Edgar Allen Poe was recently wearing a fluorescent-blue t-shirt in Alderman Library. It said read, “Hoos Got Your Back.”
The shirt was certainly put on Mr. Poe with the best of intentions. “Hoos Got Your Back,” the new University bystander awareness campaign, is admirable and necessary, and it makes sense to advertise it on Poe’s bust, which occupies a central and visible place in Alderman. Unintentionally, the shirt even creates a humorous contrast between its own ebullience and Poe’s grim, downcast glare. One wonders, looking at the bust, if the man who wrote “Annabel Lee” and “The Masque of the Red Death” could even conceive of such a bright, happy color in his world of gray and black. The shirt is so very antithetical to Poe’s work and ethos, however, that I think garbing Poe was done without the proper respect to his memory.
The accumulation of distance and years whittles down even the largest cultural sorrows and grievances. Eventually, they just become objects for indifference and mockery. The dread Attila the Hun, Scourge of God, is with each revolution of the Earth about the Sun less monstrous. Treasonous Benedict Arnold is less villainous day after passing day. Humor soon follows indifference, as anyone can observe from the ubiquity of somewhat socially-acceptable jokes about Nazis, Lincoln’s assassination and other topics which were once the blackest memories we had. As Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
This phenomenon can be good for us. A life burdened by the terrors and miseries of previous generations is really no life at all: humor is one way we can unshackle ourselves from this massed cultural heritage. However, this practice gets tricky when we stop recognizing the defining characteristics of what we’re mocking or referencing. Implicit in a tasteful Genghis Khan joke is the recognition that he was a blood-thirsty warlord. Failure to properly place a joke in any historical context falsely portrays the group or individual in question. The danger of this is that we lose our appreciation of whatever tribulations the group or individual received or enacted, or our appreciation of what that event symbolized. Even if we can’t feel the pain and shock of the Titanic’s sinking as if we were there, we can still recognize that it was a tragedy.
This brings me back to Mr. Poe and his shirt. Edgar Allen Poe is an asset to the University’s history. That such a figure walked the same Lawn we do is an inspiration. I think we have some license to poke fun at Poe and to use his face and name, but every reference to Poe should be sourced from the man’s reputation and work. He was a tortured man who died in the streets of Baltimore, alone and despised. He revolutionized the genre of horror. But the “Hoos Got Your Back” shirt simply has nothing to do with Poe, besides currently being on his back. Surely the living Poe had nothing to do with bystander awareness or t-shirts. Poe wasn’t technically even a Hoo: the “Wahoowa” cheer only came to the University in the late 1880s, decades after Poe’s death. Really, placing the shirt on Poe is a reference without any context. It’s a contrived connection without grounds. It’s an earnest attempt to recruit the force of Poe’s name and visage to the unrelated, although admirable, cause of bystander awareness. In a small way, this spurious connection between Poe and “Hoos Got Your Back” muddles our perception of Poe’s genius and sorrows.
This might seem a trifling argument to make, but in the long run I think it’s incredibly important. If the University community doesn’t make an effort to maintain the integrity of its symbols, they will over time corrupt and disperse. If we put Thomas Jefferson’s profile on every wall and coffee cup on Grounds, in a year these new and frivolous associations would hopelessly dilute Jefferson’s status as a founder. This has already happened to many symbols such as the bald eagle, Ronald McDonald or even the concept of America itself. Day by day improper usage makes their meaning more vague and tenuous. Let’s just please not do this to Poe.
Brennan Edel is a Viewpoint Writer.
Read More
ONIBUDO AND SAWAYA: Police, not students, were agents of chaos
By Naima Sawaya and Nathan Onibudo | 3 days agoSaturday, the state, not students nor protesters, brought violence to this campus.
IYER: Sports stadiums should sport more benefit to Virginia residents
By Arjun Iyer | 5 days agoPast stadiums in other states show that Virginia has the potential to succeed at such a construction project, provided that proper measures are undertaken.
KURTZWEIL: True financial aid must be transparent
By Paul Kurtzweil | April 29, 2024The implications and revelations of the lawsuit should inspire greater transparency at the University in order to ensure that financial aid is properly and equitably distributed.
