Poe and I do share a bit of history. He was stationed at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina for about a year beginning in 1827. The fort and island are the setting for his short story, The Gold Bug. During my career, I spent several weeks walking the damp tunnels, the grassy terreplein, and studying the character of this historic fort and those who garrisoned it over the centuries. I watched the sun rise and set over its walls, and stood at the gun emplacements at midnight listening to the invisible surf breaking on the beach or watching ship traffic moving in and out of Charleston harbor. For all I know, Poe's shadow may have watched my every move.
There is magic about deep historic places, and it is magnified by darkness, fog, or a rich drizzle. Judging by the vast body of his work, I'd say Poe enjoyed his duty station at Fort Moultrie. His biographers would tell us otherwise. Unrest, tension and unhappiness seemed to follow him everywhere. Out of his personal darkness came a magic that blossomed into a timeless contribution to Western literature.
In this century, the Poe legacy gave rise to another mystery, the Poe Toaster. Beginning in the 1930s, the toaster appeared in the early hours of January 19 at the stone marking Poe's original burial site in the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. For the next seven decades, the toaster - and perhaps his son - appeared without fail until 2009. Has what began with a mystery ended with a mystery? We can only wait in the darkness for an answer that may never come.
Beware, the wait could be maddening...
... at least, imaginative...
N.B. An earlier version of this post appeared in January 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment