Selections from Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

76. 7. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siècle de fer!" "Oh! the good time, the age of iron."

86. 11. Herodes Atticus: a Greek born about A.D. 101, who inherited from his father, of the same name, great wealth, to which he added by marriage. He was a noted teacher of rhetoric and became a Roman consul.

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM (Page 94)

First published in a magazine in 1841 (see comment in the
Introduction, pages xxvii-xxviii).

94. Quotation. Joseph Glanville, or Glanvill (1636-1680), an English clergyman and author of several works on philosophy and religion. The quotation has been found in the writings of Glanvill by Professor Woodberry, but Poe quoted rather carelessly, and his extract varies slightly from the original. The Democritus referred to was a famous Greek philosopher, born about 470 B.C., who taught the atomic theory.

94. 1-3. Note the effect of the opening sentences in seizing attention and arousing interest at once.

95. 21. Nubian geographer … Mare Tenebrarum. The same allusion occurs in "Eleonora," and in "Eureka" Poe speaks of "the Mare Tenebrarum,—an ocean well described by the Nubian geographer, Ptolemy Hephestion." Apparently he refers to Claudius Ptolemy, a celebrated philosopher who flourished in Alexandria in the second century A.D.

His theory, known as the Ptolemaic System, remained the standard authority in astronomy to the end of the Middle Ages, while his geography was accepted until the era of the great discoveries opened in the fifteenth century. Ptolemy is thought to have been born in Egypt, and it is impossible to say what grounds Poe had for calling him Nubian. Mare Tenebrarum means "sea of darkness," the Atlantic.

96. 10-15. This is a real description of the geography of the region of the Lofoden islands. Refer to a good map of Norway.

97. 27. Maelström: from Norwegian words meaning "grind" and "stream." The swift tidal currents and eddies of the Lofoden islands are very dangerous, but the early accounts are greatly exaggerated, and Poe's description is, aside from being based on these accounts, purely imaginative.