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Read throughout the world, translated by Baudelaire, and admired by writers as different as Dostoevsky and H. G. Wells,Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849) has become a legendary figure, representing the artist as obsessed outcast and romantic failure. His nightmarish visions, shaped by cool artistic calculation, reveal some of the dark possibilities of human experience. But his enormous popularity and his continuing influence on literature depend less on legend or vision than on his stylistic accomplishments as a writer. Richard Wilbur(1921-2017), editor, was Poet Laureate of the United States, 1987-88. Over the course of a distinguished career he was awarded the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize (twice), and the Bollingen Translation Prize. Among his many books areNew and Collected Poems(1989) andMayflies(2000).
“Poe is so frequently reprinted that another selection can’t possibly seem fresh. Reading him with the guidance of Wilbur, however, helps one think about him again. . . . [Wilbur] appends selections from Poe’s writings about poetics to help understanding of his cosmology and discusses some of Poe’s most intense stories to exemplify his symbolism. The poems, presented chronologically, show again what a young prodigy Poe was, formulating his poetic thought while still in his teens, and what a sonorous Romantic musician he became.” —Booklist
