QUOTH THE MAVEN

In regard to Richard Eder’s Nov. 24 review of Kenneth Silverman’s “Edgar Allan Poe,” we were dismayed to see that while Eder pointed out that Silverman’s book was not a hatchet job on Poe, Eder’s review turned out to be exactly that.

With a fervor more befitting Poe’s nemesis, Rufus W. Griswold, who created a scandal-filled fictionalized biography of Poe, Eder proceeded to use his review as a platform to question whether Poe should be classified as an important American writer. He dismissed his poetry out of hand and labeled Poe’s essay, “Eureka,” “Poe’s theory about absolutely everything.”

Though a certain portion of Poe’s verse admittedly varies in quality, to lump “Ulalume,” “The Bells,” “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven” together as “sonorous emptiness” seems unconsidered and unfair. As for “Eureka,” while aspects of it seem the product of a fevered and overworked imagination, it nevertheless contains important passages that have impressed contemporary scientists with its correct anticipation of late theories about the universe. Edward Harrison, an eminent professor of physics and astronomy, recently devoted an entire chapter of his book, “Darkness at Night,” to Poe and his cosmological speculations.

But Eder not only overstepped the bounds of sound critical judgment but also revealed his own shortcomings as a literary critic when he said Poe’s short stories were “mannered and far-fetched and hover on the edge of farce.” Is he referring to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia” or “The Masque of the Red Death”? Or perhaps he means those other literary potboilers, “William Wilson,” “The Cask of Amontillado” or “The Purloined Letter”?

Eder then went on to state that all of Poe’s 67 tales put together could “just about fit inside any one of (Emily) Dickinson’s poems.” Invidious comparisons such as these are sheer hyperbole. Rather than wondering whether an ounce of Dickinson is worth a pound of Poe, Eder should have laid such pointless critical conceits aside and concentrated instead on the undeniable impact of Poe’s work--good, bad or indifferent--on world literature.

Though Eder claims we’ve all been taught to place Poe on the “19th-Century A list” of American writers, “admittedly near the bottom,” and then proceeds to rattle off those literati who presumably supersede old Edgar, he fails to mention that a number of these writers had high praise for Poe:

One of Eder’s luminaries, Henry James, though no great admirer of Poe himself, openly acknowledged Poe’s genius. Another, Walt Whitman, praised Poe’s brilliance and imagination. British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle freely admitted his own profound debt to Poe in the creation of Sherlock Holmes, while in France, through the translations of Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarme, Poe’s influence was so great that it spawned an entire literary tradition--the Symbolist movement. But due to this enduring popularity among the French, Eder calls Poe “the Jerry Lewis of his day.” Please.

Beyond the 19th Century, writers from Bernard Shaw and W. H. Auden to creative artists in other disciplines like Sir Alfred Hitchcock have praised Poe’s overwhelming influence on their work and world literature, while T. S. Eliot went so far as to state that the influence of Poe was so pervasive, it was impossible for anyone to say if they had been influenced by him or not.

With this ever-growing legacy of far weightier literary voices than ours, we believe that as long as people read books, Poe’s reputation will continue to stand the test of time, despite the attempts of Eder and others at literary necrophilia.

In the final analysis, such dubious critics should put their personal taste aside and step back to take Poe’s true measure. For only when Poe’s accomplishments as poet, critic, editor, master of the short tale, pioneer of science fiction and creator of the detective story are seen in their entirely does he assume giant proportions.

Eder needs only to try to imagine world literature without this important body of work to see why his questions of Poe’s ultimate merit are superfluous and why Kenneth Silverman’s biography is a welcome tool in understanding the impact of Edgar Allan Poe.

PAUL CLEMENS, RON MAGID, LOS ANGELES. Clemens and Magid are the authors of “Once Upon a Midnight: The Confessions of Edgar Allan Poe,” a one-man show that played in Los Angeles from October, 1989, to January, 1990.