I first encountered the phrase The Domain of Arnheim upon viewing with the usual admixture of wonderment and perplexity the painting of that name by René Magritte. The ice-capped, frigid mountains in the distance conjured the domain of some mythic Nordic hero, with the menacing eagle his heraldic symbol. With great surprise I discovered it was inspired by a short story of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe. This surprise was compounded when I read the story, quite unlike any story by Poe that I had read. Devoid of any Gothic elements or sudden intrusions of horror, it is Poe’s paean to the power of art and the poetic imagination. A nouveau-riche millionaire, Ellison, wishes to create the perfect landscape with novel forms of beauty exemplifying “supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. …no such combination of scenery exists as the painter of genius may produce”. Besides beauty and magnificence, one of the qualities of Ellison’s landscape should be strangeness. As the story unfolds, the intoxicating landscape, with its lush verdure and opulent colors, is entered on a body of water, through a magnificent gate. Some readers have commented on what they perceive to be the funereal aspect of this story, the boat traveling along a romanticized version of the River Styx.
What is striking in this story, and in Poe’s other work, is the beauty and expressiveness of his baroque prose. If you think you know Poe’s fiction well, I suggest you read this story for a different perspective.
in Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, The Library of America, 1984
A Personal Anthology 