Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/28

8 can be traced. Poe could not read German and, if he could, the native temper of his mind was such as to make him independent of Hoffmann and the Hoffmann school. Nor is there the analogy that the Germans assert between Poe, the writer, and Böcklin, the Swiss painter. Their ideals were different, their methods divergent, their results antipodal. Comparison between the two leads only to contrast.

An undesigned tribute to Poe's vogue in Germany may be mentioned in passing. It was my privilege to conduct a Poe Seminar at the University of Berlin during the winter of 1910-1911. "Whom do you consider the most famous woman born in America?" asked a German woman who was also a student of American history. After some hesitation I replied that in my judgment the choice would lie between Pocahontas and Dolly Madison. "But what would your answer be?" I asked. "Why," she replied, "I should have said Annabel Lee." Another unintentional tribute to Poe, to the haunting but elusive melody of one of his refrains, is found in Theodor Etzel's centennial translation of The Raven The translator was determined to preserve the long o sound which reappears four times in each stanza and culminates in the sonorous recurrence of "Nevermore." But "Nevermore" is not German and "Nimmermehr," which is German, is short, jerky, and unrelated to the coveted long o sound. The reader will hardly believe that the translator solves the difficulty by making the raven say "Nie du Thor," "Never, you fool," in answer to every question put to him by the disconsolate lover.