Poe vs. Voltaire

Poe is too seldom discussed as a literary critic, but he’s one of my favorites. Here’s an amusing couple of lines, all the funnier since they are a standalone observation, not an excerpt from a longer passage:

“Voltaire betrays, on many occasions, an almost incredible ignorance of antiquity and its affairs. One of his saddest blunders is that of assigning the Canary Islands to the Roman empire.”

This is one of those indirect amusements that, in my view, make up the heart of comedy. The amusement of reading this passage is different and more intense from what the feeling would be if reading Voltaire himself and coming across that passage. It is Poe’s attitude to the supposed blunder that amuses us, more than the blunder itself (and Volatire actually has a case, since Juba’s dealings in the Canaries might be considered Roman deeds given his relations with Augustus.)