POE PROTESTS PREPOSTEROUS POEM
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criticism.htm
Criticism
by Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)
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.
Now the author of "The Hunchback" possesses what we are weak
enough to term the true "dramatic feeling," and this true
dramatic feeling he has manifested in the most preposterous
series of imitations of the Elizabethan drama by which ever
mankind were insulted and begulled. Not only did he adhere to
the old plots, the old characters, the old stage
conventionalities throughout; but he went even so far as to
persist in the obsolete phraseologies of the Elizabethan period-
and, just in proportion to his obstinacy and absurdity at all
points, did we pretend to like him the better, and pretend to
consider him a great dramatist.
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