Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poewas an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth19 January 1809
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
It would be mockery to call such dreariness heaven at all.
Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"— here I opened wide the door; — Darkness there, and nothing more.
In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.
The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist
The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age, since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.
For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.
Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine...
In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.
I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
In efforts to soar above our nature, we invariably fall below it.
Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.