"The Fall of the House of Usher." "Ligeia," "William Wilson," and "Silence" exhibit Poe's power of invention. vividness of imagination, and skill as an artist at their best : and in perfection of form these prose pieces rank with "Israfo." "To Helm" and "The City in the Sea." To this period belong also those tales of ratiocination which are among the best of their kind and have borne fruit in an abundant harvest of similar or imitative stories. "The Gold Bug.." "The Pur loined Letter," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," and "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" are on a lower order of imagination than the tales of fantasy, but they are marvelous pieces of invention.
During this period Poe was undergoing the tor ture of uncertainty with regard to his wife, whom he devotedly loved, and who was continu ously and often desperately ill. Under this strain his power of resistance grew weaker, he yielded more easily and frequently to the craving for stimulants, and his unusual power of concentra tion gradually relaxed.
The position of editor of Graham's Magazine. in which he had revealed editorial ability of a high order, was given up or lost, and in 1844 Poe returned to New York with very little money and with a great sorrow impending in the near future. lie was still, however, to achieve some of his most striking successes. In 1845 "The Raven," which gave him his immense popular reputation, appeared, and was followed by "The Bells" and "U1:flume." No American poems are more widely known, and in none is his mar velous command of the subtle resources of sound, his magical use of vowels, of repetition, of parallelism, so skillfully used to convey definite and striking effects. His collected poems were published at this time under the title, The Boren, and Other Poems. and in the preface to the col lection is a piece of autobiography. "Events not to he controlled," he wrote, "have prevented me from making at any time any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice." lie was then living in a cottage at Fordham. near NeW York: and there, in ,lanuary, 1847, his wife died, and the poet was prostrated by a long illness. He was cared for by friends and finally recovered a de gree of strength, lint he was really a shat tered man. Ile wrote "Eureka : A Prose Poem." marked by his characteristic inventiveness, put the finishing touches on "The Domain of Arn heim," and delivered a few lectures; but both his mind and his will bore traces of his great suffer ing. In June. 1849, lie went to Richmond, was ill as the result of excesses in Philadelphia, was shown much kindness and recovered something of his old spirit in the capital of Virginia. Late in September he started to return to New York. The story of the next few days will never he clearly told; hut on an afternoon in the week following his departure from Richmond he was found in a drinking-place in Baltimore, taken to a hospital in an unconscious condition, and died four days later.
Of the three forms of Poe's literary activity his criticism, while of high importance at the time, is of least value; his prose tales have taken their place in the literature of the world by reason of their originality of motive and their finished art; while his poetry remains the most distinctive ex pression of his genius. In two important studies, "The Poetic Principle" and "The Rationale of Verse," he declared that truth gives expression to the intellect and passion to the heart, while beauty is the language of the soul. Beauty is, there fore, the highest form of creative activity; passion and truth are involved in it, but its chief aim is to produce a definite and convincing im pression of its own nature by stimulating the imagination. He defined poetry as "the rhythmi cal creation of beauty," and laid down the law that beauty is essential to lyrical perfection in the phrase "a long poem does not exist." He also held that a marked quality of metre or rhythm ought to characterize all verse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Numerous editions of Poe's Bibliography. Numerous editions of Poe's work have appeared since his death. That of Griswold (2d ed., 4 vols., New York, 1856) is prefaced by a biography which later writers con sider prejudiced to the point of calumny; and the biography in the Stoddard edition (6 vols., new ed., New York, 1895). while deprecating Griswold's extreme view, is also biased. The Diamond edition (Boston, 1S74) has a sketch by Gill. Later editions are by Ingrain (2d ed., 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1880; New York, 1894) ; Sted man and Woodberry (10 vols., Chicago, 1895), a scholarly and complete edition; and the Vir ginia edition by Harrison, with notes by Stewart (17 vols., Boston, 1902), in which is included, in addition to the complete works of the poet, all the obtainable information as to his life, and a full bibliography. Poe's Talcs have been trans lated into French by Baudelaire and are in his (Eurres completes. cols. v.-vii. (Paris, 1878-82). There are also German and Spanish translations. The Poems have been published separately with memoirs by Hannay (London. 1865), Blanch ard (ib., 1857), and Briggs (New York, 1859). Of the numerous biographies, Whitman, Ed gar Allan Poe and His Critics (New York, 1860) ; Gill, Life of Edgar Allan Poe (5th ed., ib., 1880) ; and Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions (2d ed., London, 1886). are answers to Griswold's sertions. The Life hy Didier (New York, 1877) is not entirely trustworthy. There are essays by Baudelaire prefixed to volumes v. and vi. of his tEurres completes, above mentioned, and by Sted man, in Poets of America (New York, 1880). The most critical Life is by Woodberry, in the "American Men of Letters Series" (Boston, 1885). A selection from Poe's correspondence, edited by \Voodberry, appeared in the Century Magazine, vol. xxvi. York, 1894).