Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection

by Edgar Allan Poe

A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having for its object an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with in definite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception.

Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness.

To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B——, what you no doubt perceive, for the metaphysical poets, as poets, the most sovereign contempt. That they have followers proves nothing— No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows.

AMERICAN NOVEL-WRITING.

An essay where Poe argues that a critic must be ruthless in his criticism for the sake of literature.

We shall thus frown down all conspiracies to foist inanity upon the public consideration at the expense of every person of talent who is not a member of a coterie in power.

The prevalence of the spirit of puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust.

True criticism is the reflection of the thing criticised upon the spirit of the critic.

There is no prevalent error more at war with the real interests of literature, than that of supposing these interests to demand a suppression, in any degree, of the feelings—whether of enthusiastic admiration, or of ridicule, or of contempt, or of disgust—which

THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON.

An essah

THIS building was commenced in 1793 by Mr. Hallet as architect, who was succeeded by Mr. G. Hadfield and Mr. Hoban, who finished the north wing. The charge of the work was then given to Mr. Henry B. Latrobe, (architect) who directed the building of the south wing, and prepared the halls for the reception of Congress.

In 1815, Government determined to restore the Capitol. The work was commenced under B. H.

Latrobe, who superintended it until December, 1817,

the farther proceedings were entrusted t...

Cost of building the Capitol $1,746,718 33 * Including all alterations to 1814.

To point out defects is an invidious task, and one of the least welcome duties of criticism.

Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, Nov 1839 [authorship doubtful]

INSTINCT VS REASON—A BLACK CAT.

An essay referring to his own black cat.

THE line which demarcates the instinct of the brute creation from the boasted reason of man, is, beyond doubt, of the most shadowy and unsatisfactory character—a

The question whether the lower animals do or do not reason, will possibly never be decided—certainly never in our present condition of knowledge. While the self-love and arrogance of man will persist in denying the reflective power to beasts, because the granting it seems to derogat...

the paradox of decrying instinct as an inferior faculty, while he is forced to admit its infinite superiority, in a thousand cases, over the very reas...

The writer of this article is the owner of one of the most remarkable black cats in the word—and this saying much; for it will be remembered that black cats are all of them witches.

It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufacture. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty.

SOME ACCOUNT OF STONEHENGE, THE GIANT’S DANCE, A DRUIDICAL RUIN IN ENGLAND.

An essay. The topic is clear.

THE pile called Stonehenge is an assemblage of upright and prostrate stones on Salisbury plain, England, and is generally supposed to be the remains of an ancient Druidical temple.

Approaching Stonehenge in this direction, the attention is first arrested by an immense unchiselled stone, called the Friar’s Heel, which is now in a leaning position,

In regard to the history of these extraordinary monuments, there is little of any definite nature. The earliest account of them occurs in Nennius, who lived in the eighth century.

But the watchword now was, “a national literature!”—as if any true literature could be “national”—as if the world at large were not the only proper stage for the literary histrio.

World literature

we found ourselves daily in the paradoxical dilemma of liking, or pretending to like, a stupid book the better because (sure enough) its stupidity was of our own growth, and discussed our own affairs.

lucus a non lucendo.

Criticism is not, we think, an essay, nor a sermon, nor an oration, nor a chapter in history, nor a philosophical speculation, nor a prose-poem, nor an art novel, nor a dialogue. In fact, it can be nothing in the world but—a criticism.

Following the highest authority, we would wish, in a word, to

limit literary criticism to comment upon Art. A book is written—and it is only as the book that we subject it to review.

HARPER’S FERRY.

An essay about Harper's Ferry, Virginia

THE scenery at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, is perhaps the most picturesque in America.

we cannot do better than give President Jefferson’s unrivalled description of this scene. “The passage,” he says, “of the Potomac, through the Blue Ridge, is, perhaps, one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.

It is time to do justice to American scenery. Hundreds of our citizens annually cross the Atlantic for the purpose of visiting the scenery of Europe, under the mistaken supposition that their own country affords nothing to compensate them for the trouble of a visit.

no country affords finer or more magnificent scenery than American.

MORNING ON THE WISSAHICCON.

I am pleased that the essays of Poe reveal him to have been a lover of the great outdoors.

And beauty is, indeed, its sole character. It has little, or rather nothing, of the sublime.

in America generally, the traveller who would behold the finest landscapes, must seek them not by the railroad, nor by the steamboat, nor by the stage-coach, nor in his private carriage, nor yet even on horseback—but on foot.

A singular exemplification of my remarks upon this head may be found in the Wissahiccon, a brook, (for more it can scarcely

be called,) which empties itself into the Schuylkill, about six miles westward of Philadelphia. Now the Wissahiccon is of so remarkable a loveliness that, were it flowing in England, it would be the theme of every bard, and the common topic of every tongue,

The heat gradually overcame me, and, resigning myself to the influence of the scenes and of the weather, and of the gently moving current, I sank into a half slumber, during which my imagination revelled in visions of the

Wissahiccon of ancient days—of the “good old days” when the Demon of the Engine was not, when pic-nics were undreamed of, when “water privileges” were neither bought nor sold, and when the red man trod alone, with the elk, upon the ridges that now towered above.

so resolute is the world to despise anything which carries with it an air of simplicity.

Clever.

BYRON AND MISS CHAWORTH.

The boyish poet-love is indisputably that one of the human sentiments which most nearly realizes our dreams of the chastened voluptuousness of heaven.

If she responded at all, it was merely because the necromancy of his words of fire could not do otherwise than exhort a response.

PAY OF AMERICAN AUTHORS.

“WE confess that we have never been able to see distinctly how the want of the International Law operation against our own writers.”—Ex. Paper.