Forevermore

The plantation-style desk where Edgar Allan Poe once labored appears as dark and brooding as one might picture the author himself.

Resting in a nearby display case is a brooch containing a lock of the famous writer’s hair. He had given the now prized artifact to a female friend a short time before his death on Oct. 7, 1849.

Inches away is the daguerreotype image that has given the world perhaps the best known portrait of Poe. It was taken in 1848, four days after he attempted suicide by overdosing on the opiate laudanum.

A few steps farther the figurative gloom gives way to the metaphoric light of one of Poe’s greatest triumphs. Aligned edge to edge are the pages on which he wrote out the verses of “The Raven” in his precise and attractive handwriting, graced with his autograph.

Words from the final verse of this universally recognized poem are used to title one of the most ambitious exhibitions of items related to Poe ever created. “From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe” will be on display until Aug. 1 in the main exhibit gallery of the Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.

The title is particularly appropriate in that the exhibit attempts to give visitors a well-rounded picture of the writer, whose life was in large measure troubled and tormented. More than two years of work went into the creation of the display, which was timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth on Jan. 19, 1809, in Boston.

“In preparing the show I had some very informal conversations with folks to get a sense of what they know about Poe,” said Mercy Quintos Procaccini, exhibits coordinator at UVa.

“You hear about ‘The Raven,’ the

short stories and that he was an alcoholic and often the comment, ‘Didn’t he die in a gutter in Baltimore?’ kind of thing. We hope the exhibition will shed light on just how much more there is to Poe’s work and biography beyond what most people know.

“And how the force of many of the falsehoods really come from Poe’s obituary, which we have on display. It’s an obituary that came out shortly after he died, and is attributed to Rufus Griswold, who was Poe’s literary executor and was out to get him.”

Poe actually died in a Baltimore hospital several days after being “found drunk and disarrayed” in one of the city’s taverns. The cause of death was initially given as delirium from alcohol poisoning, but others later speculated that his death could have resulted from murder, a chronic fever, a brain tumor or even rabies.

Regardless of what caused Poe’s death, Griswold set a negative tone in the obituary from the outset.

“Edgar Allan Poe is dead,” it begins. “He died in Baltimore on Sunday Sept. 7. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.”

The obituary goes on at some length in this hostile fashion. The hatchet job was filled with inaccuracies, some of which persist to this day.

Jerome McGann specializes in 19th- and 20th-century literature, and is particularly interested in Poe’s influence. He said the impact Griswold had on Poe’s biography was enormous well into the 20th century.

“In a certain sense there is no American who has been treated so extensively in a biographical sense, but also so malignantly, as Poe,” said McGann, John Stewart Bryan professor of English at UVa.

“It took probably 75 years for some of the most egregious misrepresentations of Poe to be addressed and set aside. There are now a number of very good biographies on him, the first great one being [Arthur Hobson] Quinn’s book that came out about 50 years ago.

“There is no reason not to see Poe reasonably clearly at this point. I’m delighted to see the exhibit, and I hope it has the effect of restoring Poe to the position in 19th century and, indeed, in the American culture that he deserves.”

One of the widely circulated mistruths about Poe is that he was expelled from UVa. In fact, he left voluntarily after 10 months when his foster father, John Allan, refused to continue financing his education.

The guardian had been angered when he learned his young charge had incurred gambling debts of about $2,000. In Poe’s defense, many people have surmised that he gambled in order to try to supplement the paltry amount of money Allan gave him to cover expenses while at the university. Academic records suggest that Poe showed bright flashes of the brilliance that would later fuel a new chapter in the history of American literature. He excelled in Latin and French, and there is evidence that his alleged heavy drinking while at UVa was exaggerated.

William Wertenbaker was UVa’s first librarian, and he knew Poe personally. He remembered him as a “sober, quiet and orderly young man,” whom he never saw “in the slightest degree under the influence of intoxicating liquors.”

The exhibit doesn’t shy away from Poe’s considerable failings. An example is the manuscript of his court martial proceedings, which occurred in 1830 when he was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“Poe attended West Point briefly, and it’s a chapter of his life that most people probably aren’t familiar with,” Procaccini said. “He was unhappy there, and he started shirking his duties and stopped attending some of the things he was supposed to and that led to his court martial.

“One of the things we have in the exhibit is a late 19th-century copy from West Point of the court martial proceedings. You can see the charges against him, which were gross neglect of duty, absent from his academic duties and disobedience of orders.

“He is found guilty and leaves the academy. To see documentation of the trial in such a formal manner, I think, is unique.”

The core of the exhibit consists of items belonging to UVa and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Other important pieces are on loan from the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Valentine Richmond History Center and the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond.

The exhibit will travel to the Ransom Center, where it will be displayed through Jan. 4, 2010. It well could be another century before a Poe collection of this magnitude will again be presented in one location.

“This is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Poe-related material ever,” Procaccini said. “Many of these materials are not things that get displayed that often, and some of it has never been displayed publicly before.

“One of the wonderful things about our show here in Charlottesville is that we have this direct connection to Poe, because of his student days here. There is something special about seeing this exhibition in a place where Poe physically spent time.

“On display is the university’s first matriculation book, which is a wonderful piece of history. Seeing the name Edgar A. Poe in it, simply registering as a university student, is a really unique thing.”

Poe arrived at UVa in February 1826. To his chagrin he discovered that classes had been in session for two weeks. His excellent grades provide evidence that he caught up quickly.

Near the matriculation book rests a volume of “The Satires of Persius.” It’s open to the first page where one can see Poe’s signature and the inscription “1826 Virginia College” in the upper right hand corner.

A ledger book compiled by Wertenbaker provides an indication of how broke Poe was during his time at UVa. It contains a list of library fines, and shows that of August 1826, E.A. Poe had accrued a 60-cent fine, resulting from his failure to return an overdue copy of a book on ancient history.

A book that will likely quicken the heartbeat of anyone familiar with Poe’s life is a copy of “Tamerlane, and Other Poems.” Printed in 1827, it represents Poe’s first published works and is considered one of the great rarities of American literature.

It is believed only 50 copies were printed, of which only about a dozen still exist. The artifact is one of the pieces on loan from the Ransom Center.

“There’s something wonderful about this very plain-looking book that represents the beginning of Poe’s writing career,” Procaccini said, as she admired the front cover of the book that gives authorship of the contents to “A Bostonian.”

“Not to go overboard, but there really are so many rare and unique things in this exhibition. If you’re interested in his literary contributions there are early printings.

“If you’re interested in art you can see artwork associated with Poe that has been done by famous artists. There’s a Henri Matisse portrait of Poe as well as a proof of a lithographic portrait based on a pen-and-ink sketch of Poe signed by Edouard Manet.

“We also have examples of original artwork by Arthur Rackham, a British artist who illustrated a lot of Poe’s work. Some of the more familiar Poe tales represented here in Rackham’s artwork are ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ ‘The Premature Burial,’ ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and “The Fall of the House of Usher.’ Viewers of Rackham’s work will be able to see that he captured in art a lot of what Poe intended to convey in words.”

The exhibit also illuminates Poe’s ongoing ability to influence popular culture. It includes a nod to a 1990 episode of “The Simpsons,” where a parody of “The Raven” was done.

Included in this category is a 1960 copy of MAD magazine, which includes “The Hip Raven.” There’s even a Poe action figure and a likeness of Poe carved into an abalone shell that dates back to the 19th century.

Poe’s influence on musicians is noted by a cover of the Beatles’ album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” on which his likeness appears. Reference also is made to the Alan Parsons Project, which created an entire album, “Tales of Mystery and Imagination,” based on the author’s work.

Not overlooked is the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens, named for the famous poem. And if there was any question as to the provenance of the team’s name, its mascot is a raven with the name Poe.

As a student of Poe, McGann has come to believe that there is primarily one reason why the author continues to be both popular and influential.

“I think it’s primarily the intelligence of Poe’s work,” McGann said. “Probably in that period of the U.S. there was no one really who took such an intellectual approach, not just to the writing work he was doing, but to his whole engagement with the cultural scene at the time.

“He is by far the most intellectual of the great figures of middle 19th-century America. When reading Poe, I think it’s critically important to see that he is essentially a comic writer.

“This is how [Charles] Baudelaire and the whole French tradition that honored him so much saw him.”

A number of programs in connection with the exhibit will be held in April. Katherine Baker will kick things off at 4 p.m. Wednesday with “Gallery Talk: Poe and Visual Art.” The “Edgar A. Poe Bicentennial Symposium 1809-2009” will be Friday and Saturday.

During the two-day event subjects such as “Poe and the American Renaissance” will be discussed. At noon on April 8, Julian Connolly, professor of Slavic languages and literatures at UVa, will discuss “Poe and Nabokov.”

On April 15, Deandra Little, assistant professor of English at UVa, will speak on “Poe’s Science and his Science Fiction.” All the programs are free and will be in the first floor auditorium next to the Poe exhibit.

Procaccini said the exhibit and surrounding events are more than a celebration of one of the world’s great writers. She said its intension is to enrich and illuminate the complexity of Poe’s life.

“We hope people seeing the exhibit will come away with a much richer and broader understanding of Poe,” Procaccini said. “And also with an appreciation for what a direct experience with real artifacts, documents and historical items offers.

“It’s actually very hard for me to put into words what I felt when I first saw the handwritten copy of ‘The Raven.’ It provides an experience of the poem that’s much different than reading it in high school.

“This is possibly the most famous and recognizable poem in the English language, and Poe sells it for $10. It makes him famous, but he doesn’t gain financial success from it.

“Part of the recurring theme in Poe’s life is how desperately in need of money he was at all times. He is one of those truly fascinating literary figures whose biography is so tragically fascinating that it draws us in as well.” For more information on the exhibit and related programs go to www. lib.Virginia.edu/Harrison.