The Passer By

[Nu Lang]

To _ _
I heed not that my earthly lot

Hath little of earth in it--

That years of love have been forgot

In the hatred of a minute:--

I mourn not that the desolate

Are happier, sweet, than I,

But that you sorrow for my fate

Who am a passer by.
                                     ~EAP


 I feel he is saying here that he pities the person who does not see their own freedom. The ones who live and feel immortal and that their acts are important. He is the passer by and its all so fleeting, our time here.
Poe lost his mom at age 2, his father was never really in the picture, his foster parents raised him, thats how he got the name Allan, and his foster mother Francis, whom he loved, died when he was young, his foster father disinherited him not too long after, his highschool sweetheart and he wanted to get married but her parents forbade it. He married his cousin and they were very happy in their marriage but she died not too long after, they had only about a decade together, he had so many things in his life that were temporary, so it helped him understand that we are all just passers by here. I can tell by the way he wrote near the end of his life that he had a great deal of fluidity, that much I know even though I do not know his specific thoughts. He had learned about the folly. And he saw how others were 'invested' in it perhaps. He was an outsider...his whole life, but I feel he came to a warm acceptance of it within himself the last few years of his life. His wife's death was the biggest challenge and it almost killed him and after that he was changed. His death is still a mystery.

[Nu Lang]

Poe regarded Eureka as his Magnum Opus, the culmination of his life's work. Written out of the tragedy of his young wife's death from consumption in 1847 after an oppressive five years of suffering, Eureka is Poe's inspired view of life and the universe. Amazingly, Poe seems to anticipate some of the theories of modern science: the time/space continuum, the expanding and contracting universe, a general proposition akin to chaos theory and an explanation (still a valid theory) for why the sky is dark at night. Professor Edward Harrison, in Darkness at Night (Harvard University Press, 1987), an astronomy book, devotes a chapter to Poe, saying "The first clear and correct solution to the riddle of darkness, though only qualitatively expressed, came from Edgar Allan Poe, the renowned poet, essayist, critic and amateur scientist...in [his] imaginative masterpiece, Eureka: A Prose Poem."

Many modern scholars see it as the key to all of Poe's writings: It has been said that if one understands Eureka, one can unlock the mystery of all Poe's work. http://www.astin-poe.com/eureka.html
Eureka had a big effect on me and its what informs me of his fluidity, how he views the universe as both transitory and eternal, and that he sees.

[Nu Lang]

Though he was rather well versed in the science of his day, and though he was expert in reason and logic, in expressing something as profound as the essence of life and death, Poe uses all the tools in his kit, going beyond reason and logic, ultimately to art, to poetry, for his expression. In the brief introduction to Eureka, he gives us the clue to its reading:
"To the few who love me and whom I love -- to those who feel rather than to those who think -- to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities -- I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone, let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem."~Edgar Allan Poe

To see it as a poem, as a dream, as folly, real but not. Fluid truth. Art.

[Nu Lang]

Fly Away Lyrics

Artist: Poe

Album: Hello





It makes sense that it should happen this way

That the sky should break, and the earth should shake

As if to say: Sure it all matters but in such an

unimportant way

As if to say:



Fly away, sweet bird of prey

Fly fly away

Nothing can stand in your way

Sweet bird, if you knew the words

I know you'd say: fly, fly away



It makes sense that it should hurt in this way

That my heart should break, and my hands should shake

As if to say: Sure it don't matter except in the most

important way

As if to say:



Fly away, sweet bird of prey

Fly fly away

I won't stand in your way

Sweet bird, if you knew the words

I know that you'd say: fly, fly away



It makes sense that it should feel just this way

That you slowly fade and yet still remain

As if to say: Everything matters in such an invisible way

As if to say: It's O.K.

Fly...away
A really good song...hard to find youtube video on and since I can't get youtube, just recommend you look the song up, she sings beautiful acapella on it.
As if to say: Sure it all matters but in such an

unimportant way***
As if to say: Sure it don't matter except in the most

important way***
As if to say: Everything matters in such an invisible wayAs if to say: It's O.K.

Fly...away

[Guest]

Nu Lang wrote:
 I feel he is saying here that he pities the person who does not see their own freedom. The ones who live and feel immortal and that their acts are important.
Hey, I really like this thread, but I am not sure what you are saying here.  What do you mean by "the ones who live and feel immortal"?

[Nu Lang]

Well, I read a biography of his life and in it are letters he wrote, and in those letters its revealed he had to deal with the people in his life and I think in the end he released himself from their "demands" that weighed heavily upon him in his early life. Like for example, getting his foster father's approval. I think he finally let that go. And he also accepted from that that he would never 'be' anybody of renown. See, he tried for years to impress his foster father becasue the father wanted Poe to take over the family business and Poe instead wanted to be a writer, so he pursued writing in the end and I think for many years he wanted to get famous so his father would be proud and see Poe made the right choice. Towards the end of his life, reading his letters and such, I see a more mature Poe, one who sees its the folly of other people who cling to this reality of "being somebody" here and that its not his burden and he let his art soar then and didn't care about fame and the people who looked for 'whos who' in society, those who would just see him as a passer by. He was ok with that and pitied them for being so caught up.



One thing that occurred around that time is a very elite social class sort of dictated tastes in literature and art and so Poe was always subject to their scrutinizing eye. To be a 'nobody' was frowned upon, but to Poe, the 'nobody' was the metaphysical seeker's aim.



Poe only became famous in death.

[Guest]