Any literary critic or scholar who sets out to verify the relationship between the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and the English novelist/poet Thomas Hardy cannot realistically begin without considering the questions posed by Cyril Clemens in the autumn of 1925 during an interview with Hardy at his Max Gate home: "Do you like Poe, Mr. Hardy?" "Yes," he replied, "I have always loved the American. I especially like "The House of Usher," that cryptogram "The Gold Beetle" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (26). Clemens, the grandson of American novelist/humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain), continued his question with "Did Poe influence your work?", to which Hardy replied "Yes, without hesitation I say that Poe influenced my work" (27 ) with these claims of Hardy firmly established, we can proceed to explore Poe's influence in Thomas Hardy's poetry, as both poets shared a common desire for "the rhythmic creation of beauty" as defined by Poe in his "Poetic Principle" " of 1848. D.H. Fussell, in his article "Do you like Poe, Mr. Hardy?" agrees with this admitting that Poe and Hardy share "(a) fundamental similarity of vision and certain concerns which both writers have in common" ( 214). Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To simplify our research into the relationship between the poetry of Poe and Hardy, we must first discuss several key elements. . In his 1938 work The Pleasures of Literature, John Cowper Powys tests the Poe/Hardy connection with a personal recollection of a visit to Max Gate in the early 1890s: "But it was in my youth... that none other than Thomas Hardy me he pointed out, with a more passionate appreciation than I had ever heard him show for any other author, the power and beauty of Poe's Ulalume, that strange poem which represents the innermost essence of his genius" (528). With this revelation in mind, consider Fussell's statement regarding Poe's poetic complexity: "Hardy saw in Poe a technician of some importance; in several instances he remarked on Poe's excellence in this respect" (213). According to Florence Hardy, the poet's wife, Hardy had nothing but praise for Edgar Poe, as demonstrated in a letter to her in which she states "Poe... was the first to realize... all the possibilities of the English language in rhyme and alliteration" (343). As a poet, Hardy clearly exemplifies all of these traits usually assigned to Poe: power and beauty, technical mastery, and an extraordinary sense of rhyme and alliteration, as will be demonstrated in the poems that follow. In a second letter, Thomas Hardy considers whether or not Poe would have achieved even greater mastery and poetic power had he remained in England in 1815 as part of John Allan's extended family: "It is a matter of curious conjecture whether his results in verse would have been the same if the five years of childhood spent in England had been extended to adult life. That "merciless disaster" which prevented those achievements from being carried forward must be an infinite regret to lovers of poetry" (Florence Hardy 343). ). Since Hardy was obviously a "lover of poetry," this statement shows his concern for Poe's plight in the American literary cultural arena in the early 1830s and 1840s, when Poe was forced into a life of servitude literature which barely supported him financially and was sidelined by his editors and publishers who did not have the sagacity to do so. see his potential as a great American poet and prose writer. For Hardy, Poe's "merciless disaster" (a segment from "The Raven") was theunderlying cause of his failure to achieve poetic fame in America during his lifetime, which resulted in "infinite remorse" for those in England who would have willingly accepted him. as an Englishman with the status of Lord Byron, Percy Shelley or Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In January 1909, the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Edgar Poe's alma mater in 1826, invited Thomas Hardy to attend the centennial of Poe's birth (January 19, 1809), but Hardy declined the offer and wrote: "The University ...does well to commemorate Ora's birthday that the lapse of time has reduced the small details of his life to their true proportions compared to the measure of his poetry, and has dulled the horror of the proper classes at his want of respectability , that fantastic and romantic genius shows itself in all its rarity" (Florence Hardy 356). Hardy's great endorsement of Poe, however, lacks a biography, for it is interesting to note that the American poet James Russell Lowell, with whom Hardy dined and with whom he corresponded on several occasions, had met Poe in New York . York City in 1845, prompting him to write a laudatory sketch of it in his Pioneer magazine. But due to Poe's ferocious attacks on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a plagiarist, Lowell's enthusiasm quickly cooled and he later described Poe as "three-fifths genius... two-fifths sheer muddle", a reference to Barnaby Rudge by Dicken. affiliation between Edgar Poe and Thomas Hardy, Robert Gittings provides this telling observation: "In Hardy's works, there are only two suggestions of Poe's presence in the writer's mind. The first is in the poem "The Dawn After the Dance" which is in a meter so close to that of Poe's "The Raven" as to be more than coincidental. The second is in Jude the Obscure, where "The Raven" is mentioned" (145). Poe's "The Raven", first published in the Evening Mirror. of New York City in 1845, has been the subject of various interpretations over the years, but one aspect of this poem is undeniable, for beneath its Gothic undercurrent lies the distinct sense of horror engendered by the most recognizable refrain in American poetry, the recurring "Nevermore." In simple terms, "The Raven" describes the loss of a loved one in the form of Lenore, the "rare and radiant maiden" whom the narrator, like an eloquent hero, imagines wandering aimlessly "on the Plutonian shore of Night" as the bird sits placidly "on the bust of Pallas" above his chamber door, a black-and-white contrast that reinforces a repetitive theme in Thomas Hardy's poetry. Hardy's "The Dawn of the Dance," which imitates the meter of "The Raven," also contains similarities in rhyme and use of alliteration, as shown by these lines: I would be sincere willingly, but the dawn approaches so chilling, to make further sadness intolerable now, so I won't stand trying to declare a day for parting, But I'll hold you just as always: just the old declaration of love. (Gibson 230 - lines 5-8). Now listen to "The Raven": Ah, I distinctly remember it was in bleak December, and every single dying ember wrought its ghost on the floor. I longed for tomorrow - in vain I had tried to borrow from my books the cessation of grief, the grief for the lost Lenore. (Mabbott 365-lines 9-12). In 1896, John Cowper Powys paid another visit to Max Gate and spoke to Hardy about Poe's influence in his poetry: "He called my attention to Edgar Allan Poe's 'Ulalume' as a powerful and extraordinary poem. In those days, I had never read this sinister masterpiece, but following Hardy's suggestion I soon drew from it a formidable influence in the direction of the romantically bizarre" (Fussell 216). From Powys' observations, yes, 1938.