a rather shocking way to create this type of “knowledge.” One is created by and inseparable from the relationships and the environment in which he moves. Only by a b o p s act of abstraction can one pretend to wrest himself free from the foundations of his own existence in order to acquire an “objective” of himself. There are no “objec- tives” in the mysterious,

The “genuine” sense of “mystery” then, for Poe: is best depicted as that which involves the subject and the reader in preternatural or abnormal speculations-in astute anal- yses of the bizarre (p. 141 ) . In all of the stories which we have considered under these three locutions of “mystery,” we find that the plot structure is determined by the con- cept employed-that of pLizzle, problem, or mystery. The concept unites the story, and the unfolding of this concept constitutes the development of the plot; that is, the con- struction and resolution of a puzzle, the solving of a prob- lem, or the recognition of a mystery. The stories involve the active participation of the reader, and it is this tech- nique of capturing the reader that becomes one of the major components of Poe’s literary style.

Poe’s tales echo this.

NOTES 1 T h e Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, with an Introduction by Hervey Allen (New York: Random House, 1938), p. 231. All further references to Poe’s writings are to this edition. 2 Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1949), p. 117. Hereafter, there will be parenthetical references to this edition. Cf. also Michael Foster, Mystery a d Philosophy (London: SCM Press, 1957), pp. 11-29. 3Gabriel Marcel, T h e Philosophy of Existence (New York: Philo- sophical Library, 1949), p. 8. 4This account of Mascall is taken from Foster; see esp. pp. 18ff.

Gabriel Marcel, T h e Mystery of Being, 2 vols. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1962), I, 83.

The Grotesque: A Speculation Donald H. Ross

Washington State University

For philosophers, scholars, and critics alike the grotesque has always presented itself as a problem in definition. But the grotesque has remained impregnable to conven- tional critical approaches. So intractable, in fact, has the grotesque proven to be that some theorists, in frustration perhaps, have assigned enigma itself to be the essence of it.

Admittedly, the efforts of scholars have produced sig- nificant and provocative commentary by way of definition, in particular two recent works, Wolfgang Kayser’s Das Grotesque: seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung (Odenburg, 1961; T h e Grotesque in Art and Literature, trans. Ulrich Weisstein [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 19631 ) , and Arthur Clayborough’s T h e Grotesque in English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965 ) . Using an inductive method and historical generalizations, Kayser has given us perhaps a definitive description of the grotesque effects; and Clayborough, employing Jungian concepts in psychology, has offered a fascinating hypo- thesis on the sources and varieties of grotesque expres- sions in art and literature. Both works are admirable and

indispensable to any student of the grotesque, but both writers have failed, as others before them, to provide a comprehensive and stable focus for examining the gro- tesque. Such attempts have had only limited success, I believe, because the grotesque penetrates much deeper into our sensibilities than we have traditionally assumed, and because our efforts at definition are little more than attempts to force the grotesque into some tractable form using concepts that are already familiar and comfortable

Initially, the grotesque must be freed from the tacit assumption that it is immovably lodged between the poles of some recognizable dualism. This conviction is endemic to all discussions of the grotesque either as the point of departure or as the conclusion. Although the particular dualism, philosophical or aesthetic, may vary from the tragic and the comic, good and evil, real and ideal, natural and unnatural, the ugly and the beautiful, the ridiculous and the sublime, the presence of a dualistic system has marked all discussions of the grotesque.

It is not difficult to account for this state of affairs. The grotesque, as it emerged in artistic form, and then became an object of intellectual interest, was most evident as a visual phenomenon, characterized by the simple tech- nique of juxtaposition of inharmonious parts, some red, some imaginary. These contrary parts came from one or another of the accepted dualisms of the artists’ time and culture. Unfortunately, the verity of the eye has led to two questionable conclusions: ( 1 ) that the raison d’dtre of the grotesque is the psychological shock achieved by the amalgam, mixture, blend, or fusion of the poles of a dualism; and ( 2 ) , that because of its “hybrid” nature, the grotesque could not be a true artistic mode, aesthetic- ally unique and integrated, reflecting a weltanshaaung that had as much potential for artistic development as the tragic and comic modes.

An attempt must be made to establish the grotesque as an artistic mode sui generis. The philosophical matrix of Western civilization is weakening, and we are beginning to realize that our heritage of Greek and Judeo-Christian thought is so tyrannically dualistic that the modern world may not be able to survive under it. The great challenge to our traditional philosophical dualisms is existentialism, less in its formal or pedagogical manifestations perhaps than in its “popular” form, that is, in the concepts which have filtered down into the consciousness of artists and ordinary people. This popular existentialism is making modern man increasingly skeptical of all dualisms, pre- paring him to consider the possibility that existence is possible without a belief in those a prior; dualisms which force him into decisions and actions that are defined as opposites or contraries. The significance of this develop- ment for the present discussion is that it m y make pos- sible a new epistemology for the grotesque. Freed from the compulsion to perceive by dualistic concepts, we may explore the grotesque with the hope of discovering it as a unique and unalloyed mode of human expression. Like the tragic and the comic, it may possess an artistic spec- trum bounded only by the creative capacities of its pro- ducers.

Looking at the problem aesthetically, it appears that the first step in reconsidering the grotesque is to enlarge

to us.

10

our emotional apprehension of it. The “shock’ effect has received far too much attention in our appreciation of the grotesque. Those persons with a strongly dualistic manner of thinking and responding may, of course, feel that this is the only appeal of the grotesque and be content with that. Added often to the shock effect, how- ever, is the sense that the grotesque presents the alien or estranged world, that is, experience which lies outside of what we admit as normal, integrated experience. What- ever the basic reaction of the perceiver, shock or es- trangement, the source of the response is some learned dualism.

It would be foolish to deny that shock and estrange- ment can and do play a role in our present response to the grotesque, but the question to be asked is whether that role is any more significant than the role of sound in music or taste in eating. In short, our customary ten- dency to restrict our response to the grotesque to a visual or visceral level may be preventing us from allow- ing it to assume the cerebral state that we accord to the tragic and comic.

Perhaps the most pressing question is simply this: if creative art as we know it, excluding the grotesque, is propagated by the dynamics of one dualism or another, then what can be the nature of a creative act which eschews such a foundation? A richer understanding and appreciation of the grotesque may lead us toward an answer, for a major function of the grotesque, even in its superficial aspects, is to mock dualistic concerns, to disparage all polarities by encompassing them in a larger framework. Thus the grotesque is set off from the tragic and the comic by its capacity to take the perceiver to a position that is beyond the agony of catastrophe and the hope of rebirth. Because of this characteristic, it comes to occupy a unique position in regard to human ethics and artistic taste in that it eschews the very elements which constitute them. Examined on larger, supra-dualistic grounds, the grotesque might appear to exist solely to deride dualism and so prove dependent upon it. Or, I suggest, there may be discovered its integral laws, m i generis, its essential relation with all irony, paradox, and enigma in art, and its function as a means of escape from the tyranny of dualisms.

Poe Studies A number of readers and contributors have suggested that the title Poe Newsletter does not adequately describe the scope and contents of the journal; with this number Poe Newsletter be- comes Poe Studies. Many of the “newsletter” features will con- tinue, however. The column “Current Poe Studies” (wherein research in progress, symposia, new publications, meetings, and other miscellaneous data are recorded) and progress reports on such projects as the Dameron Complete Bibliography and the Mabbott Collected Works will appear from time to time. The annotated bibliography, of course, will continue-as will the “Fugitive” bibliography so long as research assistance is avail- able. The short notes and comment of the “Marginalia” column will continue. There will be little change of format, size, or rate of issue, though we expect to be able to accommodate somewhat longer articles. Coincidentally, however, a small in- crease in cost (planned before the title change) is necessary, despite a handsome subsidy from Washington State University. The new rate will be $3.00 yearly.

Poe’s Reception of C. W. Webber’s Gothic Western, “Jack Long; or, The Shot in the Eye”

Sanford E. Marovitz

Kent State University

When Charles Wilkins Webber brought out his Tales of the Southern Border in 1853, he introduced the collection with “Jack Long; or, The Shot in the Eye,” a “Western” thriller that had already been in print since 1844 and was still circulating widely. According to Henry Nash Smith, “Jack Long” was a “sensational success,” a state- ment that is substantiated by the opening lines of the 1853 edition, which evince Webber’s understandably sharp reaction to the “millions” of “pirated” and “mutilated” versions of the tale being distributed by the “daily and weekly press.”’ So impressive was the story that three years after its initial publication, Edgar Allan Poe com- mended it highly in his revised (and somewhat deprecat- ing) discussion of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales (No- vember 1847) . “One of the happiest and best-sustained tales I have seen,” Poe wrote, “is ‘Jack Long; or The Shot in the Eye.’”2 In the same essay he praised Webber’s high evaluation of Hawthorne’s art, an estimate he had seen some fourteen months earlier in T h e American Review (September l 8 4 6 ) , of which Webber was assistant editor: “no one has a keener relish [than Webber) for that kind of writing which Hawthorne has best illustrated” (XIII, 142) . Poe recalled, probably thinking at the time of “Jack Long,” which he was to mention specifically a few pages later.

In the main, it is perfectly clear why Poe so warmly praised “Jack Long.” The tale not only largely conforms with the dicta Poe had proposed as guidelines for the writing of short fiction, having what Poe considered a well-constructed plot, but also manifests that aura of mystery and shadow, the “power of blackness,” that is characteristic of much of his own best creative work. Among the dark elements that would have appealed to Pue are the revenge motif, the ritual slayings, the symbolic regression of the character to a primitive state, the theme of the Doppelganger or divided ego, and the motif of the “eye.”

“Jack Long” was probably in part derived from the central idea of Robert Montgomery Bird’s Nick of the Woods; or, The Jibbenainosay, which had been published only seven years before Webber’s story. The basic issue of both tales concerns a lone settler-turned-killer deter- mined to avenge a wrong. Like Nathan Slaughter (“the Jibbenainosay” or the “Spirit-that-walks”) , Jack Long is believed to be a supernatural creature (“the Bearded Mad- man” and “the Bearded Ghost”) until he is at length identified; in slaying their enemies, both Nathan and Jack leave identifying marks on the corpses (Bloody Nathan scalps the Shawnees after dispatching them and then cuts a deep cross into their torsos, whereas Jacks mark is a bullet hole through one eye and out the back of the skull); both are attacked and left for dead before com-

1 1