Lionizing

by Edgar Allan Poe

Suspense, fear and the supernatural provide the center for this tale by the master prose writer.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Humor, Literature, Horror, Fantasy

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1833

About the author

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Reviews

[Steven Serpens · Rating 2 out of 5]

CALIFICACIÓN REAL: 2.5 estrellas

Uno entre leones nos presenta a Robert Jones, un individuo bastante obsesionado con las narices, lo que le lleva a convertirse en una autoridad y máximo referente sobre aquel órgano, al nivel de publicar un ‘’librillo’’ sobre su especialidad.

Primero que todo, hay que estar conscientes de que estamos ante una sátira humorística, lo que hace que esta título sea una curiosidad dentro de la bibliografía de Poe. Como lectura, Uno entre leones es bastante simpática y ligera; aunque carezca de relevancia alguna dentro de las obras de su autor. Se agradece que venga después de El cottage de Landor, para quitar de cierta forma el mal sabor que dejó.

Además, me llama la atención que el protagonista tenga nombre propio, cuestión que es poco común en los narradores del autor. Hasta ahora, solo recuerdo a Napoleón Bonaparte, alías Simpson no sé cuánto de Los anteojos. Otra cosa que captó mi atención fue la elección de los nombres bastante curiosos y peculiares que tenían los distinguidos personajes de la alta alcurnia que conforman este relato.

Durante el nudo de esta historia, Robert es invitado a una junta con grandes eminencias y eruditos de diferentes doctrinas, pero él se lleva todos los aplausos y alabanzas gracias a su dominio en la nasología.
Posteriormente, pasará de la gloria al repudio de todos, por eliminar a la ‘’competencia’’, pero eso no sucederá como crean imaginarse, ya que aquí no se mata a nadie.

Si bien la presente sátira no me disgustó, porque me hizo gracia y hasta me causó una que otra risa, estoy totalmente consciente de que no se le puede pedir ni exigir más, ni tampoco hay cómo calificarla mejor o posicionarla más altamente para el top 28; por ende, mi calificación es de 2.5 estrellas. Hay que ser objetivos y realistas, ya que es un título extremadamente básico. Nada más que decir o agregar al respecto.

Con respecto al final, me parece correcto y adecuado, considerando el carácter de esta obra; sin embargo, noté que puede ocultar un significado o simbolismo bastante interesante para ahondar, el que podría cambiar completamente el tono y la percepción de este relato, cosa que trataré a continuación.
Me di cuenta de que hubo cierta picardía en el trasfondo de la historia, que se representó de una forma bastante minuciosa: el protagonista es altamente admirado por su nariz. Nada raro hasta el momento. Puede que eso no tenga mucho sentido, pero dentro del lore de la trama, los hombres, —que son aludidos como los leones—, son admirados por el tamaño de su nariz.
¿Podrá ser eso alguna alusión satírica a la virilidad, en relación con el tamaño de ya saben qué 🍆? No quiero ser mal pensado, pero tiene mucho sentido: mientras más grande sea la nariz de una persona, más respetada y admirada se hace ante los ojos de los demás.
Por último, ¿será que lo que ocurre hacia el final, simbolice una castración? De ser así, más se reforzaría mi hipótesis sobre el significado contextual de Uno entre leones, pues ambas interpretaciones personales que acabo de exponer se complementan entre sí.

Para no perder el hilo con las demás reseñas que he hecho sobre las obras de Edgar Allan Poe:

1) El gato negro, cuya reseña está bugueada en el feed de Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2) El cuervo, el único poema que he reseñado de este autor: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3) Narraciones extraordinarias, recopilatorio en donde reúno a los 28 relatos que he leído de Poe, además de incluir un top personal al respecto; junto con dar mi opinión en profundidad sobre él como autor: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Christy Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven’t read Lionizing in many years. It’s just as silly as I remember. Robert Jones has been lionized for his nose since birth - as if this is something of which a person should be extremely proud. He is called a genius for having a nose. What in the world?!? The story definitely makes fun of society for holding weightless things as some of the most important elements in life. In particular, Poe takes quite a few jabs at high society and royalty. This story didn’t really do anything for me. Although, I do love the part where the father kicks his son out of the house - quite humorous and worthy of a star. However, I do love his darker stories so much more.

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering that the former President declared his intent on making another run at the White House this week, as I read this short story, I thought for a moment that I was reading something modern rather than something from the 19th century. The Poe story called Lionizing is not the least bit scary. However, reading this story did cause me to laugh. Clearly, Poe did not limit his writing to just gothic tales. Here, Poe has our main character, Robert Jones, narrate a story where he grabbed his nose with both hands as a baby and was proclaimed a genius. The gullible people of the city of Fum-Fudge all believed the parents and to underscore the genius aspect, Robert's father gave him a book to help him study Nosology. Uh-huh! When Robert comes of age, the father further helps Robert by kicking him out of his house and tells him to make his way in the world, which is made easier by the fact that the members of high society believe that Robert is destined for greatness, not just because everyone believes he is a genius, but because of his big nose and his intelligence / understanding about noses. Yes, Poe is writing about the cult of personality in 1835, and how it spreads via misinformation and the repetition of false narratives. It's brilliant, but I was expecting a horror story, so I removed a star. It is still a classic IMHO.

[Francesc · Rating 1 out of 5]

Relato que solo puede nacer de una mente surreal como la de Poe. Un desbarajuste de ideas. Esta vez se trata de la ciencia de la nariz, literalmente.

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A story that could only come from a surreal mind like Poe's. A jumble of ideas. This time it's about the science of the nose, literally.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mostly nonsensical tale about people obsessed with noses. It was strange and not very humorous.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story trips over into the silliness zone.

[Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three words: hilarious, weird and strange.

[Fernando · Rating 2 out of 5]

Otro flojo relato de Poe acerca de un joven que sale a conquistar el mundo gracias a sus conocimientos en Nasología, o sea, en el estudio de la nariz y en cómo esta virtud puede servir para grangearse una posición más alta en la sociedad.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing I can say I really enjoyed about this story is the odd abundance of nose puns. Never thought I would say that...

[A Federico · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have read it, go on:
This is a satire about high society, especially snobism and intellectual pretentiousness among high circles. Poe satirizes how everyone is known or praised for something about his trade, occupation, profession or knowledge, and as such people like these will take pride in talking about those things they know the most, the wine expert, about wines, the artist, about art, the philosopher, about philosophy, the geologist, about geology, so on, and while many of them are actually talking about other people, citing philosophers, citing painters, and others talk about famous wines and dishes, and about themes they know about, like physics, theology, philosophy, in the end I think Poe makes a point that they're doing this to favor how others percieve them, so that in the end it's all about themselves: "me, me and me". Why some are praised or highly regarded is irrelevant, and that's the point of the tale, as the very protagonist is hailed as a genius for no other thing than having a big nose, but this is so irrelevant, that when he feuds with other guy who's rude to him he cuts up the other guy's nose, the others end up despising him and preferring the noseless guy now, so that having no nose becomes the new source of praise. Note how there's some envy in the tale too, the guys start being rude at our protagonist when his talents earn him a lady's attention. That's why they end up hating him, he feuds one of these arrogant lions and loses all their favor to him, now noseless. So what's the source of praise? Being deemed a genius for doing something as trivial as touching his nose, pulling his nose (arrogance? presumption?), writing about "nosology", of which he knows more than anyone, having a larger nose. And in the end the better praise is gone to the guy without a nose. Triviality, arrogance, presumption, high regard. It's all a satire about those things.

[Eye of Sauron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is actually rather funny.

'The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius: – my father wept for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology. This I mastered before I was breeched.'

It's a satire of the intelligentsia of high society and all the pretensions that come with it. It's also a humorous commentary on the ridiculous things people are in the habit of praising. The ending, however, certainly felt like an anticlimax; other than that, this is one of my favorite Poe stories so far.

[Esther FL · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este relato me ha gustado algo menos que los que he leído suyos hasta ahora.
Se supone que es una sátira pero no le he encontrado mucho la gracia. Quizás me quiere recordar el soneto de Quevedo que comienza con “érase un hombre a una nariz pegado”… 😅
Me llama la atención que es el primer relato en el que introduce alg��n diálogo, hasta ahora no los habíamos visto (o no tan largos)

[David Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was quite funny, describing the way that people can be built up and praised for the most absurd reasons - in this instance for being the owner a splendid nose! You can really appreciate the ridiculous nature of this story, as the main character rises in popularity over his peers who are much better educated and we'll informed. My main gripe with this was the large amount of lists, detailing the abilities of the other people that he met, feeling almost like the Bible where people 'begat' etc. This aside, there is a point well made and it's another humorous read, if not as fun as King Pest.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For · Rating 1 out of 5]

A somewhat odd attempt at humor from Edgar Allen Poe, Lionizing is sort of an Aesop-Fable/Parable kind of story with a bland humor that really doesn't work very well. A harmless story, if not very striking, about a young man who in England who is an expert about all aspects of the Nose.

[Mohannad Hassan · Rating 2 out of 5]

In such humorous works like this one, I feel that something is a target of the satire. As to what it is, I have no definite clue.

Even in his worse works, you feel Poe pioneering something ... still not a good one.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, whimsical short story. Still not sure how the title relates to the story but I don't think that matters.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It is an oft-made generalization that attack is a vital element of satire; in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Lionizing” (1835), a tale the author called a “satire properly speaking,” the objects of attack are “the rage for Lions and the facility of becoming one,” or so he described them in an 1836 letter to John P. Kennedy. https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1921...
"A lion is a person or celebrity who is socially sought after, without established criteria as to the value of the reason for that celebrity status. The story is a parody of experiences recounted by Nathanial Parker Willis in a series of articles . . . published in 1835 . . . Among the adventures that Willis claimed to have enjoyed during his 1831 tour of Europe are a [bloodless] duel, friendships with English royalty, and meetings with members of the British literati." Sova, Dawn, B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (136) In this tale Poe really lampoons Willis unmercifully who was an American author, poet and editor. "We have the testimony of Briggs [Charles F. an American journalist, author and editor] and James Russell Lowell [American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat] that Poe, in fact, rather despised Willis--with the intimation that Willis was aware of this fact. We do not have anything directly from Poe which confirms this, but he made no secret of the fact that he thought little of most of Willis' literary work--he regarded his more commercially successful contemporary as what we today would call a 'lightweight.' " https://worldofpoe.blogspot.com/2010/...

TIDBIT "The true meaning of the term nosology is the classification of diseases, a term known to Poe, who uses the misappropriation to further satirize pseudointellectualism.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Future's gaze, New noses find value.

[Brian Skinner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to explain what this is. In simple terms it isa story about noses.

[Irifev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poe versucht es mit Humor und Nasen. 2,5.

[David Meditationseed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poe writing a comedy text? Yes!!!

This is an almost a fable story where the protagonist is nothing less than the nose !! Or maybe who's after him. Rará

But not only that. This is perhaps a story about "possession" or "comparison" or even a critique of the intelligentsia of that time, as in this passage during an aristocratic-intellectual event:

"There was the Grand Turk of Istanbul, he could not help but think that the angels were horses, cocks and bulls, that someone in the sixth paradise had seventy thousand heads, and that the earth was supported by a blue-sky cow with an incalculable number of green horns ". : )

The creep its to note in the best sense of the word that the same author who writes terrifying texts around the 1840s such as "The Black Cat" or "The Pit and the Pendulum" also writes satiric and humorous tales like "Lionizing" or even "King Pest."

Cheers, Poe!!

[Ivanko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nosologija je znanost koju prakticira glavni lik priče koja ne sadrži lavove već samo nos kao objekt prema kojem se procijenjuje genij osobe u ovoj Poeovoj društvenoj satiri.
Šta??

[Hazal · Rating 2 out of 5]

i was expecting to read horror story instead of that, i found satire and parody about life and politics even.
Poe's narrator was a nose expert and famous with his nose , which symbolize to us absurd parody reason and metophorical reason of arragonce ( nose in the air) (nose in the wind) etc. we see that in story people lionzed each other with tiny little reasons. and poe is poking fun with them and society's habit of stupid praising of stupidity

[David jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't a very good story. I mean, it is alright, but still, it is just a plainly weird attempt at humor, some of which I thought to be funny, other times I just thought it was stupid. The only bright side about this story is that it is a fairly short read. My least favorite Poe story thus far.

[A Mig · Rating 2 out of 5]

very bizarre, and for a moment, quiet enjoyable, but just for a moment

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:

"Heads swell easily.
Often with no just cause, which
Bites them in the nose."

[Darinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humorous short story. Odd and amusing.

[belle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understood almost nothing! But it was funny and still brilliant nevertheless — definitely dripping in satire.

[Lee Foust · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here I felt the professional writer up against a deadline falling back on the ridicule of the pretentiously learned, of which he was surely one. A one pun joke text.

[Ena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quote which begins this tale is my favorite of Poe’s choices so far. “All people went upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.” From Bishop Hall’s Satires. Since my teen era, I’ve heartily enjoyed quotes at both the beginning of stories and the beginning of chapters. The more obscure the better. From poetry, plays, or satire, the better still.
I love the moral of the story. This normal/ridiculous aspect of our narrator, i.e. his nose and nose related knowledge, is celebrated and mastered before birth. What an infant can do, eh?! This aspect results in social mobility, even to Almacks! I love regency fiction so Almacks is well on my radar. This aspect continues to deliver the goods gaining our narrator the ‘right sort’ of friends, ahem titled. This aspect results in the monetary compensation of a thousand pounds for a cast/portrait of said nose. Yet, in an ill advised moment of temperament against an incompetent, our narrator consents to a duel wherein instead of shooting wide as a gentleman would do he shoots off his opponents nose. His friends abandon him as the supreme idiot of all. In despair he turns to his father to ask why, and the moral arrives in the vehicle of the one who came before. “There is no competing with a lion who has no proboscis at all.” We participate in society’s little games. We win, or we lose, but when another is outside of these games, they win. He is now an object more interesting than our narrator can ever be. What set him apart, he usurped in one well placed shot.
BTW: Love the mention of Fricassee because of the line from Pride and Prejudice spoken by Elizabeth.