A Dream Within a Dream: Was Edgar Allan Poe an Eschatological Optimist?
Perrin Lovett
Recently, it was my pleasure to read Eschatological Optimism by Daria Platonova Dugina. From that astounding book, among many points that stuck in my head was a question regarding one of my favorite literary figures, American author and poet, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). For whatever reason, I thought the matter was worth looking deeper into.
As recounted in Ms. Dugina’s book, after the presentation of her lecture, “Eschatological Optimism as a Philosophical Interpretation and Life Strategy,” followed a transcribed question and answer session. This included exchange sufficiently garnered my attention:
Question: Is Edgar Allen Poe an eschatological optimist? His last book, Eureka, is about our tragic universe and how its finitude is tantamount to a revelation harbored in misfortune.
Daria Dugina: Thank you. I haven’t thought about this. I will definitely reread it in this context.
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- Dugina, Daria “Platonova”, Eschatological Optimism. Tucson, Arizona: PRAV Publishing, 2023, at 66.
The slight matter of an affirmative declaration versus a pure question aside, I found that brief discussion virtually identical to a query transcribed in Dugina, Daria, “Eschatological Optimism: Origins, Evolution, Main Directions,” Geopolitika, 20 December 2022, as translated by Sophia Polyankina, et al: “Valentin wrote: Edgar Allan Poe is an eschatological optimist, too. His last book Eureka is about our tragic universe, the finality of which is identical to the disclosure of a prisoner in misfortune. Thank you for a recommendation, Valentin. I will definitely read it.” Valentin’s transcribed suggestion, of course, stemmed from Ms. Dugina’s video presentation, hosted on or about 28 November 2020 on the Signum YouTube channel. The quoted remarks occur around time-mark 51:59.
I am of the opinion Valentin’s suggestion is correct. Before explaining why, I offer Ms. Dugina’s short definition of what constitutes eschatological optimism. From her book, page 54:
…eschatological optimism is the consciousness and recognition that the material world, the given world which we presently take to be pure reality, is illusory: it is an illusion that is about to dissipate and end. We are extremely, sharply conscious of its finitude. But, at the same time, we maintain a certain optimism; we do not put up with it, we talk about the need to overcome it.
Without delving into the Christian and philosophical depths Dugina explored, her general sentiment has been and is readily accepted or embraced, if via other terminology and if not so well synthesized, by an array of people regarding various human experiences. It is somewhat synonymous with the “Stockdale Paradox,” as explained by Vice Admiral James Stockdale of the US Navy, an observation from his time as a prisoner of war: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end —which you can never afford to lose— with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” See Collins, Jim, “The Stockdale Paradox,” Jim Collins Concepts (from a recounted, undated conversation)(discussed in regards to Stockdale, Jim, and Cybil, In Love and War, Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, 1985). Americans, largely being who they are, have largely taken the admiral’s advice to heart considering business “motivational” matters. In my previous review of Eschatological Optimism, I abbreviated the base concept as: “[T]he eschatological optimist, while accepting that terminal change in the world is imminent, nonetheless soldiers on by consciously and purposely living.” Lovett, P., “Apophatic Apologetics,” Geopolitika, 4 September 2023 (yes, wherein I *ahem* “cleverly” used one of Poe’s lesser-known spellings of his own middle name…). In other words, this is the Christian’s way of carrying on the fight until Christ’s Return.
As such, where do we find evidence of Edgar Allan Poe’s urge to fight and overcome the dissipating illusion? I am not certain that Dugina ever directly answered the question, and I sincerely hope my report does her legacy justice. Eureka: A Prose Poem, as noted by Valentin —who I do hope finds this essay, finds it worthy, and accepts my thanks for initially raising the issue— is a plausibly definitive starting point.
Poe was Baptized in the Episcopal Church (American Anglican/Protestant) though he was raised and married in his (birth and adoptive) family’s Presbyterian (Protestant) faith. For all my purposes herein, I assume Poe was a faithful Trinitarian Christian seeking grace and salvation via his humble acceptance of Jesus Christ. (I happily leave any sectarian doctrinal or theological quibbles to the professionals.) Poe’s, to me, peremptory deference to the Almighty comes through his approximate forty references to “God” in Eureka. Herein, I cite Poe, Edgar Allan, Eureka: A Prose Poem, New York: Geo. P. Putnam, 1848 (Gutenberg Kindle edition).
Speaking nearly two hundred years early to Dugina’s references to the ultimate battle between the crude world below and God’s perfect spiritual order above, Poe’s Eureka is subtitled: “An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe.” Amidst language that has humored and confounded scholars since 1848, Poe begins by explaining, on page 1, “My general proposition, then, is this: —In the Original Unity of the First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation.” In order words, the illusion will end.
Poe almost immediately addresses the metaphysical limitations of the human mind when attempting to understand or even properly speak of God. From page 9:
“Infinity.” This, like “God,” “spirit,” and some other expressions of which the equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of an idea—but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.
This speaks to the apophatic basis of trusting and reaching for God, by negation, through faith, and without complete reason or knowledge. The approach via negation is a cornerstone of eschatological optimism. We do not “know” precisely or mathematically and we cannot even precisely quantify our attempt at knowing in the first place. Accordingly, we trust. Poe takes this matter as a given. He simply states, on page 11, “We believe in a God.”
He further elaborates, on page 22: ”[P]roperly speaking—since there can be but one principle, the Volition of God. We have no right to assume, then, from what we observe in rules that we choose foolishly to name ‘principles,’ anything at all in respect to the characteristics of a principle proper.”
On page 24 he describes an approach to appreciating the ultimately unknowable by three methods that look to me a little like the apophatic, the kataphatic, and the third “Aristotelian” (or “Aquinian”) way:
Whether we reach the idea of absolute Unity as the source of All Things, from a consideration of Simplicity as the most probable characteristic of the original action of God;—whether we arrive at it from an inspection of the universality of relation in the gravitating phænomena;—or whether we attain it as a result of the mutual corroboration afforded by both processes;—still, the idea itself, if entertained at all, is entertained in inseparable connection with another idea—that of the condition of the Universe of stars as we now perceive it—that is to say, a condition of immeasurable diffusion through space.
He goes on, many times, to reference the unerring nature and will of God. As others have noted before, some of Poe’s words and thought processes appear mildly convoluted, or, perhaps in kinder terminology, “imaginative.” Still, for purposes of Dugina’s theory, he sums up his proposition in a definitive declaration on page 73: “Let us endeavor to comprehend that the final globe of globes will instantaneously disappear, and that God will remain all in all.” The great and fully final eschaton; and, at no time does Poe appear fraught or dismayed by the prospects. Rather, in his mainly philosophical treatment of the predicament, he remains ardently optimistic as a predetermined and unquestioned fact of being. This, of course, like all of Eureka, is a matter of speculative conjecture. Before moving to proofs perhaps more in keeping with Poe’s literary reputation, I thought to attempt adding something novel to the discussion.
Thanks to the efforts of a wonderful friend, I was placed in contact with a distant relative of Edgar Allan Poe, a Mr. Jim Poe of Tennessee, United States. Our Mr. Poe is, as I suppose the relationship, a distant cousin of the great author. Leaving genealogical exactitude to other professionals, I briefly assert Mr. Poe of Tennessee’s father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s father was David Poe of Dring County Cavan, North Ireland, the same who immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland, then Colonial America. Among the sons of David Poe of Baltimore were Mr. Poe of Tennessee’s ancestor, John Hancock Poe, and one David Poe, Jr. This David, Jr. was Edgar Allan Poe’s father. I asked my Mr. Poe about THE Mr. Poe’s faith, at least as understood by the family. I received word that many early Poes (of roughly Edgar Allan’s time) were “devout Presbyterians in Scotland and North Ireland.” Further, as a matter of fervent faith, I was informed that Edgar Allan Poe’s great-grandfather, also another David Poe, “was known back in North Ireland as David Poe the Covenanter, among those who were severely persecuted for their adherence to the theology of the Reformation.”
I found additional support for this suggestion via the treatment of the Presbyterian Covenanters of Scotland (and Northern Ireland) by the English Monarch in Mary Phillip’s book, Edgar Allan Poe The Man, Volume One. Chicago: John Winston Co., 1926. As recounted on page 8, the Poe family mark of reprisal was particularly harsh: “[T]he King’s pardon was granted to all who had taken part in ‘the late wicked Rebellion,’ but with special exception of David Poe…” David was, in fact, sentenced to hang — a sentence happily unexecuted.
Regrettably, Christianity has been beset with sometimes violent dissension from at least the betrayal of Judas. Or perhaps, from a post-Ascension standpoint, from the blasphemous heresies of the hated First-Century Nicolaitans. Jesus Christ promised Saint Peter that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” the Church. Matthew 16:18. Our Lord never said hell would not continuously crash against the Church; in fact, elsewhere He essentially promised the opposite. See John 15:18-20. This is the war of the prince of the fallen war against God and His People. Daria Dugina understood the war and the critical importance of actively fighting in it; her quote I simply adore: “In the conditions of the modern world, any stubborn and desperate resistance to this world, any uncompromising struggle against liberalism, globalism, and Satanism, is heroism.” Eschatological Optimism, at 102. In this war, our battle there is no room for weakness or compromise. As Daria’s father noted concerning the real struggle of good against evil in the Twenty-first Century: “Satan, seeing that someone has challenged him, will not allow us to go back to half-way solutions.” Dugin, Alexander, “Satanism is Putting Matter Before Spirit,” Geopolitika, 18 September 2023 (as translated from: Дугин, А., “Сатанизм — как постановка материи над духом,” Газета Культура, 5 Сентябрь 2023).
Edgar Allan Poe understood the Christian implications of our war now, which was his then, and he surely remembered some of his family’s then late worldly struggle regarding religion, some of which may have affected him personally. This was expounded upon by Professor James Kibler in his 2022 essay, “Poe’s Battle with Puritan Boston,” Abbeville Institute, 6 April 2022. Poe certainly knew about his struggles against the early American literary powers, a particularly keen forum of his earthly travail, as told by Professor Harry Lee Poe (another descendant also from Tennessee) in “Poe’s War of the Literati,” Abbeville Institute, 20 July 2017. While his personal demise was unpleasant and is still shrouded in mystery, his universal fame today suggests Poe won his part in that war.
Poe’s fame today, and since his untimely death, is almost entirely due to that by which we best know and appreciate his creative thinking, his literature. My essay was inspired by Russian friends I have never met. It is my limited understanding that Poe enjoys a respectful reputation in Russia, of a similar variety he engendered in my America and elsewhere — a grand, stirring, determined, if somewhat muddled estate. One book, a rarer tome that I have not read, though it has worked its way into my extended booklist, may shed light on Poe’s presence in Russia: Grossman, Joan Delaney, Edgar Allan Poe in Russia: A Study in Legend and Literary Influence. Wurzburg: Jal-Werlag, 1973. By way of a review of Grossman’s take on Poe, we learn: “In 1895, two significant Russian translations of Poe’s poetry and prose appeared. Konstantin Bal’mont, one of the translators, embraced the ‘image of Poe as half-mad, half-genius…’” J. Lasley Dameron and Tamara Miller, “Poe’s Reception in Russia,” Poe Studies, June 1975, Vol. VIII, No. 1.
Bal’mont’s observation matches, so far as it goes, many reviews of, say, Eureka, and it concurs with Poe’s own perhaps transient or self-deprecating self-assessment.
“In describing this time of his life, Poe wrote to George Eveleth: ‘I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During those fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank—God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity.’” “Poe’s War…,” supra (emphasis added).
I note that even within that missive, amidst his situational explanation, Poe still refers deferentially to God. Taken within its own limited context, it appears that like Job, Poe was willing to endure his personal problems without ever blaming or renouncing God. Perhaps selfishly, I call that further proof of a kind of optimism. Also, for my purposes herein, I find it may be a mistake, or at least, a needlessly restrictive approach, to limit any inquiry into the plausible theological philosophy of a great author by primarily exploring his personal circumstances. We know Poe best because of what he wrote, particularly in his fiction. It may be that in addition to what can be gathered from the life and times and semi-ephemeral didactic thoughts of the man, we should also give a measured weight to any clues within that fiction. I am cognizant of the potential fallibility of such a methodology. References are not necessarily definitive affirmations. For instance, Poe was not a direct proponent of the Mishna, Kabbalah, or Talmud because he somewhat artfully deployed Rabbinical tradition within the dialogue of A Tale of Jerusalem. That story, a warning against misplaced, prideful, and self-aggrandizing faith, trust, or circumspection, is more in line with Poe’s Masque…, discussed immediately hereafter, as another kind of example. It is also, in keeping with Poe’s humorous nature, probably an intentional parody of Zillah: A Tale of the Holy City, a preexisting work of historical fiction. See Tendler, R. Yitzchok, “Pharisee Sects and Edgar Allan Poe,” Torah Musings, 2 April 2013. We are looking for a complimentary match for what is already known or supposed about Poe’s outlook on the eternal. Therefore, in addition to Eureka, I now present two short stories that I think illustrate Poe’s eschatological optimism.
The Masque of the Red Death is a cautionary tale about what happens when people try to hide and insulate themselves from the battles of our world instead of actively resisting the ever-present evil. See Poe, Edgar Allan, The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. Two, “Raven” Edition: Gutenberg for Kindle, 106-111. “THE ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood.” Id. at 106. This initial description is a highly suggestive metaphor. The mark of the Red Death, “The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men,” Ibid, fostered the kind of societal atomization Gogol and other writers have aptly described and which Ms. Dugina properly dismissed as dyscivilizational and spiteful towards the Almighty and His Order.
“But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.” Id. Today, Prospero and his friends would enjoy the vapid trappings of postmodernity, veiling their eyes against genuine illusory reality by erecting a false fantasy of comfort and safety. The Masque is one of my favorites of all things Poe. I am satisfied that it may, here, provide at least a counter-example of the questioned optimism. For it is a stern warning about what not to do. Leaving aside the mirth, horror, and nearly overwhelming symbolism Poe bequeathed us, let us move along toward the moral of the story.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. Id. at 109.
Unwanted or not, unprepared or not, the gates of hell will crash upon one. The end will come. Prospero’s reaction as described, is that of the foolish, neopagan postmodern man who finally confronts any facet of unpleasant reality: confusion and disbelief give way to fear, fear gives way to impotent rage. Those who are faithlessly unprepared and who fail to stand firm against the true enemy of God are destined to fall before the hateful wrath of the world.
“And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” Id. 110-111.
Sad, morbid, entertaining—if confined within the pages of a book, but dreadful. Those souls, rarified but doomed, were like the other Hanoi prisoners Stockdale described, the ones who lost sight of the necessity of confronting the brutal facts of reality. Fortunately, that is not our fate. Nor, I think, Poe’s, nor of some other of his valiant characters.
Over many years, I have read most of Poe’s stories, and many of them stand out to me for one reason or another as works of great worth. So I was very happy that, upon a little reading for refreshment and a lot of thinking, another favorite stagger-hopped right up and yelled, “Here I am!” In my mind’s eye, the poor, disfigured, tormented, and unfortunate little king’s jester, Hop-Frog, is a veritable dictionary definition of eschatological optimism brought to literary life. Hereafter, I reference Poe, Edgar Allan, The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. Five, “Raven” Edition: Gutenberg for Kindle, 14-24.
Titular Hop-Frog is our nominal optimist. His employer is a foolhardy (like Prospero) but cruel king. Poe describes the king and his seven court ministers in less than flattering terms: “They all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers.” Id. at 14-15. As with many real and fictional tyrants, he was not above taking as slave-prisoners select members of societies he conquered. So it was that he came to have possession of or dominion over poor little Hop and his friend, whom my mind, at least in the sense of Hugo’s Quasimodo and Esmerelda, wants to call his “girlfriend”, the diminutive dancer, Trippetta. Though being, like Hop, a dwarf, Trippetta was of normal proportion, gait, and of a comely appearance. Thus, she was generally more popular and better treated than Hop by the king and his court. She also kindly used what influence her grace and charmed circumstances afforded her in various attempts to make Hop’s life more gentle and bearable. However, as sometimes happens, her good luck ran out one evening during a festival celebration.
Ever one seeking to entertain his audiences, the king turned to Hop-Frog for novel merriment and distraction. Whether by design or else by true reluctance (and probably by both), Hop was slower than normal in providing a recreational scheme. To assist his creative processes, the king employed the tested tactic of forcing unwanted intoxication upon Hop. Seeing her friend further distressed and observing the alternating wicked humor and violent proclivity of their master, Trippetta placed herself between the men in an act of supplication. For her kind intervention:
The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at her audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say—how most becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face.
The poor girl got up the best she could, and, not daring even to sigh, resumed her position at the foot of the table. Id. at 18.
Hop, the proverbial camel’s back, broke. He then remembered or invented a game so fun that it delighted the wicked king. One assumes this game was pre-planned for this or a similar occasion. In short order, Hop had the ridiculous king and his oily ministers attired in highly flammable costumes so as to resemble a laughable troupe of apes. For good measure, he had them fastened securely together, the “Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs…” Id. at 19. When all was ready, he hooked their chains to the end of a chandelier hoist chain (lowered for the play act). With Hop riding the master chain, the assembly was then raised off the floor to the uproarious applause of the gathering. Using a torch as both a light and a weapon, little Hop-Frog then commenced in earnest his resistance to evil:
“Ah, ha!” said at length the infuriated jester. “Ah, ha! I begin to see who these people are now!” Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.
At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:
“I now see distinctly.” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,—a king who does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester—and this is my last jest.”
Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared through the sky-light. Id., 23-24.
It was generally thought, so wrote Poe, that Trippetta had removed herself to the roof in a bid to assist Hop. After the fiery fact, they escaped to their homelands. In summary, Hop-Frog, abused but determined, fought and defeated his earthly enemy (and what a way to get rid of a tyrant!), and then literally ascended above (as if towards God) to go home. Set against the framework of eschatological optimism, Hop was painfully aware of the circumstances and essence of his restrained earthly existence, his illusory reality. He was extremely conscious of its finitude. Yet, ever trusting, he did not quietly put up with his condition. He overcame it. A stubborn resisting hero.
I might otherwise smugly drop my fist on the table and proclaim, “Case closed!” Yet, I will not deign to understand the impossible. Rather, while I fully believe Valentin’s question of cognizance is correct, I offer the foregoing as an extended conversation starter. For those undertaking the task, I leave one final illusory and optimistically resisting-friendly quote from A Dream Within a Dream, Edgar Allan Poe, The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, New York: J. S. Redfield, 1850: “O God! Can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”
*Author’s postscript: a word about Signum:
Signum (Сигнум) is a Russian think tank, a “humanitarian research center” dedicated to the continuing development of a better intellectual environment for social and humanities education, particularly for high school and college-aged students. In addition to written articles and papers, they specialize in lecture and course presentations – in person and via electronic formats. I encourage the Western reader to go to their website and auto-translate the presented materials. Signum is headed by the capable Semyon Semukhin and was founded by Maxim Krizhanovsky, to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for his kind humoring of my little project. I look forward to one day seeing this essay presented at Signum, translated into Russian. (Such a feat is still beyond my current abilities.)
A special sub-note: I must pause and point out that Yelena Zhivkovich is the best Russian language instructor anywhere. I am grateful for her knowledge, dedication, and charm. Thank you, Yelena!
At first glance, I assumed Signum was a large, long-standing organization operationally on par with, say, the US’s Heritage Foundation. What I discovered was that Maxim built the forum just a few years ago and, most incredibly, it is run by very young people, many of whom are students themselves. They are backed by a solid coalition of highly resource capable organizations and eagerly assisted by a wide range of professionals in delivering excellence of thought and exploration to the excellent young minds of Russia and beyond. They are to be praised for all that they do. Превосходно!
PERRIN LOVETT 