THIS MONDAY was a day off from classes in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This federal holiday always falls on the third Monday in January, meant to be around King’s birthday, which is Jan. 15. Jan. 19 was also the celebration of an actual birthday — the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s. I am sure this is a surprise to many, since the University has so studiously ignored the occasion. While Edgar Allan Poe cannot be said to merit the same acknowledgement as King, the 200-year anniversary of his birth should have been commemorated by the University.
The absence of anything to mark the occasion in Charlottesville was picked up by The Hook in a column published last week. According to The Hook, “There are literally dozens of events scattered among Boston, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond.” Among these events was a lecture at the University of Richmond, which is not among the colleges that Poe attended (in addition to the University, he also attended West Point). Why then, nothing in Charlottesville? Poe is certainly one of the University’s more distinguished students. His room on the West Range has been set aside and returned to the condition it was in while Poe was here, raven and all. Perhaps the University considered that a sufficient enough celebration of Poe for all the rest of its days. But in addition to the University’s oversight, no student groups chose to recognize the event.
13 West Range is preserved by the Raven Society, which also failed to recognize the bicentennial on the actual day. The group’s very name, according to its Web site, “honor[s] the most famous poem of the University’s most famous poet.” Obviously Poe cannot be said to be the University’s most famous writer. As the University was founded by Thomas Jefferson, perhaps it is difficult to get excited about a mere literary figure, no matter how important. Jefferson was the very definition of a Renaissance man and Poe only a writer and a drunk. According to the University, “Poe is generally recognized as the father of the genre of the detective story as well as a major influence on the literature of terror and horror,” and yet that still isn’t enough to grant him some recognition on his birthday. While the Jefferson Society is proud to claim Poe as a former member, it also did nothing to publicly celebrate the bicentennial. According to its Web site, it occasionally does readings of Poe’s works in keeping with its literary origins, and yet did nothing on Poe’s bicentennial.
The exhibition “From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe” will run from March to August in the Harrison Institute and is “the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to Poe,” according to the University Library’s press release. The reason for the March opening has to do with dates the gallery would be open and when items could be loaned out, according to University Library Exhibits Coordinator Mercy Quintos Procaccini. The exhibition will include not only original manuscripts but also records of Poe’s time at the University and many other rare pieces of Poe history that make it well worth the wait.
Despite the commendable efforts of the University Library in putting on this exhibition, which is to coincide with the bicentennial year, it is still shocking nothing was planned for Jan. 19, especially considering that The Edgar A. Poe Bicentennial Symposium (1809 – 2009) is to be held at the Harrison Institute in April. Procaccini noted that there is no umbrella planning organization for the Poe bicentennial, which is likely the cause of this egregious oversight. “The library has its piece of it, and anything else was left up to others in the University system,” said Procaccini.
With all the free time students had Monday, some of them — myself included — would have enjoyed attending a reading of “The Raven” or a screening of one of the many movies based on Poe’s short stories. Perhaps the University did not want to detract attention from the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Yet I think both occasions could have been celebrated without detracting from each other. This moment for celebration has slipped by, and while the exhibition and events planned for later this year will certainly commemorate the bicentennial, the University has missed an opportunity to celebrate such a distinguished former student.
Annette Robertson is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at a.robertson@cavalierdaily.com.
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