A case like Poe's, where actual mental decay exists in so
advanced a stage and gives to his productions a sharper and more
dazzling effect than would have been theirs without it, is probably more
unique, but it is certainly less admirable, less original in the true
sense, than an instance of healthier endowment like Hawthorne. On the
side of art, it is impossible to bring Poe into any competition with
Hawthorne: although we have ranked him high in poetry and prose,
regarded simply as a dynamic substance, it must be confessed that his
prose has nothing which can be called style, nor even a manner like
Irving's very agreeable one. His feeling for form manifests itself in
various ways, yet he constantly violates proportion for the sake of
getting off one of his pseudo-philosophical disquisitions; and,
notwithstanding many successful hits in expression, and a specious but
misleading assumption of fervid accuracy in phraseology, his language is
loose, promiscuous, and altogether tiresome.
Poe, Irving, and Hawthorne have one marked literary condition in common:
each shows a double side. With Poe the antithesis is between poetry and
criticism; Irving, having been brought up by Fiction as a foster-mother,
is eventually turned over to his rightful guardian, History; and
Hawthorne rests his hand from ideal design, in elaborating quiet
pictures of reality. In each case there is more or less seeming
irreconcilement between the two phases found in combination; but the
opposition is rather more distinct in Hawthorne, and the grasp with
which it is controlled by him is stronger than that of either Poe or
Irving,--again a result pronouncing him the master.
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