impressed by your encyclopedic knowledge.  You have an amazing mind.

Thank you, Mr. Bartley - before I depart today, I feel it appropriate to make some relevant remarks from The Final Science: or Spiritual Materialism written by John Henry Stuckenberg in 1885.

What is the mind’s ultima Thule? What substance must be regarded as first, and therefore as the seed of the universe? What is the eternal Something, of which the temporal is but a manifestation? Matter? Spirit? Matter and Spirit? Something behind both and from which they have sprung, neither Matter nor Spirit, but their Creator? Or is there in reality neither Matter nor Spirit, but only an agnostic Cause of the phenomena erroneously assigned by us to body and mind?

After spending many years in profoundly investigating this problem, I have at last struck bottom. Unhesitatingly and unconditionally I adopt materialism, and declare it to be the sole and all-sufficient explanation of the universe. Materialism, thorough, consistent, and fearless, not the timid, reserved, and half-hearted kind, is the hope of the world.

Farewell, Mr. Bartley

Goodbye, Mr. Poe

GHOST SOUND

And while we are talking about the term Ultima Thule - I just have to mention Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky at 426 MILES in length, is generally agreed to be the longest cave in the world.  And the Fisher Ridge Cave System (at 132 miles) is partly within Mammoth Cave Park.  And I am going somewhere with this. One of the most well-known locations in Mammoth Cave is known as Ultima Thule - reflecting the mystical reputation of the huge Mammoth Cave as a almost supernatural physical attraction.  There is a Lantern tour offered at the cave that passes through the area called Ultima Thule near the conclusion of the route.

Now jumping ahead to the current century, in 2019, Nasa embarked on an epic journey to explore the dwarf planet Pluto and the Kuiper Belt region beyond. After a voyage of nearly a decade and over 3 billion miles, it made history by conducting the first-ever flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015, capturing stunning images and data that revealed the dwarf planet's diverse landscapes, including towering mountains, vast ice sheets, and intricate surface features.

Following its successful Pluto encounter, New Horizons continued its journey deeper into the Kuiper Belt. On January 1, 2019, it achieved another remarkable feat by flying past the most distant object ever explored up close - the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed "Ultima Thule” - a naming that reflected the concept of Ultima Thule - a term that was first used for its classical connotations, but a naming that became quite controversial.

You see, The term Ultima Thule had been used extensively in Nazi propaganda and literature to promote their racist ideology of Aryan superiority and their desire to conquer territories they considered the ancient Aryan homelands.

So while "Ultima Thule" had an innocuous classical meaning to someone like Edgar Allan Poe, the Nazis distorted and weaponized the concept as a symbol of their dangerous white supremacist beliefs and territorial ambitions, giving it an inextricable link to their hateful ideology.

However, after facing backlash and criticism over the Nazi associations with "Ultima Thule", NASA decided to rename the object.

The new official name "Arrokoth" was chosen in consultation with Powhatan tribal elders in Maryland, where the New Horizons mission control is based. Arrokoth means "sky" in the Powhatan language.

NASA stated the name change to Arrokoth was meant to honor the Native American Powhatan people and reflect "the inspiration of looking to the skies" without the controversial connotations of "Ultima Thule”.

Join Celebrate Poe for episode 243 for the first of three fascinating episodes regarding a writer who was idolized by the young Edgar Poe - Lord Byron.’

Sources include: The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan 
Poe, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn, and The Reason for the Darkness of the Night by John Tresch.

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.