The Pulse Pounding Conclusion of The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe

 To recap:

It's a happy sad party! Everyone's dressed up nice but also crying and the band seems kinda...off.

There's a play and there's mimes and also Invisible Wo!

They go round and round and it's just spooky sad wicked vibes all the way down.

A big monstermin comes out and eats everyone! oh no! Blood icky.

And now, the final stanza:

Out — out are the lights — out all!

And, over each dying form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the seraphs, all haggard and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy “Man,”

Its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Once again, as is the case in every stanza, we get another em dash aside from Poe.

Stanza 1: 

Within the lonesome latter years —

A mystic throng, bewinged, bedight

Stanza 2:

And hither and thither fly —

Mere puppets they, who come and go

Stanza 3:

That motley drama — oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

Stanza 4:

It writhes! — it writhes! — with mortal pangs

And now, "Out -- out are the lights -- out all!

For me it draws attention to the theatrical nature of the poet/poem. One point that Crab made that I thought was very good was that everything that happens in the fourth stanza is under the conceit of a play happening. That could explain the discrepancies I was talking about. But that got me thinking about how many layers are between you, the reader, and the world in which the poem takes place in.

There's you reading this, there's me telling you my reading of it, there's the poem itself which I feel like is drawing attention to the reading of itself. Does that make sense? 

Like, sometimes text tries to get out of the way, you know? It's trying to convey information to put the thoughts into your head as seamlessly as possible. To immerse you. Any sort of affectations or embellishments would come from the reader. This poem isn't doing that. The heightened drama is baked in. 

Anyway the poem is describing a play that is a world/scene within the world established in the first stanza. 

I'll see if I can land this plane when we get to the final lines but first we have to talk about what happens.

The play ends! Abruptly!

All the dead bodies are covered and put to rest by the closing of the theater curtain with the rush of a storm. 

I think there's a reading of this play that would be pretty funny to watch. All these mumbling mimes dance about and then horrifically devoured and then the curtain slams shut with the force of a storm. 

And then we get these tired looking angels, the seraphs, all haggard and wan, who perhaps triumphantly or at least conclusively deliver us the moral of the play:

That the play is the tragedy “Man,”

Its hero the Conqueror Worm.

What to make of it? I think it resolves the two ideas established and developed in stanzas 3 and 4. In stanza 3 we get see the sorry cycle of mankind, doomed by the Invisible Wo of the higher powers. And then we learn that the mayhem of stanza 4 was actually "the good ending". 

I don't think Poe is trying to tell us that this is what he actually thinks. Fully. I think the plot of the poem is in service of the main goal and shocking and exciting people. He's being a provocateur. 

He kind of reminds me, in a way, of Tony from Crimes Pays But Botany Doesn't. Tony often talks about "the death cult" that actively destroys native habitats and puts up cheaply made overpriced developments that can't sustain life in the name of profit and growth. The poem is meant to shock the reader but I think in the world it takes place in, it's what this tired, slowly dying society wants. They want this swift end. 

AI singularity doomsday??

I don't know. I definitely haven't made up my mind on this poem but I hoped you enjoyed reading it with me and I appreciate you following all my asides and meanderings and I hope you are also equipped with the knowledge to think about this poem and also appreciate it. 

My favorite thing about Poe is he's so dreary and ghoulish but also entertaining at the same time. He's having the most fun when he's telling you the worst stuff he can imagine.