"The Poetic Principle" is an essay by Edgar Allan Poe, written near the end of his life and published posthumously in 1850, the year after his death. It is a work of literary criticism, in which Poe presents his literary theory. It is based on a series of lectures Poe had given late in his lifetime.
The essay argues that a poem should be written " for a poem's sake" and that the ultimate goal of art is aesthetic. He also argues against the concept of a long poem, saying that an epic, if it is to be worth anything, must instead be structured as a collection of shorter pieces, each of which is not too long to be read in a single sitting.
The essay critiques, sometimes rather sharply, the works of other poets of his time. His most common complaint is against didacticism, which he calls a " heresy", and allegory. He specifically targeted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for his didacticism, something he would go on to call "the heresy of the didactic".[ citation needed] According to Poe, Longfellow's poetry was preachy, derivative, and thematically plagiarized. This would later give birth to what was known as "The Longfellow War".[ citation needed] Although Poe is referring to poetry here, it is believed that Poe's philosophy against didacticism extends to fiction. [1]
The essay was based on a lecture that Poe gave in Providence, Rhode Island at the Franklin Lyceum. The lecture reportedly drew an audience of 2,000 people. [2]
Some Poe scholars have suggested that "The Poetic Principle" was inspired in part by the critical failure of his two early poems " Al Aaraaf" and " Tamerlane", after which he never wrote another long poem. From this experience, Poe surmised that long poems are unable to sustain a proper mood or maintain a high-quality poetic form and are, therefore, inherently flawed. [3] Critics have suggested that this theory was written so that Poe could justify why "Al Aaraaf" and "Tamerlane" were unpopular. [4]
"The Poetic Principle" was published in the Home Journal, in the series for 1850, no. 36, August 31, 1850, with an introductory note by Nathaniel Parker Willis.