{"id":13297,"date":"2022-07-12T06:20:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T06:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/in\/?post_type=product&p=13297"},"modified":"2022-07-12T06:28:40","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T06:28:40","slug":"still-farther-south-poe-and-pyms-suggestive-symmetries","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/in\/still-farther-south-poe-and-pyms-suggestive-symmetries\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Farther South Poe and Pym\u2019s Suggestive Symmetries"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1838, as the United States began its Exploring Expedition to the South Seas, Edgar Allan Poe published a novel that masqueraded as a travelogue. John Tresch guides us along this strange trip southward, following the pull of its unfathomable mysteries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In May, 1837, the U.S. economy<\/a> screeched to a halt; the panic struck. Martin Van Buren had inherited an impending disaster. Interest rates in England had recently risen and cotton prices plunged. The nation plummeted into seven years of stagnation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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All the while, Edgar Allan Poe<\/a> worked with a focus sharpened by hunger. Years earlier, when Poe wrote to editors in hopes of publishing\u00a0Tales of the Folio Club<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 each written in a distinct style, exaggerating the conventions and clich\u00e9s of established genres and authors, often uproariously \u2014 he was warned that there was little public appetite for story collections.\u00a0James Kirke Paulding, a reviewer for Harper & Brothers, said Americans preferred works \u201cin which a single and connected story occupies the whole volume\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Poe took the advice. In late 1836, still in Richmond, Virginia, he began a seafaring novel inspired by Robinson Crusoe,<\/a> with a hero whose name echoed his own: Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe\u2019s novel would draw on popular excitement for a national scientific venture: a government-sponsored expedition to the South Seas. The project had been sparked by the lecturer J. N. Reynolds, who had been seized by the \u201chollow earth\u201d theory of John Cleves Symmes, the \u201cNewton of the West\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Symmes, a former army officer who moved between Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio, believed that the surface of the earth was the outermost of five concentric spheres; its poles were flat and open, and one might travel smoothly from its extreme north or south into the globe\u2019s interior. Lit and heated by reflected light, the inner surface of the outer sphere (and the four smaller spheres it contained) was, Symmes contended, a \u201cwarm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals\u201d. Declaring the chemist Humphry Davy and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt his \u201cprotectors\u201d, he called for \u201cone hundred brave companions\u201d to depart with him \u201cwith Reindeer and slays\u201d from Siberia across \u201cthe ice of the frozen sea\u201d and into the earth.\u00a0Reynolds, a captivating speaker, joined Symmes on a lecture tour and argued that the U.S. government should sponsor an expedition to test the theory.<\/p>\n

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When Reynolds later spoke on the topic to Congress \u2014 having abandoned Symmes\u2019 theory, but not his interest in an expedition to the South Seas \u2014 Poe took up the cause in the\u00a0Southern Literary Messenger<\/i>. Nothing less than \u201cnational dignity and honor\u201d were at stake, he wrote. The United States was called to the world\u2019s store of knowledge: \u201cAs long as there is mind to act upon matter, the realms of science must be enlarged; and nature and her laws be better understood, and more understandingly applied\u201d. An expedition would boost U.S. trade in whale oil, sealskins, sandalwood, and feathers. It should include a \u201ccorps of scientific men, imbued with the love of science\u201d, to correct navigational charts and \u201ccollect, preserve, and arrange every thing valuable\u201d in natural history and anthropology. They would document \u201cman in his physical and mental powers, in his manners, habits, disposition, and social and political relations\u201d, studying languages to trace human origins \u201cfrom the early families of the old world\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By early 1837, Poe had moved to New York, where his income appeared to be nearly non-existent; he survived thanks to the care of his aunt and mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, who managed a boarding house. That June, before the full consequences of the economic crash were realized, Harper & Brothers registered a copyright for Poe\u2019s novel. This \u201csingle and connected story\u201d wove Poe\u2019s excitement about the Exploring Expedition together with his investigations into the decipherment of ancient languages. Packed with shocking passages and ominous imagery, it teased readers with revelations while throwing mystifying obstacles in their way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"