With a relatively small volume of work, some fifty poems, a short novel, about seventy short stories, and a roughly equivalent volume of essays, Edgar Allan Poe has exerted a substantial influence on American and world literature. He may be regarded without too much exaggeration as the single most important influence on the development of an entire poetic tradition in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century-the Symbolist movement. He had a major impact on the writing of fiction in America. Although his critical recognition is marked by strong disagreement over the intrinsic merit of his writings, his achievement in poetry, criticism, magazine journalism, and fiction is at the very least historically impressive. As a man of letters in a young and still somewhat primitive country, Poe tried in his career to unify the sophisticated and disparate roles of poet, writer of fiction, theoretical critic, practical critic, reviewer, journalist, editor, and philosopher.
