^M00:00:10 >> Jaylen Johnson: Welcome to Quoth the Raven, Edgar Allen Poe and derivative works. Poe's most famous work, the Raven has appeared in more places than we can possibly list. Homer Simpson's adaptation is one of the most famous of the past 30 years, bringing the poem to the animated world in the series The Treehouse of Horror. The Raven is the only literary work to have an NFL team named after it in the city of Poe's final resting place. In Gilmore Girls Season 3, a Tale of Poes and Fire focused on Poe's visit to the town of Stars Hollow. Actually, it was a Poe Society visit to the town of Stars Hollow. When two Poe reenactors got their wires crossed and both came to recite the Raven, it allowed the audience to compare and contrast the two recitations of the poem. We now welcome you to settle in and project yourself back to 1865 on a particularly dreary and unsettling night somewhere deep in Edgar Allan Poe's vivid imagination as you experience an excerpt from the Raven. >> George Thuronyi: Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary. Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping as of someone gently rapping. Rapping at my chamber door. Just some visitor, I muttered. Tapping at my chamber door. Only this and nothing more. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December. And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow. Vainly I have thought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow. Sorrow for the lost Lenore, for the rare and radiant maiden. Whom the angels name Lenore. Nameless here forevermore. And the sulken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before. So that now to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating just some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door. Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door. This it is and nothing more. Presently, my soul grew stronger hesitating then no longer. Sir, said I, or Madame, truly, your forgiveness I implore. But the fact is I was napping and so gently you came rapping. And so faintly you came tapping. Tapping at my chamber door that I scarce was sure I head you. Here I opened wide the door. Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting. Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. But the silence was unbroken. And the stillness gave no token. And the only word there spoken was the whispered word Lenore? This I whispered and an echo murmured back the word Lenore. Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning. Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. Surely, said I, surely that is something at my window lattice. Let me see then what thereat is and this mystery explore. Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore. Tis the wind and nothing more. Open here I flung the shutter, and with many a flirt and flutter in there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made. He not a minute stopped or stayed he. But with Mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door. Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. Though thy crest be shorn or shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly sore. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's plutonium shore. Quoth the Raven, nevermore. Prophet, said I. Thing of evil. Prophet still, if bird or devil. By that heaven that bends above us. By that God we both adore. Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Quoth the Raven nevermore. Be that word or sign of parting. Bird or fiend, I shrieked up starting. Get thee back into the tempests and the night's plutonium shore. Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken. Leave my loneliness unbroken. Put the bust above my door. Take they beak from out my heart. And take thy form from off my door. Quoth the Raven nevermore. And the Raven never flitting, still is sitting. Still is sitting on the pallet bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming. And the lamplight over him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor. And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore. ^M00:07:42 ^M00:08:04 >> Jaylen Johnson: Poe's known as one of the first Americans to live by writing alone. However, lack of international copyright protections in the 1800s made it difficult for writers like Poe to get by. With no international copyright protection, many American publishers would produce unauthorized copies of British works instead of paying to produce works by an American author. And British authors suffered in the same way. Charles Dickens argued with the American press regarding copyright law upon his visit to America. American author Mark Twain lobbied hard for international copyright protection. Which finally was enacted in 1891. Twain went beyond that, and testified before Congress in hearings leading up to the 1909 copyright law revision. Our first speaker, Christopher Semtner is curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond. As author and editor of several books, including the Poe Shrine, Building the World's Finest Edgar Allan Poe Collection, he has explored Poe's writing career and his fight for international copyright protection. Today he's going to share the story of Poe's fight for international copyright protection. Let's welcome Chris. ^M00:09:24 ^M00:09:31 >> Christopher Semtner: Well, thanks for having me, everyone. And thanks to the copyright office. And it's good to see Enrica and Thad. She's from the Baltimore Poe House. We're from down the road at the Richmond Poe Museum. And I'm sure, she might agree, one of the great things about working at a Poe Museum is you get to step back in time. You get to see little glimpses of Poe's life through the artifacts and through the objects. You can walk up the stairs that Poe used to walk. If you come to the Pope Museum in Richmond you can see the chair in which he sat while he is writing the letter that you can see right there next to it. You can see the clothing he was wearing socks. Even his socks. If you ever wanted to see Poe's socks, we're the place to go. And even a little lock of his hair. But a lot of people there ask what were their favorite artifacts. They talk about Poe's bed or something like that. But we've got a great collection of Poe first editions. And here's a Poe first edition. This is a book published during his lifetime. This is the case. Inside of the case is another little box. Inside of that is the book. And if you look in these books, you'll see a lot of things you'd expect to see you. Here's the title pages. This is the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. This is Poe's first collection of short stories. This is really a labor of love for Poe. He'd been trying for six years to get a book of his short stories published. And in the meantime he was trying to print his things in newspapers and magazines and annuals. And finally a publisher decided they wanted to take a chance on him and published this collection. It's a two-volume set. This happens to be volume two. We have both volumes there. And the publisher said it's not really a very good moneymaker for us. They're really taking a risk by publishing these stories. So they only agreed to pay Poe 20 free copies of his own book. They said if it did somehow magically make a profit they should keep the profit. But Poe was glad to have his works in book form. These magazines, newspapers were ephemeral. They'd be, he thought, missing within a few years. Although if you step right over there you'll see the first printing of the The Raven in The New Yorker still there, still survives. But Poe wanted things in book form, it's more permanent. And on the cover pages here it's been inscribed. Once you take a farther peek in you can see things, like, author's blurbs. Even today, authors try to get the friends to write blurbs to puff up the book little bit. So we've got a blurb here in the middle you've got two quotes from Washington Irving saying what great stories these ere. You absolutely have to read it. And then here's the Table of Contents. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of these stories were already reprinted from other magazines. And the first volume has things like The Fall of the House of Usher. Some of these classic short stories. So it's hard to believe that Poe wasn't getting paid for this. And then you'll see to the left, if we zoom in, entered according to the act of Congress in the year 1839, by Edgar A. Poe, in the clerk's office for the eastern District of Pennsylvania. So that's Poe's copyright notice. You had to print that in the book. You had to deposit it. So that's what he says, he's deposited in the clerk's office. And this is how you got your copyright. You made sure your work was protected. Now then, if someone did bootleg your work, you had to enforce it. And as I mentioned earlier, if it happened overseas you didn't have a lot of recourse. But Poe published a lot of his other books. And included these copyright notices in them. And the sad thing is that a few years later when Poe was falling on hard times, he told the publishers for that Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque that he would sell them the copyrights to all those stories. And they said, they're not worth anything to us. Everybody's already bootlegged these stories. Everybody's already read these. But here is an 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. It's Poe's only complete novel. That's the entire title on that page. It's a pretty long wordy title. The only thing you don't see on the page is Poe's name. He's trying to pass it off as the true account of a fellow named Arthur Gordon Pym. So it's, kind of, a hoax novel. And the same year this was published in New York, they reprinted in London Although over there they didn't like the ending, so they changed the ending. And then soon it was translated. Here's the French edition. And Poe didn't really have any way to stop these things from happening. No way to profit from this. But it wasn't just his books. It was also his stories. This is the first printing of The Purloined Letter. The third of his Aguste Dupin detective stories which he laid out, he defined the detective genre for generations to come. This appears in the 1844 issue of an annual called The Gift. And within a few weeks of The Purloined Letter's first appearance it was purloined by Chambers Edinburg Journal over in Scotland. And once again, they made some changes. They abridged it. And within weeks after that it was translated into French. The abridged version, not Poe's authorized version. So he didn't even have any control over what changes they're making. And here's a Dutch printing from a couple years after that. So his works were obtaining a lot of celebrity in Europe while he's not getting compensated. This is the headline here, Poe's Last Poem. You might recognize this. Many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee. And if you zoom in on the little introduction, this appeared in the January 1850 issue of Sartain's Union Magazine. And he's already complaining here that other magazines have already reprinted this. They haven't paid him. He paid for this poem, but a fellow named Rufus Griswold had a manuscript that he was eventually going to publish in an anthology called The Poets and Poetry of America. And as soon as Poe died, he went ahead and jumped the gun and printed the poem at the end of Poe's obituary. So by the time the guy who'd paid for the first printing had a chance to print it, it had appeared in newspapers and magazines all of the country. So that's why in this introduction he's, kind of, complaining about that and saying, well, I'm going to print it anyway and -- And Poe was aware of these problems. So he challenged our nation to establish firmer copyright protections and to pay authors more. That was a big problem. If a magazine can get Charles Dickens' story for free, why do they want to pay Poe so much? He's not just competing with other American authors. Poe's competing with authors all over the world. And it's an unfair playing ground that you can see they're getting it for free. And Poe, in fact, did meet Charles Dickens in 1842 up in Philadelphia. Dickens found out what he should do is he should travel United States. Make some money off these Americans who already reading his works without paying for it. They could come and hear him lecture. And when Poe had a chance to meet him one of the things they discussed was the need for an international copyright. This is nearly 50 years before it finally happened. But Poe did decide that he should start hitting the road, traveling. He gave a few lectures, like The Poetic Principle, The Poets and Poetry of America. Of course, you know everyone always wanted to hear The Raven. That was his greatest hit. He would start reading other poetry, but people would walk out if he didn't read the Raven. Afterwards little kids would recognize him on the street, follow him around, and go nevermore, nevermore. He'd flapped his arms like a big Raven. And he apparently is a very impressive speaker. Although probably not as good as George here this morning. But they said when he got to the part of the end of the poem get thee back into the tempest and nice plutonium shore people ran and hid. I mean, this guy knew his business. And he said, well, The Raven maybe him $15 when he first printed it. But he could make $100 in one night, a whole year's rent in one night, by reading his works. Now today you'd think, well, that's not so bad. You get in your private jet, maybe your luxury tour bus. But, no, he's traveling from city to city by coach, by rail, by steamship. And it really took a toll on his health in those last few years of his life. In fact, he died while he was still on tour. And this is the first printing of his last book of short stories, Tales of Edgar A. Poe. He continued to copyright his works, because he knew he needed that protection, even though it was difficult to enforce. Here's Poe's last book, Eureka. His theory of everything book. But a year later when Poe died, his mother-in-law signed over the rights to Poe's works to a literary executor, Rufus W. Griswold. Now Griswold and Poe had some history. They couldn't stand each other. Griswold thought he was the expert on American poetry, that he knew better than anyone else what made great poetry. And that you had to impress him, and he would include you in his next installments of the Poets and Poetry of America. Whereas Poe thought he was just a pompous windbag who had no idea what he was talking about. And he wasn't afraid to tell people that on stage to ridicule Griswold. Griswold got the last laugh by writing an obituary of Poe that said he was a horrible scoundrel that word of his death would startled many, but few would be grieved, that had few or no friends. But this is the Complete Works of Pope published by Griswold for Redfield just after Poe's death. But even a poem like the Raven here, this is the first printing in The American Review, a political journal. Poe had tried to publish this poem in literary magazines. They turned it down. Said, this poem's depressing. This poem doesn't make any sense. Why is a guy talking to a bird? Finally, a political journal for the wig party published it. And Poe's name's not on it. And he was just paid for filler. He's filling some extra columns in the magazine. But then as soon as this got printed, they got the typeset ready, the New York Mirrors' editor saw it. And it was reprinted there. And as you see in the little caption, it says it was in advance of publication in The American Review. And before you know it, everybody else was reprinting it. And then it was reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic. Even Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the famous poet, she wrote to Poe and said, your Raven has created this sensation in England in a fit horror. Everyone's reading it. And this, of course, the popularity led to parodies of it. This is The Craven from the Tomahawk. Before you know it in the next few years The Owl, the Black Cat, The Craven, The gazelle, The Whippoorwill, The Turkey, The Pole Cat, The Dove. And it continued to be a subject for parody and editorial cartoons for decades to come. And other poets even paid tribute to the Raven. This is Providence, Rhode Island poetess Sarah Helen Whitman. And she loved Poe through his poetry, hadn't met him yet, but she had to meet him. So what does she do? She writes a poem called, To Edgar A. Poe about how she wants to fly away with the Raven. So naturally, he dropped everything, went to Providence, met her. Proposed to her multiple times. This is taken shortly after one of her rejections. Worst picture of him ever made. But she finally did agree to marry him on the condition that if he never touched alcohol again. So their engagement lasted one month. But she continued to pay tribute to Poe. She wrote a book Edgar A. Poe and his critics where she defended Poe's reputation against all the bad press he'd gotten after his death. And even she made this tribute. She had some doctor up her photo to make herself into the pallid bust of Pallas from The Raven. And here's a different kind of tribute that came on not long after Poe's death. He died about the time the spiritualist movement was really getting going. And spiritualists were going to trances. And Lizzie Doten here would speak to dead poets and transcribe their poetry. So this is from her book in which she has multiple poems by Shakespeare, Bobbie Burns, including some poems by Poe himself after his death. And one of them, the third from the bottom is The Streets of Baltimore. Which again, is a blatant rip-off of The Raven. Instead of saying quoth the Raven nevermore, each stanza ends with in the streets of Baltimore. And how do you prosecute this? This is a parody? Her defense could be well, Poe's ghost wrote it, so maybe it's still protected under his copyright. But within a year of the first printing of The Raven, an art student named Dante Gabriel Rossetti made a series of sketches. And this is one of his sketches from 1846 for The Raven. But soon he wrote a poem, a tribute to Poe. It's called The Blessed Damozel. If the Raven is a lover here on earth, missing his lost Lenore, then the Damozel is Lenore up in heaven missing her lover down here on earth. And you can see here Rossetti also made paintings and other illustrations, you know, inspired by his own poem, which in turn was inspired by Poe's poem. And from here it's only a short step before book illustrations started appearing for the poem. One thing you'll see in a lot of these is a guy at a desk with a lamp ,books on the floor, open book. Same thing here from 1865. Same thing with Edward Manet, a guy with books at a table. Because that's what happens in the poem, a guy is sitting there at his desk talking to a Raven. But fortunately, you have right over there Gustave Dore's 1883 illustrations published in 1884 in which he starts to explore the inner workings of this narrator's imagination. To really get inside his head. And that really opened the floodgates. These are James Carling's illustrations from about the same time. And allowed generations of artists to take their own unique takes. But here they even turned to play. The Raven as a stage play and The Raven as a film, both inspired by the works. Both tell the story of a poet, Edgar A. Poe struggling to come of a masterpiece so he can pay for medicine for his wife. And he finally has a vision that inspires him to write The Raven. He writes the poem and sells it. He come home and finds out his beloved wife has died. Very Poe-esque. And within a few decades we see more adaptations of The Raven that have absolutely nothing to do with The Raven other than they'll recite a few verses of the poem. But that meant that people felt free to adapt these things in new ways. Poe's works were in the public domain by this time. So as long as you had Poe's name there, people were going to buy tickets and see it. Even if it's a story about two wizards battling with laser beams like in The Raven there. And this led to ballets. There's been several dances, plays. Even skulls carved with the versus of The Raven in them. Raven tchotchkes. Christmas cards of The Raven. Tea. Raven ties. The Poe Museum gift shop is full of these things. Even gardens based on Poe's poetry. This is a garden based on his poem to One in Paradise. A living, breathing three-dimensional Pope poem that you can visit today at the Poe Museum down in Richmond. So that's about all I have. And I want to thank you all for having me. ^M00:26:18 ^M00:26:29 >> Jaylen Johnson: Thank you, Chris. So as Chris demonstrated in his presentation, there's no question that Poe left a rich legacy of work that masters of storytelling, suspense, and horror have used to inspire creativity and new creativity. A wide variety of artists including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Hitchcock, Queen Philip Glass, and the creators of the Simpsons have pulled from Poe's works to create their own works. When someone brings new creative expression into a work, copyright law may provide separate protection as a derivative work. When a prior work is used lawfully, the author of the new work has a separate copyright interest in their contribution. They can copy, distribute, adept, publicly perform or display, and give permission to others to use their work. Our next speaker, Enrica Jang, is the Executive Director of Poe Baltimore, The Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. Long before she joined The Poe House, Enrica with a Poe enthusiast. And has written and edited several book, graphic novels, and anthologies inspired by Poe's works. Enrica will dive into the Poe legacy. She'll also discuss the importance of commercial avenues for derivative works. And the role of the Saturday Visitor Award in recognizing outstanding creative works, adapted or inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. Please join me in welcoming Enrica Jang. ^M00:28:06 ^M00:28:12 >> Enrica Jang. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Okay. I am a nervous speaker. So I might speed up a little bit. And I'm a bit of a more casual speaker. But thank you, Chris, for giving a wonderful, sort of, history at what we're looking at when we're talking about derivatives works. And I want to, sort of, talk about the Poe economy and our responsibility as protectors of Poe's legacy, celebrating Poe's legacy in what we face. So my blood's a little up because I tromped over here in high heels so I've got, took my life in my own hands [inaudible]. So I am Enrica Jang, the Director of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. We are open every Thursday through Sunday from 11 to 4, so plug, to come and visit us just a bit down the road in Baltimore. Poe Baltimore is the nonprofit that we are stewards of the house. Our organization was created to fund, maintain, and interpret The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. The second part of our mission is to celebrate the legacy of one of Baltimore's most famous residents. This becomes a bit of a complicated proposition at times. Partly because of the just a vast commercialization of Poe's work and to people's interest in Poe. And then also Poe's legacy is a bit complicated, the man, very interesting man. Very interesting myth. And the museum gets a lot of funny business. Poe folk are very interesting people. Including myself. So part of our job at the museum is to debunk some of the public's, sort of, misunderstanding about Poe. You'll see in this list, that again get very pernicious and this is a very learned crowds, so you may be more educated on Poe's true history. But a lot of the things that we got from visitors to the museum, Poe was a drunk. Poe died in the streets. He abused his child bride. He was insane and wrote only about his own darkness. And while there may be elements of truth and unfortunate circumstance in some of these claims, much of this is untrue. And so our job is to provide context, to explain. But then also see that Poe's legacy really is the thing that endures beyond these misunderstandings about Poe. So I won't go into an entire biography of Poe. But it is true that Poe's life as a whole was undeniably tragic. You've got that he was orphaned and separated from his siblings in early childhood. Suffered crushing poverty and bankruptcy. Eventually cut off from his foster family. Suffered from different shadow illnesses and addiction. But not to the degree that is espoused by popular culture. And then he did meet a poor end in the unmarked grave in Baltimore. But he was far from unknown in his day. He made his bones early in his career as a critic and an editor. He was actually, sort of, infamous for being, sort of, vicious to some of his writing colleagues and other writers of the day. You know, his style was known as a Tomahawk style. But he was an active contributor to the publications that employed him. And then he did achieve popular frame with The Raven in 1845. Not necessarily money, but certainly fame. His most famous pieces are dark . But this isn't the sum of Poe's writing. And this hyper focus on this aspect, the darkness, the horror, these kinds of things, as much as these things are fun , they do overshadow a portrait of Poe as a man. This is a man who was highly intelligent. Very funny. Intellectual. He could be even arrogant at times. But then did have strong ideas about the form of arts, the form of writing, how important different aspects of this work. He found nobility in this work. He really believed in this work. And so his influence upon literature is recognized and revered both here at home but then abroad. He really did influence world literature. And you're all in here because of that influence. So unfortunately, the confluence of a tragic life persona in writing, the spurious obituary and biography written upon his death, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, and evermore sensational accounts by friends and even his doctor. Even his doctor went on tour later, sort of, talking about the last days of Poe. All of this has the makings of infamy. Even as it has immortality. So this is a complicated legacy. And it's fun for historians sometimes to be able to dive into this stuff. And so when people come to Poe House and see a very humble, a 620 square-foot house in the heart of West Baltimore, people are very surprised that such greatness could come from a very humble beginning. But that is one of the truly beautiful things about working at a Poe House. And one of the things I relish even as, like, I love to be that, well, actually, about Poe. I'm that person. [Inaudible]. Well, actually -- But what this means everything is derivative. And I picked it some quotes from some of the figures that you mentioned that you have a true appreciation for Poe. But that sort of demonstrate that Poe is in every aspect of artistic culture. It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe stories so much that I begin to make suspense films. Alfred Hitchcock. Poe is the first writer to write about main characters who are bad guys, or who are mad guys. And those are some of my favorite stories. Stephen King. So Poe's economy is long and popular. And still blooming. You have adaptations of his work in every medium of art. Adaptations in original works in every genre of writing. Especially this time of year on this sort of Gothic and horror associations, sort of, help our ticket sales, of course, at the house. But then also Poe is very much in the consciousness around this time of year. And so you're spoiled for choice when it comes to vendors or get your Poe fix, get your Poe things this, kind of, and Poe in arts. And so not to mention independent artists, new generation of independent artists and then popular culture adapting Poe and are inspired by Pope. But we also consider the debt that Mystery fiction owes to Poe. Poe is the father of detective fiction. And the locked door mystery. And to demonstrate how important this is, where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So that tells you the true definite impacts of any mystery story, the modern genre that we see today. Any procedural, police procedural, any detectives you see on TV who's trying to use logic to solve crimes, like, this begins in the American tradition with Poe. What's interesting is that Poe has graduated to a character in works inspired by him. And you start to see that mid-century. But it goes beyond biography. Fictional reenactments, even operas about Poe's life. Pure affection inspired by either Poe or other historical figures, part of his life. Some wonderful novels that you can come and ask me about feature Poe as a character. Even Poe's wife as a character, which can be a lot of fun. And then Poe's likeness is highly commercial. If anybody -- Somebody's wearing Poe's socks. Anybody else wearing an article of clothing with Poe's face. It's such a recognizable mustache and a figure. And what also aides in this is that Poe's death is still a mystery. And so it inspires conspiracy theories, paranormal research, and of course tourism. But this can get again very complicated. Because while Poe is a very fun figure as a counterculture hero, a lot of people who maybe will give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe don't know that truth is as strange as fiction. A lot of people capitalize on the negative or poorly understood portrayal of Poe as this character. Substance abuse, or mental illness, wanting to claim that his art came out of being drunk or his art came out of being dark. And he was insane, this kind of thing. These kind of impressions lend themselves to sort of a genre, sort of a sub-genre of adaptations that we see that art is art. And everybody has their taste and everything is fine. However, for the historian our job is to, kind of, debunk this a little bit. And it's much more fun to see the work that really celebrates Poe's legacy, the good and the bad, really tells the truth about Poe. Rather than just commercializing a nefarious reputation. So I include this picture when I give talks just to sort of give you a sense of, like, how pervasive some of the myths about Poe are. This is a tavern in the heart of Fell's Point in Baltimore. And there's, like, a yellow arrow pointing to a trashcan. When I first came to Baltimore, again, Poe enthusiast I have some, sort of, ideas about Poe, his history. I took my husband on a ghost tour of Fell's Point. And the tour guide was really selling it, because you walked through Fell's Points, lots of cobblestones in the streets, and some very old buildings, and it's just a lot of fun. However, the tour guide was really selling it, said the, this was the tavern that was Poe's last stop. And this spot in the street right where this trashcan is where he was found in the street, and where he died. And we were, like, oh, no, there's a trashcan there. And he says, well, Poe was so hated in his life, was so obscure [phonetic], that they just put a trashcan there to show their contempt for Poe. And none of that's true. But my friends and I, my husband and I have this really great picture posing in front of this stupid trashcan. It's so insane that we were in Baltimore and did this. So everybody commits these sins, and kind of falls for it sometimes. But it's important to know Poe's history. And, yes, his death is still a mystery. And, no, we will not dig him up for you. Okay. So where this becomes an issue for a group, especially when we are preserving our mission in a deluge of commercial opportunity and you exit through the gift shop of the Poe house . This is sort of a little mini picture of Poe Hose. And as you can see, Poe's likeness. Lots of fun stuff. Poe things. And we do in braces. And I love to go visit the gift shop in Richmond. I love to go visit the gift shop in Philadelphia. You can see Poe's houses. And just go get Poe things. And all of that is just a very fun. But as a site, we are one of four remaining Poe sites that are significant to some aspect of Poe's history. Lots of places celebrate Poe. There is a really great to Poe tavern in South Carolina you can go get a Cask of Amontillado burger with a fried egg on it, and it's really, really good. But there are very few remaining Poe sites. And it is incumbent upon us to share items or artistic works that preserve or celebrate Poe's legacy. Again, we don't have to, like, pretend any rosy things about him, but we do want to tell the truth. And we want to do no harm. Okay. So with the light of that, Poe Baltimore created the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival Item Awards. We just had this a couple of weeks ago. And the awards, some are actually served [phonetic] on our board for the Saturday Visitor Awards. And we have a medal that we give for the award, because it's all Baltimore and we love Michael Phelps. I love Michael Phelps and I hope he knows that we chose a medal to honor him as well. But the Saturday Visitor Awards are a new honor presented by Poe Baltimore recognizing Edgar Allan Poe's continuing legacy in the arts and literature around the world . And I will show at least just one of our videos because I'm almost out of time. ^M00:40:46 [ Music ] ^M00:41:45 I did have a second video to show you guys. But I'll skip through those. But just to point out that we are having Saturday Visitor Awards open call for entries. We'll open again on Poe's birthday in 2020, today's the 19th so -- Let me see if I can skip through this real quick. Alright. And so recommended reading. I do recommend Edgar A. Poe Mournful Never-ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman. It's one of the more approachable biographies if anybody's interested in delving a little bit further. Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore by David Gaylin, who is the president of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. And then EAPOE.org and ProBaltimore.org for more information. Okay. Thank you. ^M00:42:24 ^M00:42:35 >> Jaylen Johnson: Thank you. Thanks, Enrica. That was great. And we heard earlier about Poe's fight for copyright protection. But now Poe's works are free for all to use and to be inspired by. Because of an important part of the copyright lifecycle entry into the public domain. Each work is covered by a limited term of copyright protection. Works created today generally last for the life of the author plus 70 years. But during Poe's time, copyright consisted of an initial term followed by a renewal term. The public domain includes not only formally copyright protected works, but also federal government works and building blocks of knowledge and creativity, such as ideas, facts, processes, and systems. Using the public domain ensures our cultural legacy develops and moves forward and grows as it's renewed for the next generation. Our next speaker Thad Ciechanowski, is owner of Dijit Media and producer of Poe Movies. As the creator behind Poe Movies, he strives to bring to life Poe's classic short stories and poems to help plant the seeds of interest in the next generation. And spark a dialogue between students and educators. Thad will provide the filmmakers' perspective. And explain how Poe's works and the public domain inspire him to create new works. Let's welcome Thad. ^M00:44:08 ^M00:44:12 >> Thad Ciechanowski: Thank you. Okay. We are going to talk about this fun word for a little while. Inspiration. So what is it? Where does it come from? A lot of times you hear people say that it's a mystery, that it comes from nowhere, that it's a spark of spontaneity. But we all have it. We all are inspired by something. You know, a loss of a loved one, a movie we saw, the socks you have on, comes from a lot of places. So we're going to talk about, today specifically we're going to talk about some things that inspired me to make these films. We're going to start with the copyright king himself. So this quote I think is very, very true. It's kind of what it is. Inspiration part is critical, and the work is critical as well. They both share an equal part and importance, however, there's more perspiration than inspiration. However, we are only going to talk about that one percent today. Because we don't have all day to be here. So to tell you a little about myself and the entity that I represent. So we call ourselves Poe Movies. I say we because I'm representing it, but it's really a lot of people that do a lot of work in this. So Poe Movies is an organization that has its mission to make the works of Edgar Allan Poe into short films that are for schools. They are educational in nature. They come with lesson plans. They come with worksheets. We try to keep it up to spec with current educational standards. And really our goal is to just bring Poe to the world of kids, to help people grow up and understand Poe and grasp some of the difficult concepts that are in there in a way that you can't really do outside of film. So our first film was The Cask of Amontillado drawing in the public domain, by the way. And I'm going to take you back a little bit to my 12th grade English class with a guy by the name of Ralph Holzer. So it was my 12th grade English teacher, he taught English lit. And he would talk about Shakespeare, and we would read poems from Browning. And we would talk about it, like, it was just so relevant, and he got so into it. And I was kind of a goofball, kind of a class clown. And he kind of catered to me and kind of brought me along in the literature world. Kind of made me appreciate poetry and story and form. And I learned a really, really important lesson is that the people in these stories from antiquity are no different than the people now. The struggles that we face in our life are the same struggles that Shakespeare saw, that Chaucer saw, that Poe saw. So I kind of had that perspective. And I remembered two years earlier when I read The Cask from Amontillado from my American literature class, that would be really cool film to make because it, kind of, tripped me out. The guy -- I'm assuming I don't have to explain that the Cask from Amontillado is about a guy being buried alive. So that would be a trippy film. So a few years later a friend of mine, Jeff Garten, who is the director of photography on these films, said, hey I got this really good camera. I got a new camera, and it's the camera they use in, like, feature films and things like that. And he said, let me know if you want to make a film. So right away I was, like, oh, man, wow, Cask from Amontillado. So we set out to write it. We wrote script. Got together on a shoestring budget, I mean, shoestring. And we kind of put it together. We're going to play some clips from the films, because that's what I do. So we might as well play some video clips from it. So is that what's next? Yes. So here's a clip. And I want to talk a little bit about some of the inspirations for this. So one of those would be the Harry Clark. The other one would be my 12th grade English class. And another one would be, oddly enough, Mozart. So there's a scene in the Cask from Amontillado where Fortunato is the guy who's buried alive is chained up. And he's struggling. He's trying to get out of his chains. But he can't because he's stuck. He's chained up in a wall. And he's getting bricked up alive. So Montresor, the antagonist of the film, or protagonist, I guess, depending on how you look at it, he's sort of calmly just, kind of, relaxes in the stories. In the film I thought wouldn't it be cool if we had Marriage of Figaro playing. It's more like a celebration. So I'm just going to play that clip for you real quick. ^M00:48:51 [ Music ] ^M00:49:35 >> Almost funny. It's about a guy getting buried alive. But head some chuckles, you know, so that's what we, kind of, wanted to do. As you know, Chris and Enrica mentioned, Poe actually had a really good sense of humor. Most people just know him for the macabre. But I would imagine he was pretty funny from some of the things I've heard. This film went on to do really good. It won an Emmy for best educational program. We're really proud of that. And it made it in schools. So there's schools that -- And I've met students who've said they liked it. And that was a pretty cool feeling. So to touch on inspiration for this film, like I said, that one percent, that mystery, where does that come from? It's not all, I don't necessarily think of it as a moment of spontaneity. I, kind of, think of it as, well, I read Edgar Allen Poe. I had a 12th grade English teacher who mattered. And Mozart. Who could go wrong, right? So we had this film, kind of, as a success. We decided let's make another one. So we set out to make the Raven. So one of the problems with Poe as Enrica had mentioned is that there are so many derivative works. There's no shortage of it. Just go on YouTube and type in the Cask from Amontillado. Type in The Raven. And you might get some football stuffs for the Ravens. But you just get so many things. And I always felt like it was just not enough. It didn't really, they weren't really Poe's stories. So when we made the Raven we were, like, okay, well, how are we going to make a poem into a film? Where do they stand? Where's the window? Where's the door. What in the name of sweet mother Earth is a pallid bust of Pallas? We don't know. So we did different things. We looked at the Dore engravings, which are over there. That's a cool one. And we tried to find inspiration. We found out inspiration from another unlikely source. So has anyone ever watched The Simpsons? You guys have probably all seen the Treehouse of Horror, right? So I wanted to play that clip, but since we're at a copyright event, couldn't get away with it here. Tried, didn't work. So what we did was we wanted to take that Simpsons story and make The Raven serious. A serious version of that. So not funny. So one of the differences between drama and comedy is the length. Comedy happens fast. Drama takes a long time. So there's a scene in The Simpsons that's a counterpart to the scene I'm about to show you. And the scene that I play was about twice as long as the Simpsons'. So here's a clip from our film, The Raven. ^M00:52:13 ^M00:52:23 >> Back into the chamber turning. All my soul within me burning. Soon again I heard a tapping. Something louder than before. Surely, said I, surely that's something at my window lattice. Let me see. Then what thereat is and this mystery explore. Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore. ^M00:52:52 [ Music ] ^M00:53:12 Just the wind and nothing more. Open here I flung the shutter. When with many a flirt and flutter in there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. >> So that was part of our film The Raven. So it was literally the Raven. We read the poem. And it was interesting figuring out the geography of the room and everything like that. That film went on to win an Emmy as well. It also got two nominations for best editing and best music. So we were -- Original music. We were really proud of Ryan Will Stuart. I'm going to give him a plug, he was the composer. So if we're gonna, kind of, look back we can say where did that inspiration, where did that magic come from? Well, three, and there's more than this, I'm just making three because it's a nice, neat number for a 10 minute presentation. So The Simpsons inspired us. Gustave Dore. And, of course, Edgar Allen Poe inspired us to make the Raven. That's where that magic came from. The rest of it was work. Everybody has a good idea. Everybody can do everything. The difference is the work. There's no shortcut. There's no hacks. There's just the work. And that's anything, not just films or art. So this being a success we're, like, we gotta make another one. We have thing going here. So the next film up is The Tell-Tale heart. And here we are with Harry Clark once again providing us with artistic inspiration. So with The Tell-Tale Heart a director who I once, kind of, mentored me a little bit long time said that every film you make needs to have some sort of an edge to it Some kind of a grabber. Almost a hook, but not in a cheap, cheesy way. So when exploring what to do with The Tell-Tale Heart, we thought, well, like, what if the protagonist of the film what if it's a female? You know, would that work? Is that going to be contradictory to our mission to keep the story as Edgar Allen Poe's story? So I reached out to one of the people who knows more about Poe than anyone, Mr. Chris Semtner over here. And he thought it was okay. And so we asked and we were like, okay, well, cool. So we asked a few other people around in the Poe the world. And everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. So we decided to draw inspiration from that. Some of those inspirations. I should say we didn't make this film yet. So we're not going to see any clips today. But some of those inspirations are cases of schizophrenia. So I read some books about schizophrenia. I read some accounts. I watched YouTube clips of what it's like to have schizophrenia. There's a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper about a woman with schizophrenia and her experiences when she looks at a yellow wallpaper. It's, kind of, interesting, you know, from that perspective. Looked at female serial killers. We watched movies like Psycho, Monster with Charlize Theron, and the Exorcist series. There's a couple of scenes in the exorcist that, kind of, I thought reminded me of The Tell-Tale Heart. And of course, Edgar Allen Poe, always drawing inspiration when you're making a film based on Edgar Allen Poe's stories so -- So I just want thank you all for coming and hearing us speak. Want to thank the other speakers, Enrica and Chris, who were great. It's very humbling to be in the presence of an environment like this. And that's it. That concludes the presentation. ^M00:56:45 ^M00:56:53 >> Jaylen Johnson: Okay. Thank you, Thad. And thank you to all of our speakers, who I would like to join me on stage for a very brief question-and-answer session. We only have time for just a couple. So do we have any questions from the audience from our speakers? Yes. >> This is a question for Chris. I'd like to know whether Mr. Griswold ever got his comeuppance in his life. >> Chris Semtner: Oh, yeah. Well, after Poe's death -- Well, even before Poe's death, Griswold lost two wives. One of them she died early. But this second one he had a whole protracted legal fight with her. Turns out that he was going to abandon her, so he wanted her to sign a document that said basically that she had abandoned him and he could keep his daughter by his first wife in exchange. And she said, no. So she fought him in court. And so that was a legal battle that took a toll on him. And then later I think his third wife just ended up abandoning. So that worked out well. And then after he died he was going to have his library sold to give him a nice awesome monument. And his kids just left them in this receiving tomb for something, like, eight years before they finally got around to burying him. >> Jaylen Johnson: We may have -- >> [Inaudible] say he was chained up in a wall somewhere. >> Chris Semtner: No. >> Jaylen Johnson: We have time for just one more question. Yes, Sir. >> How in fact did Poe die? Enrica, Enrica first. >> Enrica Jang: How did Poe die? Still a mystery to this day. I do invite you to visit the Edgar Allen Poe Society Baltimore Society website. And they have a page devoted to the very many, many theories of Poe's death. And what's fun about each of those theories is there's, like, some piece of truth that people, kind of, [inaudible] on to. And try to extrapolate that kind of thing. But they do spend the most time on the top three theories. And so they explore each of the top three with the most support. So definitely visit the website and you'll see, you'll read a little bit more about that. >> Chris Semtner: The strange thing was he was passing from Richmond to New York. He had to go to New York to pick up his aunt and bring her back down to Richmond to get married. And his new wife was going to have the aunt live with them in their house. And she was cool with it already. But Poe was going to stop in Baltimore where he was going to catch a train to take him to Philadelphia. Philadelphia he has a book of poetry that editing assignment would pay for the whole trip And then after he left Richmond, he disappeared for five days. He turned up in Baltimore semi-conscious dressed in someone else's clothes at a polling place on election day. So people thought, oh, he's being cooped. And cooping was where political gangs would find somebody from out of town that nobody would miss, beat him up, get him drunk, use him as a repeat voter. Just change their clothes each time, and have them vote over and over again. And from there Poe spent in his last four days at a hospital delirious, in and out of consciousness, talking to shadows on the wall, not making any sense. But fortunately he was in a good hospital. He had a new attending physician. And they offered him the best medical care available at the time. They offered him some whiskey. But when he turned that down, they were fresh out of ideas. They gave him some beef stew and water, some ice cube on his mouth. And there's a good source of information, a letter that the doctor wrote a month after Poe's death describing a lot of Poe's symptoms. But the death certificate is lost official. The official mortality statistics for Baltimore say he died of phrenitis, which means roughly inflammation of the brain. So that could be, what, meningitis, encephalitis, tuberculosis meningitis. There's just different theories. If he died today in the hospital we'd probably know what killed him. But after he died, his attending physician, you mentioned, he hit the road giving lectures about Poe's death. The man who took him to the hospital gave lectures about Poe's death. The editor of a magazine back in Richmond gave lectures about Poe's death. And they are all competing to see who had the death theory. And if you go visit the Poe Museum in Richmond, we've got a wall with 26 different theories, published theories about how Poe might have died. So -- >> Enrica Jang: But, no, we won't dig him up. >> Chris Semtner: And they have tested his hair. I think UVA's tested some hair. I think maybe, what, Johns Hopkins might have tested some hair. And it was inconclusive. He had high heavy metal levels, but not enough to have caused his death. And his diet looked like it was pretty good in the last few months of his life. This is hair that was cut from his head day after he died. So pretty good record of what he was doing last in the last few months of his life. And it just, that didn't tell us. So you're up. >> Thad Ciechanowski: Usually when people ask me I will just say the cooping theory. And if they have an interest level I'll go into a little more. If they're, like, oh, then I just move on. And that's okay. That's good enough for you. I don't think I can give a better answer than these two. But that's usually what I go with because cooping 'cause it's arbitrary. And really we're probably never going to find out because we don't have a time machine or anything like that. So I always thought the cooping looked kind of weird because it was election day. But I know there's a lot of reasons why it might not be that, that I guess didn't fit. But usually I say it's a mystery, but a lot of people think it was cooping, you know? >> Well, appropriately enough [inaudible]. >> Thad Ciechanowski: Oddly. His life story is actually just as interesting as rest of the stories, too. It's fascinating. >> Jaylen Johnson: Well, thank you to all of our speakers. Thank you very much. Let's give them all a round of applause. And thank you all for joining us as we explored the connection between copyright and Edgar Allen Poe. Before you leave, please be sure to stop at the display area over tehre and see some of the Poe items from the library's collections. Thank you all.