Blood of a Poet

By Michael G. McGlasson

"Blood of a Poet," an excursion into the literary genre of weird supernatural fiction, concerns the life of Robert Edward Bartlett, a poet from the city of Baltimore, Maryland, during the early years of the nineteenth-century. The story of his strange life evolves from one of childhood innocence into a maddening nightmare teeming with alcohol, drugs, deception, and death. Although fictional, Bartlett's story does have some basis in fact related to Baltimore's historical background. This novella is loosely based on the short and tragic life of William Henry Leonard Poe (1807 to 1831), Edgar Poe's older brother who also was a poet, and is dedicated to Jean Cocteau, director and writer of "The Blood of the Poet," a weird piece of French cinema made in 1930.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Nov 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463914601

Book preview

PART ONE

In our modern 19th century society, there continues to exist the idea that poetry was originally intended as a form of mere entertainment, much like the American theatre which tends to exhibit situations that many audience members may find upsetting. Some have been so bold to ask Why must we read or see things that make us more wretched that we already are? Some even go so far to ask that since there is so much that is painful in life, why must we be subjected to more exhibitions of pain and suffering during our instances of being entertained? The answer to these and related questions is quite simple, for as the ancient Greek tragedians were so fond of pointing out, individuals seen as possessing gloomy minds must not be held at fault for creating tragic poetry, due to the fact that tragedy has always been with us regardless of our situations in life. According to John Keats in Ode on Melancholy, tragedy is always veiled, and the person who experiences the taste of sadness and melancholy (is it not all of us?) will surely fail to enter the Temple of Delight.

Thus, based on my own life experiences, it is an unquestionable fact that tragedy does provide intense and deep delight, particularly when presented on the stage. Aristotle himself, a great admirer of the theatre, once called this delight a peculiar pleasure when presented by a skilled thespian that possesses the innate ability to deliver such delight. The famous English author and poet John Dryden once proclaimed that tragic poetry as a peculiar pleasure is simply an imitation of one entire action represented by fear and pity with both of these emotions being eventually purged by the passions in our minds. Perhaps this is why John Milton in Paradise Lost wrote that it is far better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, an indication that fear and pity is far less influential when the reigning Master is the controller rather than the controlled. Thus, the reigning Master is able to purge the minds of his slaves, making them tempered and open to all forms of delight, especially when such delight is well-imitated in tragic poetry or on the