fiction files redux discussion

Here is where we will discuss teeth and monomania and a beautiful woman's death.

http://infomotions.com/alex2/authors/...

Many thanks to Michael for this excellent suggestion. There is a lot to this story, I hope you all have fun with it.

A translation of the epigraph:

"My companion said I might find some alleviation of my misery in visiting the grave of my beloved."

A couple of interesting little factoids about this story.

First, the original version included a passage in which Egaeus watched Berenice move her finger and smile right before her burial. Apparently the outcry was such that he modified the story - apparently being buried alive was just crossing the line, but all that other stuff wasn't? - and it was republished.

Second, I've read a fair bit about Poe's life and his wife was quite ill for much of her adult life, if I recall correctly.

The monomania described in this story - would we call this obsessive-compulsive now?

Also, in Wikipedia there is this Freudian interpretation that seems off-base to me in the way that only Freud can be... but amusing, in a way only Freud can be... Seriously, I cannot connect these dots in any way:

"In Freudian terms, the removal of teeth can be a symbol of castration, possibly as punishment for masturbation. Another interpretation is thinking of the teeth as protection for an entrance to the cousin's body, another sexual connotation."

But this lady, I think, takes the cake:

"In addition, the psychoanalytic literary critic Princess Marie Bonaparte, in her book The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, refers to the idea of vagina dentata in her critique of this story."

(Go ahead. Search vagina dentata on Wikipedia. Dare you.)

But let's not get fixated on the Freudian interpretation.

Let's start here:

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, --as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? [emp. mine:]: --from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

The reading list from this story...

My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise of the noble Italian Coelius Secundus Curio "de Amplitudine Beati Regni dei"; St. Austin's great work, the "City of God"; and Tertullian "de Carne Christi," in which the paradoxical sentence "Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est" occupied my undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

Does anyone know these works? And I'll be a monkey's uncle if that Latin isn't Greek to me.

Also, his description of Berenice in contrast to himself before she falls ill is worth discussing, perhaps even from a literary perspective:

Yet differently we grew --I ill of health, and buried in gloom --she agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers the ramble on the hill-side --mine the studies of the cloister --I living within my own heart, and addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation --she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! --I call upon her name --Berenice! --and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah! vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh! gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh! sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! --Oh! Naiad among its fountains! --and then --then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told.

The narrator speaks more than once of details that shall not be revealed and a story that should not be told... kinda makes you wonder about the telling.

Interesting article on Poe in a recent New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics.... The author, Jill Lepore, looks at Poe's artistic ambitions in light of his desperate need for money to survive. Nothing on "Berenice" in particular, but I thought this sounded relevant.

Vagina dentata? Yikes.

Yeah, this is what I have read to.

The short of it is that he was a man ahead of his time in terms of his work itself, so publishing to make money was difficult.

He judged success of his work by how many copies it sold - he did work off and on in publishing, even running a journal for a period of time...

It seemed he used the immitative form in writing this short story. I checked out the dictionary and it said that monomania is obsession over a single idea. I am not sure if it is obsessive compulsive disorder.

The story is really unclear to me because Latin is also Greek to me and I would have to look up each word in the internet to contribute more to this thread.

Here is the info I have found that appears to be relevant.

de Amplitudine Beati Regni dei

The work that got Curione into the most trouble was On the Great Extent of God's Blessed Kingdom (De amplitudine beati regni dei), 1554. In this he called the doctrine of election "a biased, hateful, and malicious belief, calculated to drive souls to despair" and contended that the number of people who would be saved was much greater than most people imagined, most of humankind. He also claimed that many could achieve salvation by observing natural law, without converting to Christianity. Because he knew that the book would be controversial, and possibly dangerous to himself, he delayed publishing it for seven years and ultimately had it published away from Basel, in Poschiavo in the canton of Grisons (Graubünden) in southeast Switzerland. It was dedicated to King Sigismund II of Poland. In 1557, when Vergerio found that De amplitudine was circulating in Poland, he tried unsuccessfully to have it condemned.

St. Austin's great work, the "City of God" ...

St Austin is St. Augustine, in case you couldn't tell by the title City of God... there is a Wikipedia entry on it. City of God had 22 books, which according to Wikipedia, "he wrote to restore the confidence of his fellow Christians, which was badly shaken by the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410...[earlier on the page:] When the Roman Empire in the West was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name) distinct from the material City of Man. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, and was the community which worshipped God.

Tertullian "de Carne Christi"

De Carne Christi is a polemical work by Tertullian against the Gnostic Docetism of Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus and Alexander. It purports that the body of Christ was a real human body, taken from the virginal body of Mary, but not by way of human procreation. Among other justifications for the incarnation of Christ, it states that "the choice of 'foolish' flesh is part of [God's:] conscious rejection of conventional wisdom" and that "Without true incarnation, there can be no true redemption... God must have flesh, in order to have a real death and real resurrection." (De Carne Christi, Mahé edition).

Direct translation of the Latin:

The Son of God was born: there is no shame, because it is shameful.
And the Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is unsound.
And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because impossible.

The phrase is sometimes associated incorrectly with the doctrine of fideism, that is, "a system of philosophy or an attitude of mind, which, denying the power of unaided human reason to reach certitude, affirms that the fundamental act of human knowledge consists in an act of faith, and the supreme criterion of certitude is authority." (Catholic Encyclopedia). Fideism as a school of thought was rejected by Church in the Middle Ages.

Tertullian's quotation actually implies a rejection of Fideism, in that he asserts that the Apostles, being reasonable people, would not have believed in something as incredible as the resurrection of Jesus Christ had they not seen it firsthand.

However, the line "What I believe in cannot be proven" can be taken neither as a statement of Fideism nor a statement against it, unless the nature of the unprovable be evaluated in some way. Tertullian thought that reasonable people will not accept contradictory assertions and will dismiss them as ridiculous or impossible unless they themselves have legitimate certainty concerning them.

Thanks for the info!

Is this Vagina Dentada something related to primitive folklore and a few myths that deal with castration ? If so, I remember Joseph Campbell listing a few stories about this theme in one of his books...

Anyways, I think Poe is by far the most influential american writer and saying this to americans sometimes is very funny because until today they can not accept their obssession with the great american romance placed Poe where they could not see. Many thanks to Baudelaire for rescuing Poe. This time the french got it and americans paid back with Eurodisney...

Anyways, Poe own theory of composition will tell us that this teeth is not just there, must have a meaning, a reason but I bet he was just drunk one day and say a dentist working. Never more.

If we look at them all together and what Poe might be trying to... express through them/use them for...

The first one is about election, or the people chosen to be part of God's kingdom. The man who wrote this particular work questioned the idea that those who would be elected would even have to be Christians to be part of the Kingdom. Not a popular idea. Further, St. Augustine, whom he uses in the exact same passage, had this to say about election:

"For Augustine and his theological successors up to Calvin, the community of the elect is numerically restricted; their number corresponds to the number of fallen angels, who must be replaced through the matching number of redeemed men and women so that the Kingdom of God would be restored numerically."

(I find all that weird. Oh, and the criteria that the elected could not have defiled themselves with women, ok don't get me started.)

The second work, City of God, by Augustine, was (generally) about separating the spiritual world from the material...

And the third is about faith - "What I believe cannot be proven."

I could be making too much of all of this. But Poe was so careful, I have a hard time believing the selection wasn't entirely deliberate.

And, given the subject matter of the story - which is very much about the decay of life, the death of a virtuous life described in harrowing detail and a truly gruesome - the "material" act on the part of the main character at the end... how do these lofty ideas fit at all?

Help me out here, you more theologically experienced people.

Or anyone, for that matter...! I swear, I am all over this thread like white on rice now. Back on the bandwagon of life. Got my act together (mostly) and life is settling down so I can focus on what matters. :-)

Yeah, the vagina dentata thing is from myth/folklore. I get it, I see where it comes from, but I guess folklore doesn't always make sense to me.

I just don't think that was the goal here. The teeth are a symbol of her health, her life, but castration/sexuality, I don't really get that out of the story at all.

I think it's a soul vs. body story. Or mind/body. Material vs. Spirit.

Wasn't the woman Poe married quite a bit younger than him, and also his cousin?

She was younger indeed, I do not recall if she was his cousin, but this information, in my opinion is not relevant to unlock this text. And, the vagina dentada have usually spiritual meanings, cosmogonical. This kind of stuff was not unfamiliar to Poe but this kind of interpretation seems to be more jungian, and not one that Poe would use.

I'm not one to use an author's bio to understand the work, normally I prefer to just take the work at face value. But you have to admit, more than many authors, there is a common thread throughout much of his work that does relate to what we know of his life. Deep and soul-shaking love, a beautiful woman dying... happens a lot in his stuff.

I also would like to recommend Dundes, Sacred Narrative which also deals with vagania dentas. If you are a man, you ought to read it with your legs crossed.

It is not like Poe own life have no clues about his texts, it is more like, the age difference is not one of the clues. Her disease of course, have a lot to do with Poe thinking that mourning a beautful woman is the most poetic theme possible.

Sometimes I think Voice is everything for Poe.

Compare the story's first paragraph to Psalm 104 (down to the cadences of his sentences.) (NB: King James version which is probably what E.A.P. would reference....)

O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.

There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.

These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.

Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.

I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.

Shel wrote: "If we look at them all together and what Poe might be trying to... express through them/use them for...

The first one is about election, or the people chosen to be part of God's kingdom. The man w..."

Good Morning Shel - glad you are enjoying Poe's story. My sense is that the common thread to the medieval citations is a notion of the "damned" – a tribe Poe tends to associate himself with! - those not elected for heaven, outside the citadel, the corrupt and decaying, etc. The purpose for referencing these works (not so obscure, to a 19th century classicist) to show the level of introversion and monastic scholarship of the narrator.

Hugh hints at it in his post, but the main thing for me with Poe is the frigging writing. The story line is great, but how many writers could have pulled off the scene with the teeth? How may writers could have taken us into the dislocations in time our narrator experiences?

I personally think that “monomania” the main theme of the story and, as Patrick points out, this would be different than a more diffused compulsion. We often find a feminine principal to monadologies, either the vagina dentate or the unfolding petals of the rosa mysterium; Poe inevitably strangling, or burying alive, or making some suicide pack with his love interest. I would love to hear what Jung would say about this. But, Oro is probably right to warn against bringing the 20th century too far into Poe’s writing.

I’d like somebody to tell me how many stories by Poe concern being buried alive. It must be at least a dozen.

Merci Baudelaire,
mm

Wow, I have always loved Poe but I am really glad to have everyone here take my appreciation to a different level.

I've not really read him and taken the time to find out what the references are, etc.

I agree about the monastic tendencies of the character but I also thought that the texts referred to might have a more direct purpose. I thought that the last text he referred to might be the most purposeful reference in the story - I believe something that cannot be proven. I thought the narrator believed something about the teeth that cannot be proven.

Anyway, when I read Poe... mostly I just read his stories about 4 or 5 times over in one sitting, just kind of enfolded in the voice that Hugh mentions but also wondering, good God, how does he pull this off so well every single time? How do the endings feel inevitable, but shocking, and yet in keeping with character...? He just ... so completely takes me into the world of the story.

Maybe it's just my age or unfortunate upcoming birthday (actually, I'm totally fine with getting older, I'm rather enjoying it), maybe it's looking at my children and seeing how fully alive and trusting they are in and with their bodies, but when I read him now I am more interested in his ... obsession? ... with the decay of the body as it relates to the life of the mind and soul. I used to be more interested in the symbolism and the horror bits.

And, decay of body as it relates to mind/soul is relevant to the being buried alive thing, I think. Being mistaken for dead by others, living in a body that betrays you.

Yeah, another dear theme of Poe, or perhaps his main theme, is that somethings just cann't be explained. Conrad's The Horror, The Horror is the reaction of Poe. There is something infinite, imense, dark and that can not be described. No wonder he is such influence for Lovecraft and Borges. Either this thing is a raven, mean angels, a heart, a pit, watever.
Michael, he is just a clacissist at heart, but a romantic at mind...

Jcamilo wrote: "No wonder he is such influence for Lovecraft and Borges."

Lovecraft definitely came to mind in this story with the language cranked up nearly to Transcendental -- the Latin allusions and books brimming with secrets. I guess what I meant about voice is that Poe takes us so far -- and believably -- into the monomania. For me, this kind of mind almost imagines itself God-like surveying of the minutiae of existence.

I also agree with Michael on the whole buried alive thing.... I'm not sure how often that happened but that fear seemed almost monomania for Poe... one of my favorites is in the Cask of Amontillado as the character is being sealed in, brick by brick: "Fortunato!"

More, the strange Case mr.Valdemar, and Poe curiosity about hypnosis (which may mean his voice)... I would say the boundaries between life and death are his monomania, not being buried alive, who may represent it, just like dreams, darkness or a dead woman/living lover, an entobed cat. The word Morbid suits him too well, his links with Baudelaire (another morbid individual) are always big.
Poe also liked to build up his imagenery with contrasts, alive when should be dead suits him well. In the end, this guy prose is flawless, he repeats the themes, the stories and we are always drugged by his opium.

Shel wrote: "Help me out here, you more theologically experienced people..."

The Latin can hurt the brain to decipher, so here be a quick reference to vaginal symbolism built into the stone and glass of Chartres Cathedral, “Mary’s Seat on Earth”, which I think much easier on the eyes than those toothy pictures we braved earlier.

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/fr...


Hugh wrote: "Lovecraft definitely came to mind in this story with the language cranked up nearly to Transcendental -- the Latin allusions and books brimming with secrets.”

So true! Is it possible to crank language up any further? Poe is definitely cranked to 11.

“In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings, entirely vanished and forgotten. [Italic are Poe’s:]

Don’t you wish you could use the phrase “often replete with luxury”, or the word “incitamentum”, in your everyday conversation? In italics!?

Hugh wrote: "I also agree with Michael on the whole buried alive thing.... I'm not sure how often that happened but that fear seemed almost monomania for Poe... one of my favorites is in the Cask of Amontillado as the character is being sealed in, brick by brick: "Fortunato!"

Of course there is his The Premature Burial, an essay by Poe on the subject with historical examples, Madeline Usher's similar fate, etc. etc. In The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket the stow-away is trapped for months in a crawlspace below decks and our author simply luxuriates in describing the claustrophobic conditions. There must be other examples.

Jcamilo wrote: “Poe also liked to build up his imagenery with contrasts…”

Yes! Are you a teacher or what!? How else but describe the supreme analytical skills of C. Auguste Dupin, and his nemesis…an orangutan!

How else but to describe the concept of hiding something in the open?!

Excuse me, I am yelling again.

Jcamilo wrote: “this guy prose is flawless, he repeats the themes, the stories and we are always drugged by his opium.”

Yes, as close to flawless as we know. And yes, the whole public persona about being a druggie. Don’t know if I believe it.

mm

Baudelaire attack to Haxixe and opium would still happen. Opium was something used by people who are dead and alive. He can not be a drug, if it was not a drug, just like no smoker today is druggie, even if in 10 years the entire world kick tobacco to the realm of marijuana.
Btw, when I was a kid, Dupin and his monkey (which under the light of darwin, was still under the discussion of how human it could be, a creature breed from nightmares) are one of the less interesting of the most famous works of Poe. His letter and his Marion are more thrilling for many reasons - Dupin discovers the truth and the truth is clumsy.

Luckily or unluckily, I read the three "women" stories in a row: "Lygeia," "Morella," and then, appropriate to the climactic, "Berenice."

I've never forgotten getting to that last paragraph.

As always, Eddie never fails to "punch us in the stomach."

Not too long ago, I FINALLY picked up and finished his only long work: "The Narrative of J. Gordon Pym of Nantucket."

If you liked "Berenice," you may like "Pym." I still think Melville may have copped the "white evil" idea here--which, I think, (as I'm re-reading Shelley's little gothic number again) may have begun with Mary.

Nice to be reminded of the "effect" of surprise.

--R.A.

R.a. wrote: "Luckily or unluckily, I read the three "women" stories in a row: "Lygeia," "Morella," and then, appropriate to the climactic, "Berenice."

I've never forgotten getting to that last paragraph.

..."

R.A.: There are actually four "women" stories by my count. And they do fall into a type. Berenice is clearly in my view the best of the four.

You do often get back to Pym, and its connection to Melville's masterwork. I am waiting for the definitive monograph from you on this topic. I particularly remember a discussion we once had on the use of hierglyphs in both works. You are on to something here and I think it needs to be written and published. Let me see if I can find a link to the old thread for us...

mm

I found it! Here is the thread R.A. I just re-read it and you are amazing here. It reads like me acting as midwife to your thesis. Someone named "Oro" keeps appearing in the thread as well.

A. Gordon Pym & Moby Dick

Your final comment to the thread,

"There ARE still similiarities here, I know / or feel some -- way back in the cobwebs. I'm sure @ one time these were @ the front of the brain . . . now they seem to haunting the walls 'back there.'

--R.A.

I love it. You have an essay of importance here R.A. and I would really encourage you to have at it. Any further midwifery needed, we can exchane email addresses and take this offline to get it done if you wish.

mm

Michael,

Wow! That sounds great! W/ both writers, though, there is much "out there."

This idea, in itself, is either a Master's or Ph.D., project. The key, of course, if proof. Even if we had proof that Melville had copies of Poe's magazines, etc. Given how voracious a reader Melville was, @ least a "dashed line" could be made to Poe.


Do we have a hermeneutic, here? Melville-->Poe-->Shelley-->Coleridge . . . @ least within the "Romantic / Gothic" tradition.

It would be curious, too, I think, to see if Behn had any references / allusions to this, as well.

Hmmmm.


--R.A.

There isnt an essay by poe about the fear of white? Anyways, notice in berenice that the teeths are also white?

Ok, lets just imagine, Melville have ties with natives, the white color may be frightful to them. I suppose it is possible. The real whale that attacked Essex could be white? But more, Hawthorne is a tie between then, right? Poe knows Hawthorne and Hawthorne could be interessed on his critics? And Hawthorne know him too well...He have a marble fawn...
Anyways, lets imagine there is a archetype of white horrors, would this happens exactly among two americans writers that dealt with similar groups (the bordeline trancedentalism, is there anything positive about white in Emerson?)

Jcamilo wrote: "There isnt an essay by poe about the fear of white? Anyways, notice in berenice that the teeths are also white?

Ok, lets just imagine, Melville have ties with natives, the white color may be fr..."

Ah, Mr. R-A. You have your second midwife.

Do we have another, a third midwife? The more the merrier to be done with R-A's hurlyburly.

Yes ! Let's birth this cow !

Not so udderly shocking . . .

(Sorry, couldn't help it).

--R.A.

Lets celebrate. I have a more fine casket of wine. You two go ahead, I shall show you...

Jcamilo wrote: "Lets celebrate. I have a more fine casket of wine. You two go ahead, I shall show you..."

And R-A has left his manuscript lying around here somewhere. I just can't find it now. ;)

"I was sick, sick, sick unto death . . ."

Ooops! That's Eddie!

ok, dont you find funny talking about Mel and Eddie that americans overlock Eddie? He is by far the most influential american writer ever, yet, he is just a bird and a short tales writer.
And Mel is overloocked as well.
And there is the great schizhopherenia of the great american romance (which is Moby Dick btw) and they can not see it?
Which American have said Eureka, Eureka?

I think both are pretty anchored.

I do find it sad, though, that Eddie has fame (ironically or not, appropriate or not pending your view of him) ONLY after death whereas Melville saw success in his time.

W/ Melville, though, if it weren't for his father-in-law, he very well may have seen a 'fading life' as severe as Eddie. His success was obtained early--his grander work, Moby Dick or The Whale failed in his time. But, at least he SAW the success of Typee, etc.

Eddie only saw fame toward the end w/ "The Raven" for which he was paid $10.00. Time to time, I picture the poor man, desperately trying to sell work and start yet another magazine while poor Virginia is dying of consumption on the hay bed in the little NY cottage.

--R.A.

Not exactly about fame, but critical reckognition. Obviously, nobody dismiss any of them and today Moby is Moby and despite it being not a fish, it wont sink.
We have a few americans that point how Poe critics are relevant, his "creation" of policial short story or even horror... Yet, if wasnt by europeans and south americans... There is almost a huge effort in America to place him in a secundary status. I think it is the schizophrenia of the great american romance. Nobody else seeks it (either they already had or just do not care) and the notion that somehow short stories are less challenging that a 4857 pages romance. They seems to overlook that Poe aesthetical principles is so powerful that poets or novel writers followed it. (As if, being the top guy for a textual form such as the short tale isnt enough).
When people talk about psychological literature people go to Dostoievisky and forget Poe is all about it as well...
And the irony is that this capacity to not seen what is obvious made them overlook Moby Dick, which is already the great american romance. Imagine the american market without the quest for the romance?

Jcamilo wrote: "Not exactly about fame, but critical reckognition. Obviously, nobody dismiss any of them and today Moby is Moby and despite it being not a fish, it wont sink.
We have a few americans that point h..."

Well said. It is heartening to find someone who thinks as much of Poe as I do, e.g. short form, psychological literature, mystery lit, detective story, etc. etc.

How is your thesis coming R-A?

Slow. More @ Webster than Poe.

All right, been reading the Complete Stories of Father Brown. I do not think a good critic is the one that explains, but one that shows. Chesterton shows that he is the best critic of of Poe.