Did Longfellow plagiarize from Tennyson? Yes, according to Poe.

[NancyGene]

https://plagiarius.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/notes-on-poes-little-longfellow-war/

Poe compared Longfellow's “Midnight Mass of the Dying Year” to Tennyson’s “The Death of the Old Year” and wrote that Longfellow did plagiarize Tennyson.

Poe on that and other plagiarisms:
https://www.eapoe.org/works/criticsm/lngfwa50.htm

"I have no idea of commenting, at any length, upon this imitation, which is too palpable to be mistaken, and which belongs to the most barbarous class of literary piracy: that class in which, while the words of the wronged author are avoided, his most intangible, and therefore his least defensible and least reclaimable property, is appropriated. Here, with the exception of lapses which, however, speak volumes, (such for instance as the use of the capitalized “Old Year,” the general peculiarity of the rhythm, and the absence of rhyme at the end of each stanza,) there is nothing of a visible or palpable nature by which the source of the American poem can be established. But then nearly all that is valuable in the piece of Tennyson, is the first conception of personifying the Old Year as a dying old man, with the singularly wild and fantastic manner in which that conception is carried out. Of this conception and of this manner he is robbed. What is here not taken from Tennyson, is made up mosaically, from the death scene of Cordelia, in “Lear” — to which I refer the curious reader."

Poe would have definitely seen plagiarism from some of the posters at AAPC. It's the idea, not necessarily the words.

[George J. Dance]

Accusing a better-known writer of plagiarism is a good way to increase
one's own profile. I thought that, being a "Professor" and all (and
considering how many times you've accused me of plagiarism), that you'd
know that.

[Michael Pendragon]

Poe disliked Longfellow and used his position as the editor of the "Broadway Journal" to conduct a flame war with the poet (including contributions from Poe's sock-puppet, "Outis"). Mr. Outis ("Outis" is Greek for "Nobody") went on to accuse Longfellow as having plagiarized from several other poets, including Edgar Poe.

Along with inventing the detective story, science fiction, and first postulating the Big Bang Theory, Poe was also the world's first "troll."

In a pretended reply to "Outis," Poe chronicled his fight with HWL under the title of "A Large Account of a Small Matter -- A Voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War:

https://www.eapoe.org/works/harrison/jah12c04.htm

[Michael Pendragon]

Poe had just reached the height of his renown at that time with the publication of "The Raven." His "Little Longfellow War" only served to damage his reputation among HWL's friends in Frogpondia.

[W-Dockery]

Interesting information, thanks for posting, everyone.

[Michael Pendragon]

Shut up, other Todd.

[W.Dockery]

I don't think so.

🙂

[Zod]

On Sunday, November 6, 2022 at 4:12:44 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:

Quite true....

[W.Dockery]

Of course, since Edgar Allan Poe married his 13 year old cousin, Longfellow could have countered by calling Poe a pedophile.

HTH and HAND.

[Michael Pendragon]

"Well, most kids from my era were getting it on by that age (13-14) or even earlier, myself included, but with each other, folks of a similar age… True, we do things somewhat differently down South."
-- Will Dockery, on the normalcy of sex with adolescents “down South.”

[General-Zod]

It sure made a mess out of Jerry Lee Lewis when he did the same thing....

[Will Dockery]

Age matters.

Check the age of Poe and Lewis when they married their 13 year old cousins.

[Michael Pendragon]

You've never elaborated on how much earlier "even earlier" implies.

Age matters? How young were your prepubescent consorts?

[Will Dockery]

Edgar Allan Poe was almost thirty years old when he married his thirteen year old cousin.

You're okay with that?

[Michael Pendragon]

Will Dockery was 14 years old when he "played" with his 5-year old neighbors? I'm certainly not okay with that.

[Will Dockery]

Your deflection from discussing Edgar Allan Poe's pedophilia is noted.

🙂

[Michael Pendragon]

They were, by all accounts, a happy couple.

Your deflection from discussing the ages of your prepubescent paramours is also noted.

[Will Dockery]

Happy pedophile and his thirteen year old cousin, right.

And so it goes.

[George J. Dance]

On 2022-11-13 2:59 p.m., Will Dockery wrote:
> Spam-I-Am wrote:
>> On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
>>> On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 6:22:04 AM UTC-5,
george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
>>>
>>> Any thoughts on why Edgar Allan Poe has such a grudge against
Longfellow?
>
>> Poe considered Longfellow an imitator of other poets’ styles.
>
> Thanks, Corey, so it was nothing personal, like jealousy.
>
> Good to know.>

I read an interesting essay about it today on Rob Vallela's blog. He
argues that it was basically motivated by a clash in literary styles --
Longfellow worked in an older tradition, where older prototypes were
constantly used to make new material, while Poe got notice at the height
of Romanticism, where the trend was always to write the completely new.
He also says that to that degree Poe was right, as at the time
"plagiarist" had a milder connotation (imitator or derivative, rather
than thief).

But he also acknowledges that jealousy was a factor. At the time,
Longfellow was one of the few American writers, maybe the only American
poet, to earn a living solely by his writing, while Poe never could. I
could see how that would rankle especially after the success of "The
Raven"; there was Poe, with his belief that he was the greatest American
poet now being echoed all around him, and there was this hack writer
(IHO) not just outselling him but making a comfortable living from it.

http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/poe-and-longfellow-favorably-known-to.html

[Zod]

Quite an interesting read, I thank....

[Michael Pendragon]

On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:18:24 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:

HWL lived in Cambridge, MA.

Poe hated the New England authors in general, and the "Frogpondians" (Bostonians) in particular. He considered them to be pompous, didactic, moralistic dolts and waged a one-man war against them in his magazine columns. Needless to say, they hated him in return.

Longfellow was the most successful of the New England authors, and the most beloved by the American people.

Poe saw himself as the lone Romantic hero taking on the Establishment. When jousting against serpents, one's strategy is to cut off its head.

Poe lost the battle, but won the war. Today, he is the most widely read of all19th Century authors, has become a literary icon, and recently had a statue erected to him in Boston, south of the celebrated frog pond. Significantly, he is portrayed as having turned his back on it.

[Spam-I-Am]

Horrific Obsessions: Poe’s Legacy of the Unreliable and Self-Obsessed Narrator

“Many of Edgar Allan Poe’s works include obsessed narrators who are plagued by their unconscious in order to discover their true selves. Carl Jung declares that people wear a persona to present to the world that hides their true self from society, and even from themselves; “the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is” (Jung, “Concerning Rebirth,” 221). When one’s persona is in conflict with one’s inner self, tension can arise, and Jung declares that the unconscious can force the individual to come face to face with one’s true self, revealing the falseness of the persona that he or she wrongly identified with. Many of Poe’s narrators are so enveloped within false personas that they become unclear of their own realities and their own true identities, making them unreliable to the reader. Poe’s depiction of these characters shows their unconscious obsession to unmask themselves, revealing a self that does not adhere to societal expectations.“

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137041982_9

[Michael Pendragon]

Yes, Poe's stories lay the foundation for modern psychology... but what has this to do with Longfellow and the Frogpondians?

[Spam-I-Am]

Nothing, absolutely nothing. Poe had problems, deep psychological
problems, but his problems had nothing to do with Longfellow.

[Will Dockery]

Interesting, thanks for posting.

[W.Dockery]

Good back story, thanks again, George