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The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Including Essays on Poetry: With Memoir by John H. Ingram
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About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,880 books28.6k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 6, 2022
Preface ✔
Memoir by John H. Ingram 4⭐
POEMS OF LATER LIFE:
Dedication ✔
The Raven 5⭐
The Bells 5⭐
Ulalume 4⭐
To Helen 4⭐
Annabel Lee 5⭐
A Valentine 3⭐
An Enigma 3⭐
To My Mother 3.5⭐
For Annie 4⭐
To F 4⭐
Notes ✔
POEMS OF MANHOOD:
Lenore 4.5⭐
To One In Paradise 4.5⭐
The Coliseum 4⭐
The Haunted Palace 5⭐
The Conqueror Worm 4⭐
Silence 4.5⭐
Dreamland 4.5⭐
To Zante 3— 4⭐
To Frances S. Osgood 3⭐
Eldorado 5⭐
Eulalie 4⭐
A Dream Within A Dream 5⭐
To Marie Louise (Shew) 5⭐
To The Same (Shew) 3.5⭐
The City In The Sea 5⭐
The Sleeper 5⭐
Bridal Ballad.5⭐
Hymn 4⭐
Notes ✔
SCENES FROM POLITAN 2.5⭐
Note ✔
POEMS FROM YOUTH:
Introduction (1831) 3.5⭐
To Science 4.5⭐
Al Aafaaf 2.5⭐
Tamerlane 3.5⭐
To Helen 4⭐
The Valley of Unrest 4.5⭐
Israfel 3.5⭐
To — ("I Heed Not My Earthly Lot") 3.5⭐
To — ("The Bowers Whereat, In Dreams, I See") 3⭐
To The River 3⭐
Song 3.5⭐
Spirits of the Dead 4⭐
A Dream 3⭐
Romance 4⭐
Fairyland 4⭐
The Lake 3⭐
Evening Star 4⭐
Imitation 3.5⭐
"The Happiest Day" 3⭐
Hymn (Translation from the Greek) 3⭐
Dreams 3⭐
"In Youth I Have Known One" 3⭐
A Pæan 4⭐
Notes ✔
DOUBTFUL POEMS:
Alone 4⭐
To Isadore 4⭐
The Village Street 5⭐
The Forrest Reverie 4⭐
Notes ✔
PROSE POEMS:
The Island of the Fay 4.5⭐
The Power of Words 4⭐
The Colloquy of Monos and Una 4⭐
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion 4⭐
Shadow—A Parable 5⭐
Science—A Fable 4.5⭐
ESSAYS:
The Poetic Principle 5⭐
The Philosophy of Composition 5⭐
Old English Poetry 3⭐
Memoir by John H. Ingram 4⭐
POEMS OF LATER LIFE:
Dedication ✔
The Raven 5⭐
The Bells 5⭐
Ulalume 4⭐
To Helen 4⭐
Annabel Lee 5⭐
A Valentine 3⭐
An Enigma 3⭐
To My Mother 3.5⭐
For Annie 4⭐
To F 4⭐
Notes ✔
POEMS OF MANHOOD:
Lenore 4.5⭐
To One In Paradise 4.5⭐
The Coliseum 4⭐
The Haunted Palace 5⭐
The Conqueror Worm 4⭐
Silence 4.5⭐
Dreamland 4.5⭐
To Zante 3— 4⭐
To Frances S. Osgood 3⭐
Eldorado 5⭐
Eulalie 4⭐
A Dream Within A Dream 5⭐
To Marie Louise (Shew) 5⭐
To The Same (Shew) 3.5⭐
The City In The Sea 5⭐
The Sleeper 5⭐
Bridal Ballad.5⭐
Hymn 4⭐
Notes ✔
SCENES FROM POLITAN 2.5⭐
Note ✔
POEMS FROM YOUTH:
Introduction (1831) 3.5⭐
To Science 4.5⭐
Al Aafaaf 2.5⭐
Tamerlane 3.5⭐
To Helen 4⭐
The Valley of Unrest 4.5⭐
Israfel 3.5⭐
To — ("I Heed Not My Earthly Lot") 3.5⭐
To — ("The Bowers Whereat, In Dreams, I See") 3⭐
To The River 3⭐
Song 3.5⭐
Spirits of the Dead 4⭐
A Dream 3⭐
Romance 4⭐
Fairyland 4⭐
The Lake 3⭐
Evening Star 4⭐
Imitation 3.5⭐
"The Happiest Day" 3⭐
Hymn (Translation from the Greek) 3⭐
Dreams 3⭐
"In Youth I Have Known One" 3⭐
A Pæan 4⭐
Notes ✔
DOUBTFUL POEMS:
Alone 4⭐
To Isadore 4⭐
The Village Street 5⭐
The Forrest Reverie 4⭐
Notes ✔
PROSE POEMS:
The Island of the Fay 4.5⭐
The Power of Words 4⭐
The Colloquy of Monos and Una 4⭐
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion 4⭐
Shadow—A Parable 5⭐
Science—A Fable 4.5⭐
ESSAYS:
The Poetic Principle 5⭐
The Philosophy of Composition 5⭐
Old English Poetry 3⭐
November 3, 2023
7/10
This is my first update in my journey of read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. In this first section I read all of his poems in chronological order from the late 1820s to the ones posthumously published in the late 1840s.
I honestly struggled to get through the first bulk of these poems. It was obvious he was still mastering the craft and finding his niche. These poems from the first couple years of his writing were often interesting in concept, but usually fell flat in delivery and too often cluttered with obscure references. His work “Al Aaraaf” I think best exemplified this. This poem was excruciating long and filled with so many random allusions that this book found it necessary to have consistent footnotes to explain what he was talking about at any point. Beyond just this poem, a lot of these works had a fixating on arabic culture and the Koran. I think his use bordered on the line of genuine appreciation/respect and just plain fetishization of the “exotic”. Nonetheless, I thought these consistent allusions in his early work was interesting.
A motif in Poe’s poetry that I was happy to see continued throughout his life was his playful use of constrained writing styles such as acrostics and riddles. He had multiple poems that had a variation on having the name of who he was addressing spelled out in some way throughout the composition. The Elizabeth acrostics and especially “A Valentine” were some of my favorite examples of this. I thought it a clever and flirty style.
Poe really hit his stride in the 1930s. In “Romance” I saw some of the first signs of the themes that would come to define his career. He personifies romance through an exotic bird and alludes to death/illness through this character. Other works such as “The Sleeper”, “The Valley of Unrest”, and “The Haunted Palace” were some of my favorites from his 1830s poems. I also thought “Bridal Ballad” was an especially unique work not only for Poe, but for the time period. It is narrated from a woman’s perspective as she laments over her old lover’s death and feels guilt for remarrying.
Poe really became the iconic master of melancholy and romance in the 1840s. Works such as “Ulalume” and “Annabel Lee” were tragic tales of men reflecting on the loss of their beautiful lovers. Yet each had their own personality and flare. This made the seemingly repetitive theme always new and thrilling with each poem. “The Bells” felt like a dissent to madness as Poe slowly gnawed at the imagery of bells as twinkling beacons of hope until they were realized as horrifying mechanism of iron that beckon tragedy.
Of course I have to mention the Raven which, even though it’s easily his most famed, I think is still one of my favorites overall. Some things become popular because they are genuinely phenomenal pieces of work and deserve every bit of saturated praise.
Poe also explored dark themes outside of romance. In “A Dream Within a Dream”, Poe narrates an existential crisis and ponders if anything is truly real. With “Eldorado”, Poe presents morbid irony as a knight who spent his whole life searching for the infamous El Dorado lays in his death bed asking a spirit to reveal El Dorado’s existence.
Not all of his late works were so macabre, though. “To Helen” (the 1848 version although I did also enjoy the 1829 version with the same namesake) was beautifully romantic and one of my overall favorites. He had many poems named in the style of “To [insert name]”, with many of them having the actual name blocked out or only an initial to give any hint of identity. Most of these poems were more romance and less melancholic. The large roster of women he wrote to exposed how much of a flirt this man was. It felt like he had a new situationship to write to with every new “To [insert name]” entry. I also have to mention the sonnet “To My Mother” which is a beautiful ode to mothers.
The final part of this section included his one unfinished play. I didn’t think it was bad, but there was nothing crazy about it either. After some research I found out most critics told him he should probably just stick to the short stories and he heeded that advice. I thought that was a funny piece of trivia nonetheless.
Throughout these reads, I felt like I was going through Poe’s own diary. His opinions and personality were prominent through these writing, as was his growth as a person. He was more than just a melancholic sad-boy. Poe was witty, flirtatious, loved to poke fun at others, and nerdy in the way he got caught up in ridiculous references and metaphors no one would else would get. Overall though, Edgar Allen Poe’s life was characterized by (and therefore works were influenced by) the intense tragedies that were the consistent deaths of the women in his life. I think his shortest poem, which is simply a somber couplet, described his experiences best: “Deep in the earth my love is lying; And I must weep alone.”
This is my first update in my journey of read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. In this first section I read all of his poems in chronological order from the late 1820s to the ones posthumously published in the late 1840s.
I honestly struggled to get through the first bulk of these poems. It was obvious he was still mastering the craft and finding his niche. These poems from the first couple years of his writing were often interesting in concept, but usually fell flat in delivery and too often cluttered with obscure references. His work “Al Aaraaf” I think best exemplified this. This poem was excruciating long and filled with so many random allusions that this book found it necessary to have consistent footnotes to explain what he was talking about at any point. Beyond just this poem, a lot of these works had a fixating on arabic culture and the Koran. I think his use bordered on the line of genuine appreciation/respect and just plain fetishization of the “exotic”. Nonetheless, I thought these consistent allusions in his early work was interesting.
A motif in Poe’s poetry that I was happy to see continued throughout his life was his playful use of constrained writing styles such as acrostics and riddles. He had multiple poems that had a variation on having the name of who he was addressing spelled out in some way throughout the composition. The Elizabeth acrostics and especially “A Valentine” were some of my favorite examples of this. I thought it a clever and flirty style.
Poe really hit his stride in the 1930s. In “Romance” I saw some of the first signs of the themes that would come to define his career. He personifies romance through an exotic bird and alludes to death/illness through this character. Other works such as “The Sleeper”, “The Valley of Unrest”, and “The Haunted Palace” were some of my favorites from his 1830s poems. I also thought “Bridal Ballad” was an especially unique work not only for Poe, but for the time period. It is narrated from a woman’s perspective as she laments over her old lover’s death and feels guilt for remarrying.
Poe really became the iconic master of melancholy and romance in the 1840s. Works such as “Ulalume” and “Annabel Lee” were tragic tales of men reflecting on the loss of their beautiful lovers. Yet each had their own personality and flare. This made the seemingly repetitive theme always new and thrilling with each poem. “The Bells” felt like a dissent to madness as Poe slowly gnawed at the imagery of bells as twinkling beacons of hope until they were realized as horrifying mechanism of iron that beckon tragedy.
Of course I have to mention the Raven which, even though it’s easily his most famed, I think is still one of my favorites overall. Some things become popular because they are genuinely phenomenal pieces of work and deserve every bit of saturated praise.
Poe also explored dark themes outside of romance. In “A Dream Within a Dream”, Poe narrates an existential crisis and ponders if anything is truly real. With “Eldorado”, Poe presents morbid irony as a knight who spent his whole life searching for the infamous El Dorado lays in his death bed asking a spirit to reveal El Dorado’s existence.
Not all of his late works were so macabre, though. “To Helen” (the 1848 version although I did also enjoy the 1829 version with the same namesake) was beautifully romantic and one of my overall favorites. He had many poems named in the style of “To [insert name]”, with many of them having the actual name blocked out or only an initial to give any hint of identity. Most of these poems were more romance and less melancholic. The large roster of women he wrote to exposed how much of a flirt this man was. It felt like he had a new situationship to write to with every new “To [insert name]” entry. I also have to mention the sonnet “To My Mother” which is a beautiful ode to mothers.
The final part of this section included his one unfinished play. I didn’t think it was bad, but there was nothing crazy about it either. After some research I found out most critics told him he should probably just stick to the short stories and he heeded that advice. I thought that was a funny piece of trivia nonetheless.
Throughout these reads, I felt like I was going through Poe’s own diary. His opinions and personality were prominent through these writing, as was his growth as a person. He was more than just a melancholic sad-boy. Poe was witty, flirtatious, loved to poke fun at others, and nerdy in the way he got caught up in ridiculous references and metaphors no one would else would get. Overall though, Edgar Allen Poe’s life was characterized by (and therefore works were influenced by) the intense tragedies that were the consistent deaths of the women in his life. I think his shortest poem, which is simply a somber couplet, described his experiences best: “Deep in the earth my love is lying; And I must weep alone.”
April 29, 2024
The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe is, as it says, the complete poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe. The only good poem in this collection is 'The Raven.' All of the other poems are uninteresting. If you are interested in Edgar Allan Poe, you should read his stories instead. His stories are much more interesting than his poems. If you do want to read his poetry, be prepared to skim most of it. A majority of this book is comprised of love poems that feel like carbon copies of each other. This collection earns 2 out of 5 stars because most of the poems feel too similar to each other, with the exception of 'The Raven.'
January 8, 2021
The publication: 4/5
The Raven: 5++/5
Poe based on total poetical work: 3.5/5
Poe based on insight into life and mind: 4.5/5
Poe based on short stories: ???
The book itself gets a 4/5. I am pretty happy with that rating. It was very insightful for me, and the memoir by JH Ingram was particularly useful. Since the book took me around 6-7 weeks to read from start to finish, I had to reread the memoir at the end, which is when the pure pathos of Poe's life truly struck me. He quite tragically yet amusingly ended up embodying that very tragic life he had alluded to ever-so casually--with no intentional projection of himself (if we can fully believe the reconstruction he details in his essay, The Philosophy of Composition) at the time--in the slightest part of his masterpiece, The Raven:
Here I think it worth to write a few lines on his life itself. An astute genius from birth (intellectually and physically), and conscious of the fact, which by itself should be no crime but was almost forced into being so by his surroundings who used his unfortunate familial situation (or lack thereof), which he had no control over, against him. It is fair to say that Poe's environment greatly shaped his self. I could not help but see the many parallels between Poe and Portgas D. Ace, a character of era and realm very different, but of tragedy very much the same. Nevertheless, Poe pushed through his troubled childhood with determination, following his passion and his way.
The second chapter of his life, dealing with his first steps in adulthood in the unfair world, although faced with numerous difficulties as always, I consider not very tragic. This is the toughest period of anyone's life, when one is trying hard to stand up in the real world and striving to remain standing. One is only bound to face a multitude of challenges. Hence, I do not find this period of his life being singularly tragic, although seeing how he went through the challenges is interesting nonetheless.
The third and final chapter of his life is perhaps the most tragic. I see it as a consistent period of decline but which is brought about not by steady fall but by tumultuous and repeated fluctuations, of promising climbs but more devastating falls, culminating in a death the most devastating of all--devastating not by mere virtue of the death itself, but by its sheer disjunction from everything else, its alienness and true randomness that come close to insolence to Poe's life and his perseverance.
A truly, truly tragic life. And to think that some of his greatest works, including The Raven, were penned while on some of the roughest seas of his life... I am filled with wonder and awe for the man he was. Yet again, I guess his whole story embodies yet another of his favourite ideas which he wrote passionately about, that of Supernal Beauty. He believed that the only fundamental quality of Poetry is that it is an attempt at reaching Supernal Beauty, which is invariably characterised, superficially or in undercurrents, by a kind of sadness and longing brought about by the limitations of the human existence. No matter the tone or theme of the poem, the very fact that it is an attempt at Supernal Beauty lends it this special tinge of sorrow because this Beauty can never fully be attained in our existence; it is this striving for perfection despite being doomed to failure that makes it sorrowfully beautiful. Poe's life then, filled with sorrow and driven by imperfect perfection, can be considered nothing but an epitome of Poetical quality.
The Raven is the first poem in the book, and I immediately fell in love with it. It doesn't need much of an elaboration; it is pure lyrical genius, and something endlessly captivating no matter how many times I read it (and many more times I will). Perhaps it was a mistake to include this poem as the very first though, as this might be the reason I didn't find many of the others particularly incredible. There were quite a few which were fairly good, and none too terrible, but many I felt were just okay and fine to read once. But perhaps that is simply a consequence of the book being a complete poetical collection.
Something I realised was that a majority of his poems all deal with the same motif of romanticising a past or present (or imagined) lover. And although his argument in the essay, The Philosophy of Composition, makes sense and I agree that grief, especially that of a lost lover, is what is capable of bringing about the most magnitudinous poetic effect, I didn't see much variety (originality being something Poe was always adamant about) and I got tired of it after a while. It was more so the romanticisation of everything (of the women and of sceneries) that grew slightly distasteful, just as with the Petrarchan sonneteers (and Poe wrote a fair many sonnets too).
Many of his works were fanciful which I personally liked, but require some insight into Greek/Roman history and culture which I lack. Nevertheless, reading his poetry was altogether enjoyable. Then were a few of his prose poems. This may be due to my being uninitiated in this genre, but the "prose poems" seemed to me just prose. Not that this took anything away from the works--I really loved The Power of Words and The Colloquy of Monos and Una, both again dealing with the fanciful and written in captivating and superb prose.
I also loved two of his essays, The Philosophy of Composition and The Poetic Principle. The former was a very interesting read, and only elevated my opinion of The Raven. Detailing the reconstruction of this work was a very seductive idea, and what Poe revealed of himself and his mind in doing so was marvellous! A note regarding The Poetic Principle: I had a slight discordance with Poe's reasoning in the essay, where he describes man's attempts at perfect beauty which always fall short of the higher/upper Supernal Beauty present in the Afterlife. It is the last point, attributing it to an "afterlife" and sweetening up the idea of it, which I do not resonate with, as the same sentiment of man's imperfection can be attained without creating (or having to lean on) this perfect counterpart.
I am uncertain of stating that I may have enjoyed his prose in this collection more than his poems (taken as a whole of course; The Raven and a few others were simply supreme,) but I am certain that I wish to read his short stories and other prose.
As I said, an altogether lovely read that gave me a personal connection to the writer. If I had to recommend a handful of individual pieces from this collection, they would be:
1. (Doubtless) The Raven
2. The Philosophy of Composition (best read after The Raven)
3. The Power of Words
4. The Poetic Principle
5. The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Second hand
6. Israfel
7. Sonnet--To Science
8. A Dream within a Dream
9. Bridal Ballad
10. Eldorado
Third hand
11. The Bells
12. Annabel Lee
The Raven: 5++/5
Poe based on total poetical work: 3.5/5
Poe based on insight into life and mind: 4.5/5
Poe based on short stories: ???
The book itself gets a 4/5. I am pretty happy with that rating. It was very insightful for me, and the memoir by JH Ingram was particularly useful. Since the book took me around 6-7 weeks to read from start to finish, I had to reread the memoir at the end, which is when the pure pathos of Poe's life truly struck me. He quite tragically yet amusingly ended up embodying that very tragic life he had alluded to ever-so casually--with no intentional projection of himself (if we can fully believe the reconstruction he details in his essay, The Philosophy of Composition) at the time--in the slightest part of his masterpiece, The Raven:
"... unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’."
Here I think it worth to write a few lines on his life itself. An astute genius from birth (intellectually and physically), and conscious of the fact, which by itself should be no crime but was almost forced into being so by his surroundings who used his unfortunate familial situation (or lack thereof), which he had no control over, against him. It is fair to say that Poe's environment greatly shaped his self. I could not help but see the many parallels between Poe and Portgas D. Ace, a character of era and realm very different, but of tragedy very much the same. Nevertheless, Poe pushed through his troubled childhood with determination, following his passion and his way.
The second chapter of his life, dealing with his first steps in adulthood in the unfair world, although faced with numerous difficulties as always, I consider not very tragic. This is the toughest period of anyone's life, when one is trying hard to stand up in the real world and striving to remain standing. One is only bound to face a multitude of challenges. Hence, I do not find this period of his life being singularly tragic, although seeing how he went through the challenges is interesting nonetheless.
The third and final chapter of his life is perhaps the most tragic. I see it as a consistent period of decline but which is brought about not by steady fall but by tumultuous and repeated fluctuations, of promising climbs but more devastating falls, culminating in a death the most devastating of all--devastating not by mere virtue of the death itself, but by its sheer disjunction from everything else, its alienness and true randomness that come close to insolence to Poe's life and his perseverance.
A truly, truly tragic life. And to think that some of his greatest works, including The Raven, were penned while on some of the roughest seas of his life... I am filled with wonder and awe for the man he was. Yet again, I guess his whole story embodies yet another of his favourite ideas which he wrote passionately about, that of Supernal Beauty. He believed that the only fundamental quality of Poetry is that it is an attempt at reaching Supernal Beauty, which is invariably characterised, superficially or in undercurrents, by a kind of sadness and longing brought about by the limitations of the human existence. No matter the tone or theme of the poem, the very fact that it is an attempt at Supernal Beauty lends it this special tinge of sorrow because this Beauty can never fully be attained in our existence; it is this striving for perfection despite being doomed to failure that makes it sorrowfully beautiful. Poe's life then, filled with sorrow and driven by imperfect perfection, can be considered nothing but an epitome of Poetical quality.
The Raven is the first poem in the book, and I immediately fell in love with it. It doesn't need much of an elaboration; it is pure lyrical genius, and something endlessly captivating no matter how many times I read it (and many more times I will). Perhaps it was a mistake to include this poem as the very first though, as this might be the reason I didn't find many of the others particularly incredible. There were quite a few which were fairly good, and none too terrible, but many I felt were just okay and fine to read once. But perhaps that is simply a consequence of the book being a complete poetical collection.
Something I realised was that a majority of his poems all deal with the same motif of romanticising a past or present (or imagined) lover. And although his argument in the essay, The Philosophy of Composition, makes sense and I agree that grief, especially that of a lost lover, is what is capable of bringing about the most magnitudinous poetic effect, I didn't see much variety (originality being something Poe was always adamant about) and I got tired of it after a while. It was more so the romanticisation of everything (of the women and of sceneries) that grew slightly distasteful, just as with the Petrarchan sonneteers (and Poe wrote a fair many sonnets too).
Many of his works were fanciful which I personally liked, but require some insight into Greek/Roman history and culture which I lack. Nevertheless, reading his poetry was altogether enjoyable. Then were a few of his prose poems. This may be due to my being uninitiated in this genre, but the "prose poems" seemed to me just prose. Not that this took anything away from the works--I really loved The Power of Words and The Colloquy of Monos and Una, both again dealing with the fanciful and written in captivating and superb prose.
I also loved two of his essays, The Philosophy of Composition and The Poetic Principle. The former was a very interesting read, and only elevated my opinion of The Raven. Detailing the reconstruction of this work was a very seductive idea, and what Poe revealed of himself and his mind in doing so was marvellous! A note regarding The Poetic Principle: I had a slight discordance with Poe's reasoning in the essay, where he describes man's attempts at perfect beauty which always fall short of the higher/upper Supernal Beauty present in the Afterlife. It is the last point, attributing it to an "afterlife" and sweetening up the idea of it, which I do not resonate with, as the same sentiment of man's imperfection can be attained without creating (or having to lean on) this perfect counterpart.
I am uncertain of stating that I may have enjoyed his prose in this collection more than his poems (taken as a whole of course; The Raven and a few others were simply supreme,) but I am certain that I wish to read his short stories and other prose.
As I said, an altogether lovely read that gave me a personal connection to the writer. If I had to recommend a handful of individual pieces from this collection, they would be:
1. (Doubtless) The Raven
2. The Philosophy of Composition (best read after The Raven)
3. The Power of Words
4. The Poetic Principle
5. The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Second hand
6. Israfel
7. Sonnet--To Science
8. A Dream within a Dream
9. Bridal Ballad
10. Eldorado
Third hand
11. The Bells
12. Annabel Lee
November 8, 2021
Before reading this book, I could (like most people) quote a line or two from The Raven, though I am pretty sure I had never actually read it all the way through. I was surprised at how much it moved me. There were a handful of poems that I quite enjoyed, a few that were so obscure that they were hard for me to follow, and many that really felt a bit redundant.
The essays were interesting and kind of hilarious. After thinking that The Raven was so deep, it was funny to read that Poe felt poetry could be written as if following a mathematical formula and everything in that particular writing was added simply to fit that system. He also rather tears apart other authors and has an entire paper on why The Iliad isn’t actually poetry. It came across as quite pompous to me, though in a way that made me laugh.
The entire book was rather dark and tinged with anger or despair. I loved parts of it, but it was mostly a one-time read for me.
The essays were interesting and kind of hilarious. After thinking that The Raven was so deep, it was funny to read that Poe felt poetry could be written as if following a mathematical formula and everything in that particular writing was added simply to fit that system. He also rather tears apart other authors and has an entire paper on why The Iliad isn’t actually poetry. It came across as quite pompous to me, though in a way that made me laugh.
The entire book was rather dark and tinged with anger or despair. I loved parts of it, but it was mostly a one-time read for me.
June 15, 2023
4.5
Poe’s ability to put into words, the universally human feelings of love, sorrow, fear and many more is deeply moving. I am not the same person I was before reading this; his outlook on the world, shown through his writing has slowly and steadily creeped into my own conscience, and now I look at people and Mother Nature with a little more wonder.
Poe’s ability to put into words, the universally human feelings of love, sorrow, fear and many more is deeply moving. I am not the same person I was before reading this; his outlook on the world, shown through his writing has slowly and steadily creeped into my own conscience, and now I look at people and Mother Nature with a little more wonder.
April 10, 2023
Loved the poems. He is just like me for real. Can't say I properly paid attention to his essays tho oopsie.
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