Poems and Essays on Poetry

The American poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) has suffered as many posthumous buffets and reversals in his reputation as he did in his life. Even before Baudelaire translated his stories and Mallarme his poems, he was revered in France, while in Britain and even in America his work came to seem haunted, weird, its merits subsumed in the gothic drama of a life drunk (in every sense) to the lees, and early over. Many readers know his poems by heart but are wary of confessing an enthusiasm for lines so sonorous and unfashionable. This edition includes all Poe's poetry and three of his most influential essays. C.H. Sisson in his introduction makes measured claims for an original and challenging writer, siding with Baudelaire, Gautier, Mallarme and Valery in singling out the unlikely and powerful qualities in Poe's language, qualities inherent in his subject-matter and realised in his verse. 'There is, ' Sisson declares, 'a small handful of Poe's poems which are of clarity and luminosity which make most of the poetry of the nineteenth century look muddy.' His poetry, 'enjoyable but not explicable', attempts 'the rhythmical creation of beauty'.