Edgar Allan Poe - How to know him
EDGAR ALLAN POE
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EDGAR ALLAN POE
HOW TO KNOW HIM
By
C. ALPHONSO SMITH
Head of the Department of English
in the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland
Former Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English
in the University of Virginia
Author of
WHAT CAN LITERATURE DO FOR ME?
O. HENRY BIOGRAPHY, ETC.
WITH PORTRAIT
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1921
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
To
ARCHIBALD HENDERSON SCALES, REAR ADMIRAL, UNITED STATES NAVY, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
and
ARCHIBALD HENDERSON, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP
AND IN MEMORY OF STIMULATING COMRADESHIP
CONTENTS
I |
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
1 |
Biography—Centennial—Russia—Germany—Italy—Spain—Latin-America—France—England—Retrospect and Prospect.
|
II |
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
26 |
Relation to Time and Place—Accurate Observer—Interest in Public Education—Slavery—Alleged Sectionalism—Americanism—Humor—At Home—Religion—Intemperance—Not the Poet Laureate of Darkness.
|
III |
The Critic—Introduction
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
73 |
"The Faculty of Identification"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
76 |
"The Novel as History and Philosophy"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
78 |
"An Omen of Better Days for Southern Literature"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
80 |
"Comparison vs. Ideality"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
82 |
"A Present Tense Wrongly Used"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
93 |
"The Spirit of Research in Our Navy"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
94 |
"Government and the Forms of Government"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
97 |
"William Cullen Bryant"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
98 |
"Indefinitiveness in Song"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
106 |
"Fancy and Imagination"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
110 |
"The Nature and Interest of Plot"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
116 |
"Defects in the Technique of Barnaby Rudge"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
124 |
"Longfellow's Ballads"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
142 |
"The Technique of the Short Story"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
149 |
"Repetition an Aid to Quaintness"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
158 |
"Shelley and After"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
160 |
"Plagiarism"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
163 |
"How to Improve Our Drama"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
166 |
"German Criticism"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
171 |
"The Technique of The Raven"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
173 |
"A Long Poem a Contradiction in Terms"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
190 |
"The Heresy of the Didactic"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
194 |
"Poetical Themes"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
199 |
IV |
The Poet—Introduction
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
202 |
"To Helen"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
210 |
"Israfel"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
211 |
"The City in the Sea"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
212 |
"The Coliseum"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
214 |
"To One in Paradise"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
215 |
"The Haunted Palace"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
216 |
"The Conqueror Worm"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
217 |
"The Raven"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
220 |
"Ulalume—A Ballad"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
225 |
"The Bells"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
228 |
"For Annie"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
231 |
"Annabel Lee"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
234 |
"Eldorado"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
236 |
V |
The Writer of Short Stories—Introduction
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
238 |
"Ligeia"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
245 |
"The Purloined Letter"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
266 |
VI |
The Frontiersman—Introduction
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
293 |
"Shadow—A Parable"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
296 |
"Silence—A Fable"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
299 |
"The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
305 |
"The Island of the Fay"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
313 |
"The Colloquy of Monos and Una"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
320 |
"The Power of Words"
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
333 |
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
343 |
PREFACE
Poe has suffered a strange fate. Nobody ever doubted his genius, but his genius has clouded and rendered spectral and remote his personality. He is popularly regarded as a manufacturer of cold creeps and a maker of shivers, a wizened, self-centered exotic, un-American and semi-insane, who, between sprees or in them, wrote his autobiography in The Raven and a few haunting detective stories. This book is an attempt to substitute for the travesty the real Poe, to suggest at least the diversity of his interests, his future-mindedness, his sanity, and his humanity. Old-world voices are requisitioned to speak for him, and he in turn through the wide gamut of his work is permitted to speak for himself.
C. A. S.
United States Naval Academy,
- Annapolis, Maryland
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 99 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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