Edgar Allan Poe's reputation as an enduring and influential American literary critic rests mainly upon the pieces in this edition. Editors Stuart and Susan F. Levine provide reading texts, detailed explanatory footnotes, variant readings, and introductions to show context. They also face frankly the contradictions in Poe's critical opinions. Poe argues both that poetry is for pleasure, not truth, and that poetic inspiration leads to truth. Great works, Poe maintains, result from studied calculation, but also from irrational, supernal sources. Poe, both a biting critic and the doughty defender of American artistic achievement, was contemptuous of democratic art--except when vigorously defending it. Critical Theory highlights such conflicting ideas and suggests why they are present.

What was consistent in Poe's work was not a single theory, but rather wit, playfulness, concern for the strong effect, a bin of recyclable allusions, anecdotes and quotations, and a craftsman's discipline. Poe's writing on theory is of a piece with his fiction, poetry, and journalism. The Levines explain how these critical statements also tie tightly to the social, political, economic, and technological history of the world in which Poe lived.

Stuart Levine is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Kansas. Susan F. Levine is a former assistant dean of the Graduate School at the University of Kansas. Their collaborations have included scholarly editions of Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and Poe's Eureka.

Acknowledgments   vii
Introduction   ix
Abbreviations   xiii

LETTER TO B------.   1
A Note on the Text   4
Letter to B--------.   5
A Note on Variant Readings   11
Notes   12
PROSPECTUSES FOR "THE PENN" AND "THE STYLUS"   21
Note on the Text of the Prospectuses of "The Penn Magazine"   22
The Earlier (Austin) Version of the Prospectus of "The Penn"   25
The Second (Philadelphia) Version of the Prospectus of "The Penn"   25
Note on the Second (Philadelphia) version of the Prospectus of "The Penn Magazine"   27
The March 4, 1843, Version of the Prospectus for "The Stylus"   28
Notes on the March 4, 1843, Version of the Prospectus for "The Stylus"   31
The January 1848 Version of the Prospectus for "The Stylus"   32
The April 1848 Version of the Prospectus for "The Stylus"   34
EXORDIUM   37
A Note on the Text   38
Exordium (Review of New Books)   39
Notes   44
PREFACE TO THE POEMS (1845)   51
A Note on the Text   52
Preface   52
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION   55
A Note on the Text   59
The Philosophy of Composition   60
Notes   71
THE RATIONALE OF VERSE   77
A Note on the Text   80
The Rationale of Verse   80
Variant Readings   121
Notes   127
NOTES UPON ENGLISH VERSE   145
A Note on the Text   146
Notes upon English Verse   147
Variant Readings   171
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE   175
A Note on the Text   177
The Poetic Principle   178
Notes   200
BIBLIOGRAPHY   213
INDEX   219