Abstract

Poe's Idea of Beauty

The article discusses the idea of beauty as put forward by poet and novelist Edgar Allan Poe. Poe states that man is born with an instinct for this thing called beauty and in the world of nature he finds much to satisfy it. The mere oral or written repetition of forms and sounds and colors and odors and sentiments are a duplicate source of delight. Such description is not real poetry, because it concerns itself only with the actual and attainable. Poe's criticism is as intensely personal as his poetry or his fiction. Beauty as he defines it includes nothing except beauty of the sort, which he himself produced. The primary value of the criticism is an interpretation, not of literature in general but of his works. It must be remembered that however true this interpretation may be upon the level of art it is upon the level of psychology either false or at least misleading.