The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe and James H. Whitty

Book Overview

Explore the transcendent world of unity and ultimate beauty in Edgar Allan Poe's verse in this complete poetry collection.

Although best known for his short stories, Edgar Allan Poe was by nature and choice a poet. From his exquisite lyric "To Helen," to his immortal masterpieces, "Annabel Lee," "The Bells," and "The Raven," Poe stands beside the celebrated English romantic poets Shelley, Byron, and Keats, and his haunting, sensuous poetic vision profoundly influenced the Victorian giants Swinburne, Tennyson, and Rossetti.

Today his dark side speaks eloquently to contemporary readers in poems such as "The Haunted Palace" and "The Conqueror Worm," with their powerful images of madness and the macabre. But even at the end of his life, Poe reached out to his art for comfort and courage, giving us in "Eldorado" a talisman to hold during our darkest moments--a timeless gift from a great American writer.

Includes an Introduction by Jay Parini
and an Afterword by April Bernard

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451531051
• ISBN13: 9780451531056
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.2" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

This is a great book

I enjoyed the intro and the afterward of this book. I needed this book as part of a class so they helped greatly. This book includes all of the author's POEMS chronologically. Is small enough to carry in a pocket. (Which I did.) Very good book. Poe is an American treasure.

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

Most people know that Edgar Allen Poe wrote poetry. Of course, you'd be hard-pressed to make them quote a line that doesn't involve ravens. Well, it's time for some poetry homework -- "The Raven" is neither Poe's most beautiful nor his most striking poem. That is reserved for other, more obscure works in Poe's "Complete Poetry" -- and while one might expect the ghostly or macabre to be all throughout his work, it's also filled with transcendent beauty, wistfulness, and some truly amazing wordwork. Over his lifetime, Poe tried out many styles -- there are sonnets, short hymns, long rambling odes written in dramatic, vaguely Shakespearean style ("O, human love! thou spirit given/On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!"), acrostics, little exercises in self-reflection, a lyrical song or two, and some haunting stories rendered in verse like the bittersweet "Annabel Lee." And the content of these poems is just as diverse. Some of them are distinctly dark -- sunken cities, tolling bells, haunted palaces, thoughts on the lingering spirits of the dead, abandoned valleys, and loved ones that have been stolen away by death (" I pray to God that she may lie/For ever with unopened eye/While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!"). And yes, it has the one about a midnight dreary, and a creepy raven with eyes like "a demon's that is dreaming." And there are a lot of moments of beauty -- lush descriptions of nature, bittersweet dreams, love for a beautiful girl, and elfin odes to those who "put out the star-light/With the breath from their pale faces/About twelve by the moon-dial..." But in many of these, Poe manages to add a melancholy atmosphere -- just look at "Bridal Ballad," whose narrator assures us that she is happy, but who is haunted by the "dead who is forsaken," her former lover. Yeah, Poe's verse tends to be about as cheerful as his best known fiction, and often with some of the same preoccupations. He was a little less successful in verse at times, as occasionally you get some very strained verse schemes, like the terribly awkward "Eulalie" ("Now Doubt - now Pain/Come never again/For her soul gives me sigh for sigh"). But like his stories, Poe's poems are spun out of exquisite, dreamlike words that can sometimes evolve into nightmares. This guy could evoke everything from ghosts to fairy-tales, brides to wormlike horrors. Even the more sentimental moments have a dark edge ("Oh, may her sleep/As it is lasting, so be deep!/Soft may the worms about her creep!"). And he also wraps his verse in some truly beautiful natural metaphors -- ancient forests, flowers, misty moons, and many other beautiful touches. And Poe's poetry even allows a window into his own mind at times, most painfully expressed as "from childhood's hour I have not been/As others were -- I have not seen/As others saw -- I could not bring/My passions from a common spring..." and the "mystery which binds me still." For anyone who can appreciate his exquisite use of words, the "Comple

Decent

I found this book to be decent, even though I'm not one who cares much for poetry. Poe is an excellent poet and I recommend reading all of his poems.

The best author ever lived

Edgar Allan Poe sure does something with writting and reality that all of us would like to do. He is able to write all autobiographies, but substatute it with something that you wouldn't even imangine that he is talking about himself. He has to be the author that suffered the most his whole life. But now after his death, we learn to appreciate his life, and his place when he was here on earth. He is the best author that ever lived until this very day.

A wonderful collection of poems

The book "Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe", contains thirty one works by Edgar Allan Poe. Ranging from sonnets of love to personal depiction's and morbid descripive poems. Such selections as "The Raven", "Lenore", "Annabel Lee", "To Helen", and my favorite poem "Alone" are included in "Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe". Poe's poetry is a beautiful display of human nature and emotion. The poetry portrays his abstract look at the world, especially in the poem "Alone" where a sympathetic nature arises in readers from understanding exactly what he poetically writes. With Poe's descriptions of being an odd child during his youth, readers empathize with him and understand his sadness. Give Poe's work a try you may find a strange connection of your own.