Criticism
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Poe, Edgar Allen
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 480812
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 20
subject: poem
subject: lines
subject: line
subject: words
subject: criticism
subject: edgar
subject: allan
subject: poe
subject: critique
subject: written
subject: poet
subject: allen
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: poe-criticism-432.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: poe-criticism-432.htm
sort title: Criticism
full text: 1850 CRITICISM by Edgar Allan Poe IT HAS been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and mine of poetry, I feel to be false- the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique, and the converse. On this account, and because the world's good opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here observe, "Shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion, and yet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that as the world judges correctly, why should you be ashamed of their favourable judgment?" The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word "judgment" or "opinion." The opinion is the world's, truly, but it may be called theirs as a man would call a book his, having bought it; he did not write the book, but it is his; they did not originate the opinion, but it is theirs. A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet- yet the fool has never read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a step higher on the Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say, his more exalted thought) is too far above the fool to be seen or understood, but whose feet (by which I mean his every-day actions) are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by means of which that superiority is ascertained, which but for them would never have been discovered- this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet- the fool believes him, and it is henceforward his opinion. This neighbor's own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above him, and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the pinnacle.... You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or empire- an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne …