-Imitating Poe

Whitman’s most direct encounter with the legacy of Poe by way of the New York bohemians took place in 1859, when Henry Clapp, Jr.—the “King of Bohemian” and the editor of The New York Saturday Press—challenged a writer named Charles Gardette to write a poem in the style of Poe’s “The Raven” that would be so convincing it could be passed off as a lost poem by Poe, posthumously published for the first time. A few weeks later, Whitman published in the Saturday Press the first version of a poem that he would later title “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and in it he included a subtle reference to the infamous refrain of “Nevermore” from Poe’s “The Raven”: “Never more shall I escape, / Never more shall the reverberations, / Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me.” Whitman appears to have been part of the conversations around the tables at Pfaff’s about writing in Poe’s style, and “Out of the Cradle” was his contribution.