The poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe, with original memoir. Illustrated by F. R. Pickersgill, R.A., John Tenniel, Birket Foster, Felix Darlay [and others]

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.
selves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that
under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly
dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem-this poem per sethis poem which is a poem and nothing more-this poem written solely for
the poem's sake.
With as deep. a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man,
I would, nevertheless, limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation. I
would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation.
The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles.
All that which is so indispensable in Song, is precisely all that with which
she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox,
to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth, we need severity
rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse.
We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that
mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical.
He must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical and chasmal
differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He
must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences,
shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of
Poetry and Truth.
Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious
distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I
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