Poe's character was complex and difficult; he was self-willed and self-indulgent, too often regardless of the rights of others, intensely proud and reserved, sometimes courteous and kindly, oftener moody and abstracted. He was keenly sensitive to sound and easily excited by stimulants. That he was not the degraded ine briate that Griswold depicted has been abun dantly proved, but there is no doubt that his poverty and his frequent change of promising positions were caused in part by vacillating will and by recurring spells of intoxication. He was a dreamer and his imagination dwelt with the mystic and horrible; his mind was brilliant and acute and his sense of form and proportion exquisite.
The themes of Poe's poetry were few — man's loneliness, the hopelessness of struggle, remorse for a wrecked life. His poems bring no breath from the outer world. Theirs is a land of dreams, of tempest, of fantastic terrors, of ashen skies, and through this land glide ghosts, birds of ill omen and crawling shapes. His poetry is not stimulating and has no moral quality; but has frequently an almost faultless literary form, vivid, if distorted imagination, and a haunting melody. His theory was that a poem should have complete unity in itself, and consequently should never be of great length, and that the poet must compose only when in a state of highly excited emotion. Poetry he defines as the °rhythmical creation of beauty.° His fame as a poet rests on a few short poems, Raven,) 'Ulalume,' 'The Bells,' Lee,' 'The Haunted Palace,' 'The Conqueror, Worm' • and these in unity of de sign, in exquisite choice of melodic words, and in concentrated passion are well nigh faultless.
His stories are weird, filled with horrors and often glow with the putrescence of physical decay. They are carefully wrought and in such masterpieces as 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' and every word heightens the desired effect. The disintegrating poster of fear on a sensitive and highly organized soul has never been more powerfully portrayed than in the former story. Poe's analysis of morbid and
tortured souls is unsurpassed. His acute ana lytical powers are shown in such stories as Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'The Gold Bug' ' • his speculations usually hovered about the improbable and the horrible. His originality, his literary craftsmanship, are unquestioned, but he lacked the will and the moral conviction which would have brought his great gifts to their highest fruition. Editions of Poe are numerous. Griswold's (2d ed., 4 vols., New York 1856) contains a biased biography; the Stoddard edi tion (6 vols., New York 1895) errs in the same regard. Good editions are those of Gill (Diamond Edition, Boston 1874) ; of Ingram (2d ed., 4 vols., Edinburgh 1880; New York 1894) ; Harrison (Virginia Edition, notes by Stewart, 17 vols., Boston 1892) ; Stedman and Woodberry (10 vols., New Yoilc 1898). The 'Tales' were translated into French by Baude laire; and also into German and Spanish. See FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, THE; GOLD-BUG, THE; RAVEN, THE.
Bibliography.— Biographies prefixed to the editions above-named. Baudelaire (in his completes,' Vols. V and VI) ; Brown ell, W. C. 'American Prose Masters' (New York 1909) ; Gill, W. F., of Edgar Allan Poe> (5th ed., ib. 1880) ; Ewers, Hans Heinz, 'Edgar Allan Poe' • Ingram, J. H., 'Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters and Opinions' (2d ed., London 1886) Stedman, (Poets of America> (New York 1880) ; Whitman, S. H., (Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics' (New York 1860) ; Woodberry, G. E., Corres pondence of Edgar Allan Poe' (in Century Mafazine, Vol. XXVI, New York 1894) ; id., Allan Poe> (in American Men of Let ters Series,' Boston 1:•:5), the best critical life of the poet; id., 'Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Per sonal and Literary' (2 vols., Boston 1909); id., 'Edgar Allan Poe (in American Au thors) (Boston 1914) ; Leigh, Oliver, 'Edgar Allan Poe, the Man, the Master, and the Martyr' (Chicago 1906) ; More, P. E., burne'Essays' (1st series, New York 1907).