How does Edgar Allan Poe define poetry?????????

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2002

Answers

In his late lecture on the "Poetic Principle", in 1848-49, Poe brightly summarized poetry ( not the poetic sentiment ) as "the rythmical creation of Beauty", a concise opinion he had already formulated commenting on Longfellow's "Ballads" some seven years earlier, for Graham's Magazine. You can find these capital texts, with many others on this topic, at www.eapoe.org , under Poe's literary criticism (e.g. his notices on DRAKE & HALLECK, MOORE, BARRETT, HORNE, SIGOURNEY, the Sisters DAVIDSON, CHANNING, BRYANT, LOWELL, A. WELBY == amid the "Marginalia" items== , OSGOOD, &c... &c...). A big job, indeed! Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002