Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/93



ultimate knowledge of Poe, however, must rest neither upon his fame nor upon his personality. These are only subsidiary to the deeper knowledge that comes from a first-hand acquaintance with his works. In mere bulk Poe's literary output was not large but it was singularly varied. No other writer of English has attained an equal eminence in literary genres as different as criticism, poetry, and the short story. To these must also be added a fourth type for which Stedman has suggested the name "Pastels," or "Impressions," or "Petits Poëmes en Prose." Criticism, however, should come first, for it was through criticism that Poe first made a national reputation; and it is in his criticism that we find the clearest exposition of the literary principles to which, from first to last, he was consistently loyal in the production of his own creative work.

But Poe's criticisms are more than introductions to his own works. They have also a value as historical material in the evolution of American literature. They serve as contemporary witnesses to the supremacy of Cooper, Bryant and Irving, and as heralds of the greater group represented by Longfellow, Lowell,