Al Aaraaf - Legacy

Legacy

"Al Aaraaf" includes names Poe would later reuse: Ligeia and Zante. Some of the themes in the poem also foreshadow a future poem, "The City in the Sea" (1831). The critical failure of both "Al Aaraaf" and "Tamerlane" convinced Poe that long poems are inherently flawed because they cannot sustain a proper mood or a high quality poetic form. Because of this, he never again experimented with long poetry. He would later write of his theory on short poetry in "The Poetic Principle" in 1848. In that essay, he wrote "A long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, 'a long poem,' is simply a flat contradiction in terms." Instead, he says, epic poetry and other long poems are actually a series of short poems strung together. Critics have suggested that this theory was written so that Poe could justify why "Al Aaraaf" was unpopular.

After the publication of "The Raven" in 1845, Poe became a household name and, having reached the height of his poetic fame, he was often asked to lecture or recite poetry at public events. One such invitation came from the Boston Lyceum in October 1845, arranged with help from James Russell Lowell. Poe had a strong dislike for the Boston literary scene and the city itself, despite having been born there. Nevertheless, he accepted the $50 fee and the challenge of writing a brand new poem for his appearance.

Fresh off his public feud with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his dislike of the Massachusetts-based Transcendentalism movement, Poe instead decided to play a trick on his Boston audience. The program, held October 16 at Boston's Odeon Theater, was a grand event and featured a speech by Massachusetts statesman Caleb Cushing which was two and a half hours long. Poe read "Al Aaraaf", renamed "The Messenger Star" for the event, and tried to convince his Boston audience that the poem he wrote as a young man was new. The audience was confused by the obscure poem and many left during its recitation. Poe ended with "The Raven", as the theater manager noted, "thus enabling us to make some show of front after a most lamentable defeat."

Poe considered the hoax an opportunity to prove that Bostonians did not know good literature. Based on critical reaction, he believed he was right. The editor of the Boston Courier reviewed "The Messenger Star" as "an elegant and classic production, based on the right principles, containing the essence of true poetry, mingled with a gorgeous imagination". When Poe claimed that he wrote the poem before he had turned 12, Cornelia Wells Walter of the Boston Evening Transcript wrote of her shock: "A poem delivered before a literary association of adults, as written by a boy! Only think of it!" It is unclear how old Poe was at the time he wrote the poem because, in part, he frequently changed his claim. Lewis Gaylord Clark said Poe's age at writing the poem was irrelevant and, though he admitted the audience did not know the author's age, "they only knew it was sad stuff". Modern biographer Daniel Stashower compared Poe's stunt with the story "The Imp of the Perverse", in which Poe wrote about "an earnest desire to tantalize a listener... The speaker is aware that he displeases."

Upon his return to New York, Poe wrote in the Broadway Journal his view of the event. After noting that he refused to offer a didactic poem, he wrote:

It could scarcely be supposed that we would put ourselves to the trouble of composing for the Bostonians anything in the shape of an original poem... We do not, ourselves, think the poem a remarkably good one:—it is not sufficiently transcendental. Still it did well enough for the Boston audience—who evinced characteristic discrimination in understanding, and especially applauding, all those knotty passages which we ourselves have not yet been able to understand... If we cared a fig for their wrath we should not first have insulted them to their teeth, and then subjected to their tender mercies a volume of our Poems.

"Al Aaraaf" was used between 1928 and 1952 as a pen name by the noted Glasgow artist Hannah Frank.