A Revenant by Walter de la Mare
"A Revenant" by Walter de la Mare is a unique ghost story that intertwines a philosophical discourse with the narrative. It features a compelling intellectual duel between Professor Monk and the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, blending elements of literary critique with supernatural interaction. The story unfolds through a structured lecture by Professor Monk, who grapples with his own complacency and disquiet as he addresses Poe's character and literary contributions.
As the lecture progresses, Professor Monk's academic tendencies are challenged by the presence of Poe's ghost, who offers incisive rebuttals that provoke a profound transformation in the professor's self-perception. The narrative's exploration of Monk's character reveals his limitations and the disconnect between his intellectual rigor and the emotional depth of literature. Furthermore, the interactions highlight a broader commentary on the nature of literary appreciation, where true engagement often transcends academic analysis.
De la Mare’s story invites readers to reflect on the complexities of the relationship between writer and critic, and the enduring influence of imagination and artistry, even amidst the constraints of scholarly examination.
On this Page
A Revenant by Walter de la Mare
First published: 1936
Type of plot: Ghost story
Time of work: 1932
Locale: Wigston, England
Principal Characters:
Professor Monk , a man of letters, lecturing to a small literary societyThe ghost of Edgar Allan Poe , a member of the audienceThe Reverend Mr. Mortimer , the chairman of the lectureA young girl , unnamed, a member of the audience
The Story
Though the title "A Revenant" proclaims that this is a ghost story—and it is—it reads more like an essay, a discourse more on ideas than on events or characters. In this aspect, the story's structure is twofold: It is a duel of intellects between Professor Monk and the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, the professor's assertions about Poe followed by Poe's rebuttal. The story is also a study of Professor Monk—limited as his character is by academic habits of mind and waffling prudery—and as such its structure, like the professor's lecture, is fourfold: a lengthy introductory section establishing time, place, and characters; a synopsis of the professor's lecture up to 8:46 p.m., when the present action of the story begins; the continuation of the lecture to its end; and two responses, the chairman's public response followed by Poe's private one.
The introductory section establishes two sides to Professor Monk's character: his habitual complacency and his present profound disquietude. The former is revealed in the professor's preference for "a sober and academic delivery," in his rejection of gestures and any sort of staginess, in his determination to appeal to the intellect alone, in his "modest satisfaction" with this lecture and its systematic organization. His disquietude is expressed by his sudden sharp awareness of where he is, his acute sense that he is alone, and the "amazing rapidity" of the speculations that agitate his thoughts. Mediating between these two aspects of Professor Monk's state of mind is the "challenge" offered by the darkly cloaked stranger at the back of the hall, of whose presence, apparently, only Professor Monk is aware.
The professor's lecture seems an odd tissue of qualifications, full of "but" and "though," "on the other hand," and "nonetheless." In the portion of the lecture preceding 8:46 p.m., summarized here by the narrator, Professor Monk focuses largely on Poe's character ("arrogant, fitful, quarrelsome, unstable") and on his failure to find material success. What little the professor does say about Poe's work itself is done briefly and apparently contradictorily, announcing that "craftsmanship, artistry . . . [are] vital alike in prose and verse" and proceeding directly to fault Poe's poems for their "flawless mastery of method." Like an anatomist with the human body, the professor fails to deal creatively with the whole of the phenomenon his lecture purports to treat, yet he does not realize why he finds Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) flickering through his mind; his statements, like Rembrandt's painting, remain "curiously detached"—that is, curiously disconnected—and his intellect falls somehow between the two sides of his own advice: "Life, like a lecture, is a succession of moments. Don't pay too extreme an attention to any one or two; wait for the end of the hour." He takes his lecture, for its own sake, too seriously, failing to take its subject seriously enough; his lecture, consequently, fails to make sense of the writings he purports to be expounding or of the man he actually treats. Professor Monk's lecture continues after 8:46 p.m. as a series of discrete comments—contiguous but barely linked—and turns ever and again from Poe's writings to Poe the man.
If the professor has erred on the side of "academic mouthings and nothings," as Poe's ghost later claims, the lecture's chairman, the Reverend Mr. Mortimer, misses any point a literary lecture may have, his ignorance illustrating one argument against what the professor has offered his audience: The chairman seizes on all the least relevant points in the lecture and fluently constructs from them an "urgent lesson." Probably the only person who has had an actual literary experience at this lecture is the schoolgirl who asks for Professor Monk's autograph, and she has attained her experience by ignoring most of what the lecturer says, concentrating instead on the loveliness of the poems she has learned in class.
The encounter that follows with the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe is the crisis of Professor Monk's life, for Poe's rebuttal is at once so incisive and so acid that it completely changes Professor Monk's "view of himself and even of his future." He may continue to insist on existing "within strict limits," and he understands what has happened to him as "a piece of mere legerdemain," yet his final "Ah, yes" seems at least to acknowledge the truth of what Poe's ghost has said:
Opinions, views, passing tastes, passing prejudices—they are like funguses, a growth of the night. But the moon of the imagination, however fickle in her phases, is still constant in her borrowed light, and sheds her beams on them one and all, the just and the unjust.