The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin Classics) Read online

  In ‘Eldorado’, published the following week in The Flag of Our Union (21 April 1849), the ‘gallant’ reappears not as an alchemist this time but a quixotic ‘knight’ with rueful countenance:

  And o’er his heart a shadow

  Fell as he found

  No spot of ground

  That looked like Eldorado.

  14. (p. 328) the house of Gutsmuth & Co… in Gasperitch Lane: Transmuting the names of two well-known authors of geography text-books – whom Poe had listed in a review four years earlier – the Germans Johann Cristoph F. Gutsmuths and Adam Christian Gas-pari.

  15. (p. 328) the flash-name of the ‘Dondergat’ : Poe’s English coinage linked to his Old Norse and German producing an appropriately sham, or stage, effect of thunder and lightning.

  Select Bibliography

  W. K. WIMSATT, JR, ‘Poe and the Chess Automaton’, American Literature vol. 11 (1939), pp. 138–51

  BURTON R. POLLIN, ‘Poe’s “Von Kempelen and His Discovery”: Sources and Significance’, Études Anglaises vol. 20 (1967), pp. 12–23; reprinted as Discoveries in Poe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), ch. 10

  THOMAS HALL, ‘Poe’s Use of a Source: Davy’s Chemical Researches and “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” ’, Poe Newsletter vol. 1 (1968), p. 28.

  Appendix

  1748–1848: SELECT CHRONOLOGY OF POST-NEWTONIAN DEVELOPMENTS IN PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY, ELECTROCHEMISTRY, AERONAUTICS ETC. IN THE CENTURY PRECEDING THE APPEARANCE OF Eureka

  1745–6

  Invention of the Leyden bottle

  1747

  Benjamin Franklin’s work on electric forces

  1749

  Euler’s Analysis Infinitorum

  1750

  Wright’s Theory of the Universe (supported later by Herschel’s discoveries)

  1755

  Kant’s nebular theory

  1758

  Dollond’s achromatic telescope

  1760

  Lightning-rods put up by Franklin in Philadelphia

  1766

  Cavendish isolates ‘inflammable air’ (called ‘hydrogen’ by Lavoisier)

  1769

  Watt patents his steam engine with separate condenser

  1772

  Bode publicizes Titius’ Law of Distances (of the planets)

  1773

  Montgolfier brothers’ attempts at flight with fire balloons

  1774

  Maskeleyne’s test on the Earth’s weight at Mt Schiehallion. Priestley isolates ‘dephlogisticated air’ (called ‘oxygen’ by Lavoisier

  1775

  Volta’s ‘electrophorus’

  1781

  Herschel’s discovery of Uranus

  1783

  Herschel’s first list of double stars. First manned air flight in a hydrogen balloon

  1785

  J. P. Blanchard and Dr John Jeffries cross the English Channel by air

  1786

  Herschel’s list of 1,000 nebulae. Galvani’s observation of ‘animal electricity’

  1796

  Laplace’s Système du Monde

  1799

  First part of Laplace’s Méchanique Céleste printed

  1800

  Invention of the ‘Voltaic Pile’. Nicholson’s and Carlisle’s discovery of chemical effects of electric current. Herschel’s discovery of infra-red rays

  1801

  Young’s wave-theory of light. Piazzi’s discovery of Ceres (orbit calculated by Gauss). Richard Trevithick’s high-pressure engine – progenitor of all steam locomotives

  1802

  Wollaston’s observation of seven dark lines in sun-spectrum. Herschel’s third list of nebulae

  1803

  Herschel’s theory of binaries

  1805

  Grotthuss’ theory of electrolysis

  1806

  Herschel’s theory of motion of the solar system in the direction of Hercules. Davy’s work on electrolysis

  1808

  Dalton’s A New System of Chemical Philosophy (2 vols., 1808–27)

  1809

  Gauss’ Theoria Motus Corporum Celestium (1809–16). Sir George Cayley’s theory of flight and fixed-wing flying model aircraft

  1811

  Herschel’s theory of development of stars from nebulae. Poisson’s mathematical theory of heat

  1815

  Prout’s hypothesis (on atomic weights)

  1819

  Oersted’s discovery of magnetic effects of current

  1822

  Lamarck’s Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres completed. Ampère’s Obsérvations électro-dynamiques

  1823

  Fraunhofer’s observation of spectra of fixed stars. Faraday liquifies gases

  1824

  Arago’s discovery of magnetic effect of turning copper plate

  1826

  Lobachevsky’s geometry. Ohm’s law

  1827

  First camera pictures made by Niepce. Ohm’s Galvanische Kette mathematisch bearbeitet

  1829

  Faraday and Henry make observation on electromagnetic induction

  1830

  Lyell’s Principles of Geology

  1831

  Faraday’s electromagnetic rotation theory – foundation of the dynamo, motor and electrical industry

  1832

  John Herschel’s observation on orbits of double stars

  1833

  Herschel’s list of northern stars completed

  1834

  Faraday’s laws

  1836

  John Ericsson’s marine screw propeller

  1837

  Faraday’s observation on electrostatic induction. Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences. Wheatstone’s and Cooke’s electric telegraph

  1838

  Parallax of star (61 Cygni) measured by Bessel

  1839

  Gauss’ general discussion of inverse-square forces. Parallax of α – Centauri measured by Henderson. Daguerre’s process (camera-pictures)

  1840

  Draper takes camera pictures of the Moon. Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences

  1842

  Discovery of Doppler effect. Weight of the Earth measured by Baily, using Cavendish’s method of 1798

  1844

  Morse’s telegraph transmits messages from Washington to Baltimore

  1845

  Discovery of Spiral Nebulae with Parsonstown telescope. J. C. Adams’s computation of a new planet

  1846

  Discovery of Neptune from the work of Leverrier and Adams. Heating effect of the Moon measured by Melloni. Operations done under ether

  1847

  Sir John Herschel’s Results of Observations at the Cape of Good Hope

  [June 1848 Eureka published]

  1849

  Velocity of light measured by Fizeau

  1850

  Velocity of light measured by Foucault. Clausius’ second law of thermodynamics

  1851

  Foucault’s pendulum test on the Earth’s motion

  1864–7

  Clausius’ Die mechanische Wärmetheorie

  1873

  Clerk Maxwell’s A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism: laws of electromagnetic radiation, the foundation of radio, radar, television

  1876

  Clerk Maxwell’s Matter and Motion

  1. Coleridge, On the Definitions of Life Hitherto Received: Hints towards a more Comprehensive Theory (1848).

  2. Clarified by Coleridge as follows: When, therefore, I affirm the power of reproduction in organized bodies to be magnetism, I must be understood to mean that this power, as it exists in the magnet, and which we there (to use a strong phrase) catch in the very act, is to the same kind of power, working as reproductive, what the root is to the cube of that root. We no more confound the force in the compass needle with that of reproduction, than a man can be said to confound his liver with a lichen, because he affirms that both of them
grow.

  3. Dostoyevsky, Wremia vol. 1 (1861), p. 230.

  4. Hubert Matthey, Essai sur le merveilleux dans la littérature française depuis 1800 (Paris, 1915), p. 237.

  H. Bruce Franklin traces the title back to 1905: ‘ “Science in Romance”, an anonymous article in the Saturday Review, cited Poe (accusingly) as “probably the father” of that “pseudo-science” fiction “which still has its living practitioners in Dr Conan Doyle and Mr H. G. Wells”. In 1909, Maurice Renard in “Du merveilleux scientifique et son action sur l’intelligence du progrès” (Le Spectateur, Revue Critique) called Poe the true founder of the marvellous-scientific romance…’ (Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century, New York: Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 93).

  5. Eureka, p. 252.

  6. Clarke Olney, ‘Edgar Allan Poe: Science Fiction Pioneer’, Georgia Review, vol. 12 (1958), pp. 416–21.

  7. Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman (Fordham: 1 October 1848).

  8. Condorcet, Essai sur l’application de l’analyse aux probabilités des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix (1785).

  9. The Marquis de Laplace considered the philosophical and social implications of his mathematical classic in Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (1814).

  Antoiné Cournot, following Poisson, first applied mathematics to economic forecasting in Exposition de la théorie des chances et des probabilités (1843). Adolphe Quetelet, supervisor of Belgian statistics, first devised rules for modern census taking, by formulating the theory of the ‘average man’: Sur l’homme et le developpement de ses facultés (1835); translated into English as A Treatise on Man (1842).

  It was James Clerk Maxwell, in 1859, who was to apply the calculus of probabilities, not to games or public affairs, but to matter in motion.

  10. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, 1841.

  11. Introduction to ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’, 1842.

  12. H. Bruce Franklin, Future Perfect, p. 95.

  13. Letter to George E. Isbell (New York: 29 February 1848).

  14. H. Bruce Franklin, Future Perfect, p. 96.

  15. ‘Dreamland’, 1844.

  16. First written in 1829, but revised with frequent variants until 1843.

  17. ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’, pp. 92, 93, 90.

  18. cf. Georges Poulet: ‘A sort of temporal circle surrounds Poe’s characters. A whirlpool envelopes them, which, like that of the Maelström, disposes its funnel by degrees from the past in which one has been caught, to the future in which one will be dead. Whether it moves in the limitless eternity of dreams or in the limited temporality of awakening, the work of Poe thus always presents a time that is closed.’ (Studies in Human Time, 1949, translated by Elliott Coleman, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1956, PP. 330–34.)

  19. ‘Mr Griswold and the Poets’ (Boston Miscellany, November 1842); Works, vol. 11, p. 148.

  20. Paul Valéry, ‘Situation de Baudelaire’, 1924, translated by James R. Lawler in Leonardo, Poe, Mallarmé (Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 207.

  21. So Franklin accepts Moskowitz’s insensitive categorization of the tales (into those where ‘the mood or effect is primary’ and those where ‘the idea was paramount’) to further his own didactic argument: ‘In the first, the science is merely a device; in the other, the fiction is merely a device’ (Future Perfect, pp. 97–8).

  22. Lucian, The True History, Book 1, lines 56–9.

  23. Constance Rourke, American Humor: A Study of the National Character (1931), ch. 6, p. 148.

  24. Doings of Gotham (Letter II, May 1844), P. 34.

  25. Constance Rourke, American Humor, ch. 2, ‘The Gamecock of the Wilderness’, sec. 6, pp. 56–7.

  26. ‘Ces Américains qui aiment tant à être dupés’, Baudelaire, note to the final instalment of ‘Hans Pfaall’, Le Pays, 20 April 1855.

  27. Of which an early, and most notorious, instance is his Conchologist’s First Book (1839).

  28. As the ‘intuitive leaps’ or hypotheses of a scientist must be followed by experimental enquiry, so the intuitive expression of a poet (which is the poem) must be followed by explanatory analysis (or criticism). The ‘ “Raven” was not complete until Poe had written the explanatory “Philosophy of Composition” ’. (Edward H. Davidson, Poe, A Critical Study, 1957, p. 246.)

  29. Eureka, p. 300.

  30. Eureka, p. 292.

  31. Eureka, Preface.

  32. Eureka, p. 222.

  33. Eureka, p. 227.

  34. Eureka, p. 304.

  35. Eureka, p. 236.

  36. Eureka, p. 241.

  37. And now – this Heart Divine – what is it? It is our own.’ (Eureka, p. 307). cf. Denis Marion, La Méthode intellectuelle d’Edgar Poe (Paris, 1952).

  38. First printed as ‘Von Jung, the Mystic’, American Monthly Magazine (June 1837).

  39. Eureka, p. 300.

  40. cf. ‘On Being the Right Size’, Possible Worlds, 1927.

  41. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Le Phénomène humain (Paris, 1959), translated by Bernard Wall and others as The Phenomenon of Man (London, 1959).

  42. ‘The Power of Words’, p. 171.

  43. ‘son excentrique et fulgurante destinée littéraire’ (‘Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages’, Revue de Paris, 1852).

  44. ‘I have felt a strong impulse to come over and be here to-day myself in memory of Poe, which I have obey’d, but not the slightest impulse to make a speech, which, my dear friends, must also be obeyed.’ (Washington Star, 16 November 1875). In his ‘final judgement’ Poe’s verse probably belonged ‘among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat’. (‘Edgar Poe’s Significance’ Specimen Days, 1 January 1880).

  45. The Sonnet appeared at the end of the Memorial Volume (Baltimore, 1876): ‘désastre’, like ‘disaster’, literally means ‘ill-starred’. The last three lines, in Mallarmé’s own word-for-word English translation, run :

  [ A ] Stern block here fallen from a mysterious disaster,

  Let this granite at least show forever their bound

  To the old flights of Blasphemy [still] spread in the future.

  (For Mrs Sarah Helen Whitman, 31 July 1877)

  *The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called Trabes.21 Emi-cant trabes quos docos vocant. – Pliny lib. 2, p. 26.

  * Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that Mr Green, of Nassau-balloon notoriety,22 and other late æronauts, deny the assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a decreasing inconvenience, – precisely in accordance with the theory here urged.

  * Hevelius writes that he has several times found, in skies perfectly clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh magnitude were conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the moon, at the same elongation from the earth, and with one and the same excellent telescope, the moon and its maculæ did not appear equally lucid at all times. From the circumstances of the observation, it is evident that the cause of this phenomenon is not either in our air, in the tube, in the moon, or in the eye of the spectator, but must be looked for in something (an atmosphere?) existing about the moon.

  Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars, when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he found no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed, that at some times, and not at others, there is a dense matter encompassing the moon wherein the rays of the stars are refracted.

  * See Archimedes, ‘De Incidentibus in Fluido’. – lib. 2.6

  * ‘It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul.’ – Repub. lib. 2. ‘For this reason is a musical education most essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it
with beauty and making the man beautiful-minded.… He will praise and admire the beautiful; will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it, and assimilate his own condition with it.’ – Ibid. lib. 3. Music () had, however, among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the harmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment, and creation, each in its widest sense. The study of music was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste – of that which recognises the beautiful – in contra-distinction from reason, which deals only with the true.