Today is the 165th anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
Anti-masonic poet of antebellum America. Inventor of the detective and science fiction genres.
Was Poe's death at age 40 due to a blow to the head from an assailant?
Audio CD
Michael Hoffman Introduces Poe And Reads From His Works
Contents: 1. Hoffman's Introduction to the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe.
2. Hoffman reads "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Raven"
CD. 37 minutes. $15 postpaid in the USA. $20 to Canada. $25 Europe and Asia.
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4 comments:
According to J. Gerald Kennedy, Poe admired Isaac Disraeli and claimed to have corresponded with him. It would be interesting to know how much of an influence Isaac Disraeli had on Poe and if Poe was misled in any way by him, especially on the subject of Judaism. This is a quote from Poe's short story Berenice which, though taken out of context here, seems to describe 21st century Virtual Reality, now on the near horizon, as Michael recently observed:
" The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself."
Isaac Disraeli, father of the Prime Minister, had quit Judaism and allowed his son to be raised a Christian. Disraeli supported the anti-Talmuic revelations of Wagenseil. Hence, a correspondence with Isaac is not an indication of being misled on the subject of Judaism.
There is no evidence that Poe was philo-Judaic. Read “A Tale of Jerusalem" to see his little joke on kosher.
He was a friend of the actor Edwin Booth (Poe’s parents had been actors) and he and Booth played an unkind prank one evening on a Judaic man they encountered.
Since Poe was anti-masonic it follows that he had no sympathy for Judaism.
"...and if Poe was misled in any way by him, especially on the subject of Judaism."
I meant in the sense of Disraeli conflating Judaism with the Old Testament, as you point out in Newsletter #74, in his criticism of Puritan parliamentarians in the time of Cromwell.
Poe may have been anti-Old Testament. I don’t know.
He had no known religious affiliation. He spent part of his youth in England and may have attended Anglican services there.
The only religious work he ever composed was dedicated to the Blessed Mother Mary (“Hymn”).
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