Edgar Allen Poe comes home
Edgar Allan Poe returns to Boston 165 years after his death, but not as a ghost befitting his stories.
On Saturday, the sculpture “Poe Returning to Boston” will be unveiled near the Boston Common and welcomed with a public ceremony at the Park Plaza Hotel. Carved from wood, covered in clay and cast in bronze, the 5-foot, 8-inch, Poe strides against the wind, hair and coat blown back, large heavily circled eyes staring straight ahead. A spread-winged raven grabs onto the open valise he holds, and a human heart rests on six papers flying out, as though riding a magic carpet.
“It’s an imaginary scene,” said Paul Lewis, chair of the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston. “The idea is that he’s come back to Boston and is bursting with a lifetime of achievement. It emphasizes the creativity and sheer fun of his work.”
When the call went out for sculptors to design a Poe statue, 265 artists unexpectedly applied.
“Poe is very popular, but we were surprised,” said Lewis, a Boston College professor of English who teaches a course on Poe. “But everything about Poe is a little surprising.”
Created by sculptor Stefanie Rocknak of Oneonta, New York, the sculpture is dynamic, even provocative, as Poe was. A five-person committee directed by an art consultant selected Rocknak’s design from three finalists, whose works elicited comments online and by mail from 1,500 people. A campaign by The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation raised more than $225,000 for the cost and maintenance of the statue, which the City of Boston will own.
The statue also will bring attention to Poe’s Boston connection, unknown even to many of his fans, and will be a highlight of the city’s new Literary Cultural District, created in August.
“He is a fascinating and under appreciated part of Boston’s literary heritage,” Lewis said. “He virtually invented the detective story and greatly improved Gothic fiction.”
Although he lived in downtown Boston for only a few months after his birth in 1809, Poe returned in 1827 at age 18 when a Boston publisher printed his first book of poems. Unable to earn a living, he stayed in Boston only about six months before he enlisted in the Army from Fort Independence on Castle Island. But he remained connected to the city’s publishers, who published his most famous short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” and later works, including his book reviews and criticism.
In 1845, he left his mark on the literary scene when he delivered a lecture at The Lyceum in which he criticized writers for being preachy, setting off an argument. He died at age 40, four years later in Baltimore of mysterious causes.
“He had a quarrel with the Boston literary establishment, because he believed that stories should be entertaining, while Boston writers were more committed to the idea that they be didactic,” Lewis said. “He’s a foundational person for the growth of popular culture.”
In the heart of downtown Boston, the vibrant sculpture is sure to attract attention. In the coming years, Lewis expects other overlooked literary figures and sites to gain more prominence with walking tours and plaques now that the city has a defined Literary Cultural District. Like the Fenway Cultural District, it was created by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
It extends from Copley Square to Beacon Hill and Washington Street. It will include Emerson’s Summer Street birthplace, the Old Corner Bookstore, where “Walden,” “The Scarlet Letter” and Emerson’s essays were published, the Athenaeum, Boston Public Library, residences of Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, and Khalil Gibran and other sites.
“Until now, Boston has not done enough to celebrate its literary heritage,” Lewis said. “The cultural district will celebrate Boston’s literary past, but also its literary culture now.”
Jody Feinberg may be reached at jfeinberg@ledger.com or follow on Twitter @JodyF_Ledger.