The Divine Tragedy: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Conqueror Worm"

With "The Conqueror Worm," Edgar Allan Poe fastens upon what purports to be an obvious metaphor for the bleak arc of human existence: a tragedy. From the fundamental features of a theatrical experience (actors, audience), to supplemental details such as scenery and soundtrack, every element lends itself neatly to the comparison: man's life is a play, with one inevitable conclusion. And true to form, Poe plants his five-act poem firmly in gothic territory; despair and desolation sink us ever deeper until we reach the macabre melee of the finale. 

There is, however, a gleam behind the gloom--a grotesque delight in the setting of this melancholic melodrama. For surfacing alongside the pure horror of this production is an insistence on entertainment value, and on the value of entertainment. From the stylized, almost vaudevillian performance of the "mimes" and the hyperbolic reactions of the heavens to the overall emphasis on the stagy exhibitionism of the scene, this tragedy models the very essence of theatricality. The poem also indulges in a sort of gleeful sadism: the plight of man provides convenient cathartic release for God and His angels. Pain, suffering, and death are predetermined features on the playbill of mortal life; those at a remove, however, are free to identify this helplessness as so much sport. And since the reader is (by virtue of her humanity) among the cast of victims of this "Conqueror Worm," this celestial audience serves as a vicarious form of enjoyment. Ironically, it is one that makes the reader forget it is indeed she providing the original source of spectacle. We are thus implicated in Poe's poem by way of our morbid fascination with the drama of our own lives.

Indeed, we are summarily summoned to this pageant with the call, "Lo! 'tis a gala night." The speaker is like an emcee ushering us in, beckoning us to bear witness to what promises to be an exposition of great import. This is a singular event among the "lonesome latter years," a sort of swan song which every man must enact, must endure as the now-past course of his life plays out before (and through) him. The mood established by these first lines if one of, if not mirth (as the ironic "gala" would imply), then hushed solemnity, achieved in part by the forced slowing down of the alliterative "I" sound. We are being gently paced by the speaker, placed within a steady rhythm further reflected in the emerging ABABCBCB rhyme scheme. This uncomplicated rhyme, set within the bounds of both short lines and regular, eight-line stanzas, draws the reader in as if to the chanting of a lullaby. Of course, being a Poe lullaby, death will usurp sleep in the final, crucial moment.

For now though, we have been invited to join the attendant "angel throng" as they sit and watch this drama unfold. A curiously circular voyeurism surfaces: the (human) reader watches the angels who watch, in turn, humankind. In other words, the audience is the lens through which the reader views (and judges) herself. What is viewed is both the "play of hopes and fears" or, the performance of these desires and impulses, and the playing upon them--the perversion and disabusing of them. The dichotomy of "hopes" and "fears" in a thespian vein invokes the tragedy masks, a touch of costume--and of masquerade--first anticipated by the "bewinged, bedight," veiled angels of a few lines prior. That these angels are indeed "drowned" in tears captures the histrionic tension of the scene; the spectators are here themselves the spectacle. There is even a musical accompaniment to this life-recital: an "orchestra" which "breathes fitfully." These staccato orchestral movements are the movements of existence--the lesser and greater events of a human life. Like the swelling and fading of musical orchestration, these chapters are the experiences upon which Man rises, crests, and falls in the course of his lifetime. And the "music of the spheres" is the cosmic score to which this life is set. The spheres of heaven have conceived and penned these harmonies (and discords) long before they were staged on this "gala night."

Indeed, the idea of predestination seems a very ballast to the poem. Though exactly what master agency bears responsibility is unclear. Poe implicates both God and Fate, but there is also some question as to whether Man himself has a hand in his own Tarot deck. For certainly, Man's actions must determine the changing background "scenery" of his own life. Moving from decision "a" to to decision "b" will, regardless of puppet strings, affect the course of his life. Or, are men blindly following some pre-scripted, five-act program written by destiny and directed by God? Are "a," "b," and everything through to "z" just unavoidable stops on a pre-charted map? Whether Man can justifiably claim victimization hinges on the interpretation of "vast formless things." If these "things" are the forces of Fortune and Fate, then yes: men, the "mimes," are nothing more than "mere puppets" cast in God's image (and cast in this tragic production). In keeping with this argument, they are but a collection of marionettes, as tethered to the whims of destiny as the scenery that shifts "to and fro" behind them. 

Such a reading suggests a capriciousness so strong it borders on malice. If however, the "vast formless things" doing the "bidding" are in fact Man's own impulses and desires which he chases "hither and thither" in his dogged, if naive, assertion of self-determination...then mankind is victim to no one but himself. The "invisible woe" stands alone as its own line, like a solitary and impulsive curse. It is dispersed like poison from the flapping "condor wings" which themselves present a similar conundrum. If these wings belong to Fate, then the woe must be the noisome by-products of that agency: the ineluctable intangibles of pain and suffering. If, however, Poe is insinuating a more active role for Man, then the "invisible woe" is the despair and desolation born of self-induced failure and disappointment. In either cases, the visualization of the massive animal provides both an apt and grandly realized anti-hero to that character yet to make its entrance: the "Conqueror Worm." For of course, birds in general feast on worms, and condors feast on carrion--on death itself (which is what the Conqueror Worm is). 

Launching us wildly into the next stanza is the expository declaration, "That motley drama--oh be sure / It shall not be forgot!" Framed within the tragedy metaphor, the line suggests the speaker as a sort of chorus figure, pronouncing on events within the dramaturgical narrative. Indeed, the line feels like the speaker is verbalizing, what with this dramatic pause (the dash) and his emphatic flourish (the exclamation point). This third "act" depicts the "motley drama" for what it is: pure chaos. Indeed, the very word "motley" mirrors the vivid and varied visuals to follow: "phantom," "crowd," "circle," "madness," "sin," and "horror." With these images,  Poe has created a terrifying and thrilling Dante-esque mood of confusion. This turbulence of tone is followed quickly by violent action itself. The "phantom" of life--unreachable, untenable ghost of immortality--it is chased by a crowd that can never catch it. In the reality of mortal life, it is an unreality, a teasing presence the pursuit of which will be forever fruitless. "Through a circle that ever returneth in / To the selfsame spot" invokes a bewildering, centrifugal force--a vacuum which Man is helpless to escape. And at the epicenter of this vortex lies nothing but "much...madness" and "more...sin," the only sure companions in the tragedy of life. "And horror the soul of the plot" invites a number of readings, thanks both to auditory rhyme and the double entendre: horror is the essence of this play, horror is the essence of man's lot in life, horror is the only ("soul" = "sole") element of this play (or Man's lot in life), and finally (and that which best anticipates the coming lines), horror is the essence (and only element of the grave. 

And just when things seem like they couldn't get any cheerier, enter stage right, the four-act (non) surprise: the "crawling shape" of a "blood-red thing." This is the yet-to-be-formally-introduced Conqueror Worm: literally, the corpse-eating maggot to which all men must eventually succumb. Abstractedly, it is death itself; it "intrudes" most unwelcome upon Man, and rends his livelihood in its "vermin fangs." The "mortal pangs" and "human gore" are both the literal death-throes and tangible decay of a man, as well as the generalized grief and desolation left in death's wake. Poe now brings the melodrama of the play-within-a-poem to a fever pitch. The repetitive "It writhes!--it writhes!" ratchets up the tension and seems to suggest that the speaker has a greater proximity to the action than a typical poetic narrative allows for. We can almost see him, just offstage, recoiling in horror as the blood splashes his coattails. Also suddenly present again are the (still) sobbing seraphs, who have been notably absent (or at least, significantly quiet) for several lines. The angels make a seventh-inning reappearance, just in time to catch the climax and finale of Man's life. Presumably, this is to provide a timely escort for the miserable "soul of the plot." But the seraphs are also there to bear witness to the greater tragedy: The Fall of Man, the macrocosm to this play's microcosm, and that which made it possible (read: necessary) in the first place. In other words, the angels are there to ratify God's treaty with man, again, and again, and again...

So now it is done. Our speaker, again assuming the role of chorus figure, steps forward and cries, "Out--out are the lights--out all!"--a performative utterance in this, a performative setting. He calls for darkness ("Out!") and hereby is darkness manifest ("out are the lights--out all!"). It is an inversion of God's original call for light. Mankind dies, dropping in a "quivering" heap as his last energies are spent. A curtain to each player "comes down with the rush of a storm," simultaneously hiding and washing away the madness, the sin--the horror that is the life of Man. The angels, "pallid and wan" with the effort of compassion and pity, are free to arise and unveil. They no longer need to shield themselves from the taint of mortality--of human imperfection. The can now "affirm" the ritual of what they've seen; they will return to the heaves and assure God that just as this scenario has played out for time unfold, so it continues to. This affirmation--that all is right in the relation of Man to God--should be the most sacred of moments. But for Poe, it is the blackest of moments; it is curtain call for the Conqueror Worm. Death, destruction, decay, and despair trump all; theirs is the ultimate reality, and thus are they privileged with the tragedy's final bow. 

Reading Poe is like looking at humanity under the harshest of bright lights; every imperfection otherwise hidden by the mercy of obscurity comes suddenly, blazingly into view. Darkness itself comes to light. But just as a too-bright beam produces a glare that may result in an inaccurate picture, so does the heavy-handed gothic-ness of Poe's work sometimes overshadow--or at least complicate--a full reading. There are, if not explicit comical elements, glimmers of something else. Call it a wicked, winking smile. Poe engages and terrifies, but he never fails to entertain. And that tipping of the hate never seems more pronounced than in the intensely macabre and melodramatic "The Conqueror Worm." For while the tragedy that is Man's life is certainly a hellish spectacle, it is also the greatest show on earth. And if "circus" finds its root in the Greek "kirkos," or ring, it would seem that Poe has created a circus ring worthy of appending to the circles of The Inferno. A divine comedy, after all.