|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Yesterday was the 194th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe.
As is fairly well known, Poe died in Baltimore and is buried here, in the churchyard of Westminster Presbyterian Church, which was at the time located on the western edge of the city and is now in the middle of downtown Baltimore, around the corner from the University of Maryland hospital and medical school complex. (The church was abandoned for lack of members over 30 years ago and was bought by the University as a meeting place); they maintain the churchyard, which is open every day and surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Poe's monument is a largish oblong affair a few feet from the entrance to the cemetery, but his actual grave is farther in the back, not visible from the street, and marked by a small headstone with a carving of a raven at the top.
For the 54th consecutive year, a tribute was left on the grave in the middle of the night by an unknown admirer. The tribute is three red roses and a half-full pint bottle of cognac. Nothing at all was known of the donor up to several years ago. Once or twice passersby saw a tall man in a long dark coat (or cloak) near the churchyard in the middle of the night. Several years ago, on the day after the birthday, the local newspaper received an unsigned letter with no return address announcing that the donor had died but had asked his sons to take on the annual observance, which they are doing.
No newspaper or other snoopy type has ever identified the donor, although it would not be difficult to set an ambush on the night before Poe's birthday and catch him or at least get a picture. Nobody local wants to do that, since this little mystery is greatly appreciated. If any furriner from out of town were to try it, he would probably be soundly thrashed and advised to get out of town immediately with his smashed camera. Touches of romance are still welcome in this city; iconoclasts are not.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Thanks, byb. Yes, it is nice to know that some things are still sacred. I don't mean that Poe is worshipped; I meant that the secret admirer is actively protected from exposure. I was interested, when you said ...which was at the time located on the western edge of the city and is now in the middle of downtown Cities do grow, don't they? There is a part of my city called Old Louisville. In the 1890's, wealthy families built these huge mansions in what was then the suburbs; now it's considered part of downtown.
I had to look up iconoclast, and thought others might be interested in what Atomica has: i·con·o·clast (ī-kŏn'ə-klăst')
n.
One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
One who destroys sacred religious images.
[French iconoclaste, from Medieval Greek eikonoklastēs, smasher of religious images : eikono-, icono- + Greek -klastēs, breaker (from Greek klān, klas-, to break).]
i·con'o·clas'tic adj.
i·con'o·clas'ti·cal·ly adv.
WORD HISTORY An iconoclast can be unpleasant company, but at least the modern iconoclast only attacks such things as ideas and institutions. The original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art. Eikonoklastēs, the ancestor of our word, was first formed in Medieval Greek from the elements eikōn, “image, likeness,” and –klastēs, “breaker,” from klān, “to break.” The images referred to by the word are religious images, which were the subject of controversy among Christians of the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries, when iconoclasm was at its height. In addition to destroying many sculptures and paintings, those opposed to images attempted to have them barred from display and veneration. During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed. It is around this time that iconoclast, the descendant of the Greek word, is first recorded in English (1641), with reference to the Byzantine iconoclasts. In the 19th century iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today, as in “Kant was the great iconoclast” (James Martineau).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
Extremely cool story. Here's another one - probably apocryphal. When I was attending West Point, there was a story circulating among the cadets that Poe was kicked out of that august institution for showing up for a parade once in his belts (these white, dress belts that represent ammo belts) - and nothing else. Little article that mentions the story and refutes it at: http://
www.dean.usma.edu/math/people/rickey/dms/x1834-Poe.html
Not near as cool as your story, and probably not even true, but it's a bit of lore that's been making the rounds for ages. k
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Jackie: where Poe is conceerned, the iconodules outnumber the iconoclasts. There was a widely reported clinical pathological conference about cause of Poe's death. It was claimed that his symptoms could be explained by rabies. Rabies can cause death without any readily diagnosible symptoms. In animals there is the so-called dumb rabies as well as furious rabies. I'll see if I can find URL that Poe rabies story. http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/news-releases-17.html
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Thanks, Bob! A toast to Poe with (what else?) a glass of amontillado!
I had the opportunity, on a trip to Baltimore's Inner Harbor some years back, to view Poe's grave (it as one of my priorities on that, my first visit to Baltimore...I've been back many more times since, most notably to see the Yankees get single-handedly beat by Cal Ripken at Camden Yards, and also to the Babe Ruth Museum...but I digress hi Faldage!)...when I came upon the gravesite in the car, I swore I saw a black caped figure scurrying away from the cemetery behind the church, but since the ritual happens at night I chalked it up to coincidence and imagination...but it was Poe's birthday (or the day before), and, lo and behold, when I viewed the grave there were the roses and bottle of cognac as I'd always heard! I was so moved I even wrote a poem about the experience. So thanks for the Poe post, Bob!...and for rekindling some of my Baltimore memories.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
see the Yankees get single-handedly beat by Cal Ripken
Ah! Beaten by their pre-namesakes. Poetic justice.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 77
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 77 |
Well, Juan, I really don't care about your little baseball quarrel, but may we see the poem? It seems to belong right here, don't you think?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Ah! Beaten by their pre-namesakes. Poetic justice.
Yeah... and the tavern that Babe Ruth's father owned, and where the Babe once worked, was located in what is now the outfield of Camden Yards...O the blasphemic vulgarity of it all!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
W'on, for your benefit and Jackie's, I'll add a little background to this story.
The Westminster churchyard is not just behind the church -- it's actually under the church. The church was built on piers so that it is raised over the graves it covers. You can actually go underneath it to view some tombs and monuments, mostly now in bad repair. This is, of course, because the cemetery was there first.
In the 18th century, they didn't allow any burying grounds within the city limits because of the fear of contaminating the wells. Also, there were no freestanding or independent cemeteries, only the burial grounds or "churchyards" belonging to churches. Usually the churchyard is next to a church, but if the church was in the city, the churchyard had to be some distance away. The oldest church in Baltimore is Old St. Pauls (Episcopal), established as an Anglican parish in 1673 some distance from its present location, moved to its present location in 1705 when the city of Baltimore was established. The current building, the third on the site, is at Charles & Saratoga Sts., which was about a quarter mile north of the city in 1705. Its churchyard is at Lombard Street and Martin Luther King Blvd, which is 6 blocks south and about 10 blocks west. Westminster church and churchyard are at Fayette & Greene Sts., which is only 2 blocks north and 2 blocks east of St. Paul's churchyard. Westminster Presbyterian was located in the old part of the city originally and at some point, around the turn of the 19th century I believe, had to move, so it was decided to build a new church above the churchyard. In order not to disturb the graves, it was, as I noted, built on low piers just high enough to clear the tombs and monuments. The building that was Westminster Church is of a suitable appearance. It's built in a plain (i.e., unadorned) Gothic style with a square tower in the middle of the north side over the main entrance (it's on the south side of Fayette St. and therefore oriented on a N-S axis with the entrance on the north end.) Built of stone and brick which has never had the 19th century's accumulation of soot cleaned off and is therefore a dark brownish grey color. The churchyard is beautiful, with trees, brick paving and the wrought-iron fence and, of course, the monuments and tombstones. Many prominent citizens of 18th & 19th century Baltimore are buried there (besides Poe).
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
Oh no you don't! You people can't get away with having a little clique birthday thread about my hero, the man with that rouge genius mind, Edgar Poe, who would, in great disappointment, roll over in his cold, grey, grave, if I didn't contribute to this slight celebration of his unequaled contribution to this repository of english (the language) poetry. So I will do so with this story and this poem...
The story.
A HOAX
The New York Sun in 1835, published a series of stories that reported that astronomer John Herschel, using a new super telescope had observed exotic creatures on the moon -- among them "horned bears", and a "a strange amphibious creature of spherical form, which rolled with great velocity across a pebbly beach."
Readership soared. Two Yale professors were dispatched to New York to examine the scientific papers but evenso, the hoax was not exposed until the Sun's editor confessed to a colleague that he had made up the whole thing.
The moon hoax originated from a concatenation of literary imagination and scientific enthusiasm in the darkly fertile mind of Edgar Allan Poe -- who, characteristically, never made a penny from it.
Poe had been fascinated by astronomy from the age of sixteen, when he studied the moon with a telescope that he had set up on the second-story of his stepfather's house during a rare interlude of happiness in his notoriously doom-laden life. Poe got only nine dollars for "The Raven" and only one hundred for the "Gold Bug". The famous "Moon Hoax" netted him none.
The Poem.
ELDORADO
- Edgar Allan Poe (1849)
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,348
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
1 members (A C Bowden),
859
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
