Text: Anonymous, “Mr. Poe on the Poetic Principle,” Daily Crescent (New Orleans, LA), vol. II, no. 158, September 5, 1849, p. 1, col. 5

[page 1, column 5, continued:]

MR. POE ON THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. — The Richmond Times of the 21st gives the following notice of a lecture recently delivered by Edgar Poe in that city: “We do not know when have enjoyed a more delightful evening — barring the heat — than in listening to Mr. Poe's lecture the Poetic Principle, last Friday night. Mr. Poe set out with the somewhat novel proposition, which he maintained with very considerable ingenuity, that no long poem had ever been composed, or other words, that as soon as any metrical composition began to tire, it ceased to be a poem, and that a long poem was, in itself, a paradox — a contradiction in terms. The Paradise Lost, said he, is a succession of brilliant poems strung together, gems in a circlet. Mr. Poe then considered and combatted the popular fallacy to which the Quarterly Review first gave rise — that a poem must, necessity, advocate some moral or religious tenet, and entertained the audience with some striking reflections thereupon. In passing to an analytical examination of the poem proper, he pointed out faults which most commonly mar the finest efforts of genius — expansion or brevity and recited in illustration of his opinions some of the choicest morceaux of the nineteenth century's world song, in the productions of Bryant, Willis, Longfellow, Byron, Moore, Tennyson, Hood, Pinkney, and others. These recitations were exceedingly well received by a large and appreciative audience. At the conclusion of his lecture, in compliance with a request, Mr. Poe recited ‘The Raven,’ that singular and vivid fantasy of his imagination.”