Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (109 page)

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Authors: Edgar Allan Poe

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Poetic name of Edinburgh, Scotland; home of the publishing company William Blackwood & Sons.

Psyche Zenobia’s misunderstanding of the title of the Chinese novel mentioned on p. 145.

Her garbling of the names and functions of the Muses mentioned on p. 145.

Her garbling of the name and circumstances related to the flower mentioned on p. 145.

Her garbling of the expression “Aussi tendre que Zaire,” given on p. 146.

Her garbling of expressions given on p. 147.

Her muddled allusion to a phrase from book 10 of John Milton’s epic poem
Paradise Lost
(1667): “whatever thing / The Scythe of Time mows down.”

Possibly modeled after a character in the comedy
The Poor Gentleman
(1802), by English writer George Colman the Younger.

Her garbling of lines given on p. 146.

This quotation and the two that follow are her garblings of passages on pp. 146 and 147.

Or ennui; bored, or indifferent.

A popular misconception in Poe’s day was that a waltz or, according to some, a dirge written by a friend of German composer K. M. von Weber (1786-1826), was Weber’s own.

Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), Swiss painter who lived in London; his paintings were often considered weird and terrifying.

Allusion to Usher’s quickness in creating musical improvisations that reflect his own emotional disorder.

Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff.—See “Chemical Essays,” vol. v (Poe’s note). The names cited refer to eighteenth-century authors of books suggesting links between animal and vegetable life. Richard Wat son, who synthesized information by Percival and Spallanzani, became the bishop of Llandaff, in Wales.

Lack of constraint (French); refers to Roderick’s unrestrained, obsessive belief that vegetable life resembles animal/human life.

The “Mad Trist” is Poe’s invention; its situation mirrors the disorder in the physical and mental “house” of Usher, which may reflect the twins’ and narrator’s conditions. The narrator’s idea that such a tale could have scant appeal to Roderick may constitute mordant humor on Poe’s part.

The motto is not from English poet William Chamberlayne’s verse romance Pharonnida (1659), though Poe may have imperfectly recalled lines from that author’s
Love’s Victory
(1658).

That is, Roman emperor Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus; A.D. 204-222), remembered for sexual depravity and religious fanaticism, and, by some, for supposed cruelty.

Severe regulations and punishments for violations; named for Draco, a lawgiver of ancient Greece who prescribed the punishment of death for nearly all offences.

Pressing to death (French; literally, “strong, lasting penalty”); an old penalty for abstaining from pleading “not guilty” or “guilty” to a capital charge.

Assistant teacher.

Five-year span.

Inscriptions (French); in this case on medals used in the ancient African state north of Tunis.

The quotation, from French author Voltaire’s poem “Le Mondain” (“The Worldly”; 1736), translates as, “Oh, what good times, that age of iron!”

Poe was born on January 19, 1809, but sometimes gave his birth year as 1811 or 1813.

Achilles’ heel
refers to one’s sole area of vulnerability. The term derives from Achilles, the hero in Greek mythology who was invulnerable except for his ankle, which his mother held while she dipped him in the River Styx; he was killed by an arrow that pierced that ankle.

Patronymic
refers to one’s last name, while
prænomen
refers to the first name; William Wilson dislikes what he considers his commonplace name.

Fine woolen fabric.

Invented by Italian physicist Luigi Galvani (1737-1798); applying its electricity to a muscle caused a contraction from the shock. Poe alluded to or included this device in several writings—for example, “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

See note 2 of
Tales.

Upstart (French).

Greek orator Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes (c. A.D. 101-177) inherited his father’s fabulous wealth, attained by a chance discovery of buried treasure in his garden.

Card game.

“Rounded”—that is, marked—cards (French).

Straight, narrow-bladed sword.

No Rue Morgue (French for “Mortuary Street”) exists in Paris.

From
Hydriotaphia: Urne-Buriall
(1658), by the English physician.

English author Edmond Hoyle (1672-1769), wrote books of rules for card games; “according to Hoyle” has become a colloquialism for following the rules.

His name in English would be Caesar Augustus Dupin; English pronunciation would render his surname a colloquial version of “duping,” which Dupin’s abilities bear out, providing another example of Poe’s wordplay.

Once-fashionable residential area for the wealthy, on the south bank of the River Seine.

That is, a soul composed of two parts, in this case of the creative and the analytical.

Seventeenth-century palace in Paris that by Poe’s time had declined into an area of low-class pastimes.

Theater in Paris that offered light entertainment.

No actual Chantilly seems to have existed, although Poe’s character was evidently not tall.
Quondam
means “former.” Crébillon (the pen name of French poet Prosper Jolyot) published
Xerxés
in 1714.
Pasquinaded
means “lampooned” or “ridiculed.”

“And everything of this kind” or, more colloquially, “and so on” (Latin);
fruiterer
is an old term for fruit seller.

Quackery or charlatanry (French).

Unexpected meeting or encounter (French).

Theory of the origin of the universe.

Popular early-nineteenth-century periodical containing light reading.

The first letter has lost its original sound (Latin); this quotation from Fasti, by the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17), here refers to the change from “Urion” to “Orion” mentioned in the following line.

Newspaper (established 1826) that featured articles on legal business and police proceedings.

Armed police officers (French).

French gold coins worth 20 francs.

Alloy substitute for silver (French; literally, “metal of Algiers”).

The chimney was far narrower than many present-day chimneys might be.

Poe means that to the French, the word
affair
had none of the sexual or extramarital implications that it might suggest to Americans.

“Damn” and “the devil,” respectively (French).

My God (French).

Le Bon’s name is French for “the good”—ironic, considering later plot developments.

Large bone of the lower leg.

Why Poe italicized this word, which means “discernment,” remains unclear; it had been used regularly in English since before his time.

Jourdain, protagonist in
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
(1670; act 1, scene 2), by the French dramatist Molière, requests his dressing gown so he may be more comfortable to enjoy the chamber music.

Francois-Eugene Vidocq (1775-1857), French detective and criminal. Under Napoleon, he became first chief of the French police but was forced to resign over his use of criminals as agents and their questionable operations; he went on to work as a private detective but was driven into bankruptcy.

See note 9 of Tales.

Chief commissioner.

Booth for the gatekeeper (French); the employment of such a person indicates that this is a home of the wealthy.

Many English equivalents exist, one being, “I respected them.” Poe may be indulging in a bit of humor here—that is, testing his readers.

Reasoning from observed facts.

Madhouse; insane asylum (French).

French naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), in
The Animal Kingdom
(1817), provided information on orangutans, but Poe doubtless gleaned his information from Thomas Wyatt’s
A Synopsis of Natural History
(1839), a book with which he was familiar and of which he made use in his writings (see note 63 of
Tales).

“Ourang-Outang” is an archaic spelling of Orangutan, a species of ape native to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

The last phrase is French for “on the third floor,” which actually meant the fourth—Europeans call the “ground floor” what Americans call the “first floor.”

Pigtails (French).

Large moustache.

Colloquialism for “countrified” or “uncouth”; the Neufchâtel region in northern France was Protestant and lower-class.

That is, Indonesia.

Botanical gardens and zoo in Paris.

Office (French).

In classical mythology, a stamen was the thread of life spun by the Fates at a person’s birth; thus it represents the individual’s substance or measure.

Roman goddess of thieves and thefts, depicted as a head without a body; the Prefect, in other words, is a bungler.

Rousseau—Nouvelle Héloise (Poe’s note); the phrase, from French author Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse
(1761), translates as, “To deny what is, and explain what is not.”

Maelstrom, whirlpool (Poe’s spelling, maelstrom, is unusual). The epigraph comes from
Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion
(1676), by English clergyman and philosopher Joseph Glanvill.

Reference to the long-standing folk belief that sudden shocks can cause one’s hair to whiten overnight.

Or Lofoten, an island group west of Norway.

sea of Darkness (Latin), referring to uncharted regions of the North Atlantic Ocean. “Nubian geographer” is a reference to a twelfth-century Arabian writer whose account,
Geographia Nubiensis
(Paris, 1619), became known erroneously as
Nubian Geography.

Vurrgh, apparently Poe’s invented word, is actually Værøy, one of the Lofoten islands ; Poe also erred in using Stockholm for Skarholm.

Reference to Niagara Falls, at the border of Canada and the United States.

Described in
Natural History of Norway
(1715), by Norwegian theologian Jonas Ramus; he is often cited in other, similar accounts.

One fathom (term for measuring water depth) is equivalent to approximately 6 feet.

4½ miles.

The second Sunday before Lent begins.

In Greek mythology, a fiery river in Hades.

Poe here acknowledges his source,
Encyclopedia Britannica
(any of the third to the sixth editions, 1797-1836).

German Jesuit and scholar Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) was fascinated by concepts of underground forces, as well as by linguistics and hieroglyphics.

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