Edgar Allan Poe: Poems and Poetics

By Edgar Allan Poe

Book Overview

Richard Wilbur, a former Poet Laureate of the United States and one of the most admired poets and critics of his generation, revisits the poetry of Poe, exploring the philosophical seriousness of verse often identified with its macabre and gothic surfaces. Here is the whole canon of Poe's mature poetry, along with a judicious selection of prose writings that illuminate Poe's poetic goals.

"Our poetry, in Poe's view, must specialize in aesthetic transcendence, eschewing the truth, morality, and passion which might entangle it with this present world. The whole movement of Poe's poetry is away from the material here and now. . . . The poet's strategy is to accomplish a mock-destruction of earthly things, estranging the reader from material reality and so, presumably, propelling his imagination toward the ideal." -- Richard Wilbur, from the introduction

About the American Poets Project
Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today's most discerning poets and critics.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931082510
• ISBN13: 9781931082518
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Library of America
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.9" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

gorgeous sentences

i'm not a poem buff but picked this one up in hopes to inspire my artistic side. even with no experience i can tell that poe is a master, no doubt. each poem i read i start to drift off into a fantasy world, and it takes effort to come back to the words themselves! hard to believe they're just words sometimes.

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

Most people know that Edgar Allen Poe wrote poetry. Of course, you'd be hard-pressed to make them quote a line that doesn't involve ravens. Well, it's time for some poetry homework -- "The Raven" is neither Poe's most beautiful nor his most striking poem. That is reserved for other, more obscure works in Poe's "Complete Poetry" -- and while one might expect the ghostly or macabre to be all throughout his work, it's also filled with transcendent beauty, wistfulness, and some truly amazing wordwork. Over his lifetime, Poe tried out many styles -- there are sonnets, short hymns, long rambling odes written in dramatic, vaguely Shakespearean style ("O, human love! thou spirit given/On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!"), acrostics, little exercises in self-reflection, a lyrical song or two, and some haunting stories rendered in verse like the bittersweet "Annabel Lee." And the content of these poems is just as diverse. Some of them are distinctly dark -- sunken cities, tolling bells, haunted palaces, thoughts on the lingering spirits of the dead, abandoned valleys, and loved ones that have been stolen away by death (" I pray to God that she may lie/For ever with unopened eye/While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!"). And yes, it has the one about a midnight dreary, and a creepy raven with eyes like "a demon's that is dreaming." And there are a lot of moments of beauty -- lush descriptions of nature, bittersweet dreams, love for a beautiful girl, and elfin odes to those who "put out the star-light/With the breath from their pale faces/About twelve by the moon-dial..." But in many of these, Poe manages to add a melancholy atmosphere -- just look at "Bridal Ballad," whose narrator assures us that she is happy, but who is haunted by the "dead who is forsaken," her former lover. Yeah, Poe's verse tends to be about as cheerful as his best known fiction, and often with some of the same preoccupations. He was a little less successful in verse at times, as occasionally you get some very strained verse schemes, like the terribly awkward "Eulalie" ("Now Doubt - now Pain/Come never again/For her soul gives me sigh for sigh"). But like his stories, Poe's poems are spun out of exquisite, dreamlike words that can sometimes evolve into nightmares. This guy could evoke everything from ghosts to fairy-tales, brides to wormlike horrors. Even the more sentimental moments have a dark edge ("Oh, may her sleep/As it is lasting, so be deep!/Soft may the worms about her creep!"). And he also wraps his verse in some truly beautiful natural metaphors -- ancient forests, flowers, misty moons, and many other beautiful touches. And Poe's poetry even allows a window into his own mind at times, most painfully expressed as "from childhood's hour I have not been/As others were -- I have not seen/As others saw -- I could not bring/My passions from a common spring..." and the "mystery which binds me still." For anyone who can appreciate his exquisite use of words, the "Complete P

Grief be upon those who do not buy this book.

From the sorrowful and melancholic lines of "Ulalume" to the exclamatory rhymes of "The Bells," this thin volume has it all. (Well, not exactly all, for this book does not have some of the lesser known poems of Poe such as "To Isadore," "A Paean," and "An Enigma" - but it is nonetheless a great book to have.)For big Poe fans, especially, this is true. There are so many anthologies which carry about two or three of his poems, but it is not easy to find one that is solely dedicated to his complete poetry. Usually, it is his short stories that attract publishers' attention.Since Poe's poetry is so beautifully-written and delightful to recite, it's good to have a book on which you could look at whenever you forget a Poe poem, or simply want to read or reread one.Edgar Allan Poe never left behind as big a bulk of literature as Charles Dickens or Henry James. In fact, compared to many other classic writers, he didn't leave much behind. So, indeed, what little he left can all be contained in within a section of a bookshelf. So why not own his work?Poe was an excellent literary thinker, whose imagination will never be rivaled. And to those who enjoy good poetry, this book must be in within your bookshelves.