SOURCE: Ljungquist, Kent. “From Sublimity to Pictorialism: ‘Tamerlane,’ ‘Al Aaraaf,’ and Some Revisions in the Later Poetry.” In The Grand and the Fair: Poe's Landscape Aesthetics and Pictorial Techniques, pp. 141-84. Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica, 1984.

In the following essay, Ljungquist explores the aesthetic shift that Poe's poetry undergoes over the course of his writing career.

In detailing thus far Poe's transition from the sublime to the picturesque mode, our sharp focus on the tales and criticism has scanted attention to the poetry, despite occasional allusions to “Dream Land,” “Fairy-Land,” or “The Coliseum.” The poetry, like the prose, however, presents a similar aesthetic shift. Nowhere in the poetry does the term “picturesque” appear, and Poe uses the term “sublime” just twice. Nevertheless, it would be unlikely that his aesthetic principles would bulk so large in the prose without having a similar impact on the poetry. In fact, the term...