SOURCE: "Poe as Literary Theorist: A Reappraisal," in American Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3, November, 1961, pp. 296-306.

Looking back at Poe's critical writings from a mid-twentieth century perspective, Marks finds them a valuable resource despite Poe's occasional extremism in critical opinions. Mark asserts that Poe had sound critical principles with respect to the art of literary creation and the role of criticism.

There is a double motive for a fresh assessment of Edgar Poe's criticism. Every generation finds it necessary to reappraise past writers, a kind of periodic stocktaking as appropriate to dead critics as to dead poets. Often this is true because aspects of a man's work are found to answer some current need or to articulate some newly emerged aspiration of the common psyche. The poetry of Donne and Blake and the criticism of Coleridge come readily to mind in this regard. My present concern, however, is less...