And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
That’s a quote from “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allen Poe, who celebrates his 200th birthday today. It was later quoted in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Does it have any relevance to our current political or economic situation? Nope. Does it have some special relationship with what’s going on at my life at the moment? Not really. But it still gives me chills. It’s writing like this that likely inspired me on my ill-advised path to become a writer.
I’ve always been drawn to Romanticism (you’d have to be to name a blog after an Arthur Machen story, right?) and especially the Gothic Romance. There’s something about decaying castles, forgotten ruins, and other fantastic sights that hit just the right nerve. When I first read Poe in the forced readings of 7th and 8th grades, I thought I was reading the best of the best. The stories were enriched by their age—they felt like authentic slices of an archaic American past; even the very young country, it seems, had a place for ancient ghosts and decayed aristocracy. That first impression has never really changed, though I’m likely more of a Lovecraft man these days.
My early writing, then, was a mess of description and atmosphere. I would go on for pages and pages about a house or field, pouring out every word of description I could think of to bring the place to life. Nevermind that I had no idea who lived in the house, what happened there, or why anyone should care. It was enough to paint a picture with words. In the intervening years of searching for a writing identity, I’ve gone all the way from that flowery prose to free-verse poetry to clipped, dialogue heavy stories, back to overwriting again, on to stream of consciousness nonsense, and just about everywhere in between. But it was always, for good or ill, in the realm of heightened description and heavy sensory imagery that I felt most at home.
I’ve read some Poe recently, and what once seemed the very image of perfection now seems a bit stuffy, overburdened with ostentatious erudition, as Abigail Adams (Laura Linney) might say. Had I continued writing in that vein, I might have been very popular in the 1850s, but I doubt I would have much impact today. But in all that erudition there is a real sense of beauty and, oddly enough, joy in the world around us. People don’t write pages and pages of description anymore, but that spirit, the spirit of using writing to help transform the world into something magical that is the heart of Romanticism, is still alive and well.
In that way, I think, I’ve come to peace with the Romantic in me. Every book about writing will make a point of finding your voice, and that’s certainly relevant advice. The next challenge, however, after you’ve found that voice, is to embrace it and make it work for you. No screenplay will ever get read that has paragraphs upon paragraphs of description, of course (as it should be), but a well written, tight description of a place or person can go a long way towards creating an atmosphere. A screenplay, is, after all, a blueprint for images. “Like a rapid ghastly river…a hideous throng rush out forever…” is, in only a few words, about as visual of an image as you can get. It's not about running from your own writing style, then, in search of the "right" way to write. It's about finding ways to make that style speak to your audience, whoever they might be.
Edgar Allen Poe was born 200 years ago today, and with all the styles and writing philosophies and movements that have come and gone in those 200 years, his stories are still a blast to read. I can’t think of a better birthday present than to tell him thank you for making me a writer—a flowery, ostentatious, old-fashioned, Romantic writer. Really, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
(Actually a better birthday present may have been a cure for rabies, cholera, syphilis, or whatever it is that killed him at age 40. That would probably be more immediately helpful than knowing you inspired some dude living 160 years later. But I do what I can.)
(Unrelated note: Isn't this picture of Poe's mother the most frightening thing in the world? Seriously, right?! No wonder he was so odd.)
I’ve always been drawn to Romanticism (you’d have to be to name a blog after an Arthur Machen story, right?) and especially the Gothic Romance. There’s something about decaying castles, forgotten ruins, and other fantastic sights that hit just the right nerve. When I first read Poe in the forced readings of 7th and 8th grades, I thought I was reading the best of the best. The stories were enriched by their age—they felt like authentic slices of an archaic American past; even the very young country, it seems, had a place for ancient ghosts and decayed aristocracy. That first impression has never really changed, though I’m likely more of a Lovecraft man these days.
My early writing, then, was a mess of description and atmosphere. I would go on for pages and pages about a house or field, pouring out every word of description I could think of to bring the place to life. Nevermind that I had no idea who lived in the house, what happened there, or why anyone should care. It was enough to paint a picture with words. In the intervening years of searching for a writing identity, I’ve gone all the way from that flowery prose to free-verse poetry to clipped, dialogue heavy stories, back to overwriting again, on to stream of consciousness nonsense, and just about everywhere in between. But it was always, for good or ill, in the realm of heightened description and heavy sensory imagery that I felt most at home.
I’ve read some Poe recently, and what once seemed the very image of perfection now seems a bit stuffy, overburdened with ostentatious erudition, as Abigail Adams (Laura Linney) might say. Had I continued writing in that vein, I might have been very popular in the 1850s, but I doubt I would have much impact today. But in all that erudition there is a real sense of beauty and, oddly enough, joy in the world around us. People don’t write pages and pages of description anymore, but that spirit, the spirit of using writing to help transform the world into something magical that is the heart of Romanticism, is still alive and well.
In that way, I think, I’ve come to peace with the Romantic in me. Every book about writing will make a point of finding your voice, and that’s certainly relevant advice. The next challenge, however, after you’ve found that voice, is to embrace it and make it work for you. No screenplay will ever get read that has paragraphs upon paragraphs of description, of course (as it should be), but a well written, tight description of a place or person can go a long way towards creating an atmosphere. A screenplay, is, after all, a blueprint for images. “Like a rapid ghastly river…a hideous throng rush out forever…” is, in only a few words, about as visual of an image as you can get. It's not about running from your own writing style, then, in search of the "right" way to write. It's about finding ways to make that style speak to your audience, whoever they might be.
Edgar Allen Poe was born 200 years ago today, and with all the styles and writing philosophies and movements that have come and gone in those 200 years, his stories are still a blast to read. I can’t think of a better birthday present than to tell him thank you for making me a writer—a flowery, ostentatious, old-fashioned, Romantic writer. Really, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
(Actually a better birthday present may have been a cure for rabies, cholera, syphilis, or whatever it is that killed him at age 40. That would probably be more immediately helpful than knowing you inspired some dude living 160 years later. But I do what I can.)
(Unrelated note: Isn't this picture of Poe's mother the most frightening thing in the world? Seriously, right?! No wonder he was so odd.)
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