Fyfield Books
2 total works
The American poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) claimed, 'I am ...a poet - if deep worship of all beauty can make me one'. His reputation has suffered as many posthumous reversals as he himself did in his life. He was revered in France even before Baudelaire translated his stories and Mallarme his poems, while in Britain, and even in America, his poems came to be regarded as unfashionably sonorous, their literary qualities overshadowed by the gothic drama of his life and of his stories. This edition contains all of Poe's poetry and his three most influential essays. The reader experiences Poe afresh as an original and challenging writer. C.H. Sisson sides with Baudelaire, Mallarme and Valery in recognising the haunting qualities of Poe's language. 'There is', Sisson writes in his introduction, 'a small handful of Poe's poems which are of a clarity and luminosity which make most of the poetry of the nineteenth century look muddy.'
This book is part of the "Everyman" series which has been re-set with wide margins and easy-to-read type and includes a themed introduction, a chronology of the life and times of the author, a plot summary, annotated reading list and critical response. This selection presents all of Poe's poetry, and includes the less well known poems written before he was 20, among them "To Helen", which Poe said was written in boyhood for the woman whose death caused him "with half his heart to inhabit other worlds". The selected essays are illuminating in relation to Poe's life and times.