The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
Category Archive: Edgar Allan Poe
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‘Artist.’