Talk:Thomas Holley Chivers

Recent edits
Regarding recent edits by anonymous IP 59.171.25.109... those contributions are great and may be accurate, but the material you changed was already sourced. It made it look like that information came from the sources that are cited; it's not. If you have other sources that say different things, add that stuff and include the source. I'm actually kinda excited to hear that you have that publication and would love to see it incorporated into this article! I've reverted your edits just so that the information in this article can remain verifiable by the sources already given. Does that make sense? --Midnightdreary 12:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thinking about it further, what this article really lacks is information about Chivers's "Life of Poe" and his defenses of him after Poe's death. Adding that would make it more suitable to change the word "enemy" in the intro to "a defender of the late poet's reputation" or whatever you had it as. --Midnightdreary 13:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Years ago I edited an edition of The Lost Pleiad. Not sure why you deleted the standard S. Foster Damon refs, Search after Truth and the other information, which is entirely accurate, though I see your point about the already sourced material. As the author of this Wiki page, it's up to you to check out these books and recast this page so that it tells the truth. As it is now, it doesn't. But let's get this clear: you are mistaken in that Chivers was never Poe's enemy; Rufus Griswold was--for some unknown reason--the person who attempted to mutilate Poe's legacy after his death, not Chivers. Sorry if this sounds too dogmatic but if you check the facts about Chivers you'll see that the whole tack of this and the "Did you know" page is absolutely off. God knows how many jr. high students are spouting this nonsense now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.171.25.109 (talk) 11:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I actually grabbed a copy of Chivers's "Life of Poe" just yesterday. The information that is currently in this article is fully sourced and accurate based on those sources - so I'm not sure why the whole tack of this page is absolutely off (sounds a bit extreme, unless you're saying that Silverman, Meyers, Kennedy, and Moss are all completely wrong). But, with that said, I will go into this new source and expand further. Don't feel the need to lecture me on the history of Poe and Griswold; I'm sure I can keep up with you just fine. Further, I doubt that many junior high students are spouting this "nonsense" as I can't really believe much Chivers studies still exist, let alone in junior high. Anyway, if there is information I removed which is worth re-entering, go for it - but properly cite this additional information separately from what's already sourced (you can see the Wiki-mark-up based on what's already sourced if you don't know the method here). --Midnightdreary 13:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Chivers was never an enemy of Poe. That's the lecture. Please check the S. Foster Damon. This is not a contest about keeping up. It's just keeping accurate, right? That's what this project is all about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.171.25.109 (talk) 16:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, please make sure to indicate that Chivers' offer to support Poe was given THE YEAR BEFORE POE DIED, and not early in the Poe-Chivers relationhip as you seem to imply. This is bourn out in Chivers' collected letters, which are also available for your inspection in book form at any college library, and is also indicated in S. Foster Damon.

Damon is the standard source for Chivers. After him there's Charles Henry Watts' Thomas Holley Chivers; His Literary Career and His Poetry (University of Georgia Press, 1956).

There is also some question about the abuse business you mention early on in the article, after you tell us that Chivers was Poe's enemy. Unless some new letters have been uncovered regarding Chivers and his first wife to throw definite light on what happened between them, I would not use the word abuse. Indeed, the implication was not abuse but a possible flirtation between Chivers' young cousin and someone else. The word abuse--implying some form of domestic violence--is not indicated by the surviving letters.

Please go back to the original sources and you'll see. Good luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.171.25.109 (talk) 16:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, but in the Chivers' Life of Poe book, if you read it carefully, you'll see that the scholarly introduction sets out the whole idea that Chivers was not Poe's enemy, but someone attempting to answer Griswold's recriminations. So apprently you've laid your hands on the book, but you haven't read the introduction.

Also, by stating at the get-go that Chivers was Poe's enemy, you've started the article off with an untruth. That's why the page is "off." Please don't underestimate Jr. High School students, but more than that, please don't aid in spreading untruths through the agency of the Wikipedia. Chivers used to be a project of mine. He was one of the first advocates of Shelley in America, and his sonic experiments in Eonchs of Ruby--designed to replicate the speech of Angels which he encountered in his Swedenborgian reveries--are some of the earliest attempts at "sound poetry" in American literature. He also used African-American chanting and speech-rhythms in some of his "songs"--so he was an early ethnographer as well. So actually, this eccentric Georgian doctor (it was rumored that he kept one of his dead daughters in a sealed glass casket full of alcohol) was quite advanced in his literary experiments. to have him reduced to "an enemy of Poe" when scads of information out there indicate just the opposite is rather much.

On the other hand, and to the eternal negative: Chivers was a slave-owner. That's a whole different subject.


 * Well, I'm not sure where you think these sources came from if they weren't used by me to begin with. I mean, be careful saying that I'm the one saying anything about Chivers (i.e. "the abuse business you mention earlier" and "as you seem to imply") - it all comes from these listed sources, not me personally. I have never said to you that I believed that Chivers and Poe were enemies; merely that sources I have found suggest it. You certainly wound me with this line: So apprently you've laid your hands on the book, but you haven't read the introduction. You'll pardon me for picking up the book less than 24 hours ago, having a need for 8 hours of sleep, then having the audacity to go to work before reading the book - as I said, it's worth taking a look at this source, but I do need some time to get around to it. Please be kind and assume good faith, as I am with you. In other words, I am not purposefully destroying Chivers life and work, nor am I purposefully adding contentious or incorrect information. I'll do my best to check, re-check, and confirm all while I'm juggling other things. And, again, remember you're welcome to edit this too: just make sure to use in-line citations in a similar format as what I was using. Thanks for talking about this; it's worth being informed of these kinds of problems and discrepancies. --Midnightdreary 18:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Continuing discussion
Feel free to ignore what I wrote earlier today. Based on suggestions from the anonymous IP above, I've gone back to my original sources and confirmed them all to be true. I've also compared the additions from the anonymous editor and, I believe, came to a solid compromise. Any changes to the originally sourced materials have not been restored. New information, however, especially info relating to Chivers's defense of Poe, has been restored - but labeled as in need of citations. My assumption is that confirming this information with in-line citations will not be difficult, and I will do some searching myself. It seems to me the discussion was based on only three things: 1) New information could not be spliced into information already sourced as it dishonestly presents that information as being from those sources. 2.) New information should not be added without citations - though, with that said, the information is too important and should stay as is until sources are added ex post facto. 3.) The real discussion is based on one word: "enemy." That word and the assertion behind it are not supported in the current version of the article which includes the restored information mentioned above. As such, the word "enemy" is completely inappropriate in the introduction. I leave it at the discretion of the anonymous editor to make an appropriate change here or I'll restore his previous wording within a day or two.

Ultimately, it's worth saying "thank you" for the discussion brought to this article, one which clearly is not often supported by Wikipedians. Collaboration is key here, and I apologize for reacting perhaps a bit too rashly. --Midnightdreary 00:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I did not want to get rid of your footnotes, but if you could please adjust what you have written so that my first note on the "abuse" you mention could be integrated into the text, it would be a mercy. According to Watts, Chivers' offer of a worry-free life in the South was repeated twice between 1847 and 1848. I'll confirm that with the letters once I find them in my files.

And yes, I have to say, that though Kennedy and the others may say what they say, that absolutely does not mean that they are correct. The sticky, one-fits-all word "abuse," with its implication that Chivers could perhaps have been a wife-beater, etc., is simply unfair to pin on this person without absolute proof, and, as I said, unless some new letters or documents have been uncovered recently, none of the surviving material indicates any of this. So to level the word abuse, or even alleged abuse at Chivers is to engage not in scholarship but rumor mongering. A comparison between Melville--who did abuse his wife--and Chivers is in order. Recent Melville scholarship did uncover letters sent between Melville's in-laws and the family preacher, which set forth plans for an intervention in the household during Melville's "mad" period between the writing of Moby Dick and Pierre. To the best of my knowledge nothing of that kind exists for Chivers, and even family stories do not hint at this.

I have also modified the Chivers intro. to more clearly reflect what Chivers became for Poe's legacy.

None of these comments have been made in anything less than an assumed Good Faith. It does bother me, however, that Chivers should be subjected to such a one-off handling on Wikipedia, because clearly, he and his work deserves better. And oh yes, the business about Chivers being preoccupied with shrouds and death in most of his poetry is also a cheap and easy distortion based on what past critics said about "The Lost Pleiad" and can be dispelled simply by reading the other poetry. If Kennedy et. al. say this, they are simply showing that they have not taken the time to read the work.

Thank you for starting this page, and good luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.171.25.109 (talk) 00:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well done, and thank you for the collaboration. Keep in mind the sources I am using are Poe sources and it's only natural that they compare Chivers to Poe - that means emphasis on graves and coffins. I'm sure it's not the full story but it's all I had. I started the article with the hopes that people (like yourself) would fill in the gaps. By the way, the line about "abuse" is meant to suggest domestic abuse - the source that is linked there seems to make that implication. Of all the sources listed, however, this is probably the least reputable and I can certainly believe it's not entirely true if not completely false (it's not Silverman, Kennedy, Meyers, or Moss, all of whom I'd strongly stand behind). I would not oppose its removal. Again, thank you! I am inspired to do some further Chivers studies. --Midnightdreary 00:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

GA review
The GA review has been archived and can be accessed via this link. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Kipling's acknowledgment of Chivers' influence.
The article says that Kipling acknowledged Chivers' influence on his work. This statement seems very problematic. For one thing, how that influence is manifested in Kipling's writings is a mystery to me, but more importantly in Thomas Pinney's edition of Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1931-36 is printed a letter Kipling wrote to the scholar Lewis Chase on July 7, 1933, about Chivers. Kipling writes:
 * "... the only reference to Holley Chivers that I know is contained in a little book of parodies called "Diversions of the Echo Club," published in New York, I think, many years ago.... Outside of the quotation therein contained I am afraid I know nothing of Chivers except (see Diversions of the Echo Club) that he was a contemporary of an American dentist who wrote an epic called 'The Dentiad'." [pg. 195]

In a footnote, Pinney says that Chase had asked Kipling about Chivers because of Kipling's quotation of two lines from a Chivers poem in "The Files". I have not read the Lombard book the article uses as a source for its statement about Kipling and Chivers, but since a single page of Lombard is being made to carry the heft of a lump claim about Kipling and the two Rossettis I doubt it featured detailed discussion. It appears that "The Files" is the sole connection between Kipling and Chivers. Given that in 1933 Kipling disclaimed any true knowledge of Chivers' work, Kipling's "acknowledgment" of his influence was at best mixed, and more probably the entire claim is an error based on a superficial reading of "The Files". I've decided to be bold and delete mention of Kipling on the strength of Pinney. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.246.14.153 (talk) 01:58, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your edit! The Lombard source is interesting and questionable: "As late as 1903, Rudyard Kipling, without acknowledging his source, borrowed from 'The Poet of Love' by Chivers in composing 'The Flies'." In his footnote, he cites S. Foster Damon. I'm wondering if he is suggesting that Kipling only subconsciously was influenced by Chivers, which might explain Kipling's quote. Would it be sensible to note that both Lombard and Damon both made this assertion, then quote Kipling himself to dispute it? It would answer, as you say, that the connection is "at best mixed." --Midnightdreary (talk) 02:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)