In the following essay, Hoffman discusses Poe's reputation as a poet, both in France and in America, claiming that many of Poe's rhymes, apparently drawn from his own experiences, are banal and are possibly deliberate hoaxes on his reading public.

In a detailed analysis of the Poe-Longfellow literary war, Moss argues that Poe's evaluation of Longfellow's literary capabilities, though over-harsh at times, was ultimately accurate and based on carefully workedout critical principles.

In the following essay, Whalen traces the development of Poe's detective fiction.

In the following essay, Canby argues that Poe's egomania combined with his interest in contemporary scientific thought can help to explain the uneven nature of his critical writings. While Poe was logical when delineating general literary principles, Canby maintains, his self-obsession made his critique of specific authors arbitrary and unreliable.

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

In the following essay, Bryant traces Poe's literary relationship to humor through short fiction and contrasts it with Herman Melville's comic attitude in The Confidence-Man.

In the following essay, Kennedy examines the responses to death of various nineteenth-century American writers—including Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper—eventually focusing on the role of death in Poe's works.

In the following essay, Leverenz situates Poe within the Southern literary tradition.

In the following essay, Richards discusses Poe's strategies for coping with the encroachment by women poets in the nineteenth-century poetic arena formerly reserved for men.

In the following excerpt, Kennedy explores Poe's poetry involving the death of beautiful women, suggesting that death involves a translation of the woman as object of desire into an object of horror.

In the following excerpt, Davidson discusses Poe as one of the major philosophic voices of nineteenth-century America.

In the following essay, Dayan situates Poe's poetry at the crossroads between Romanticism and Modernity. The critic then suggests that Poe's own sense of failure as a writer of valuable poetry stems from the difficulties associated with negotiating that stylistic transition.

Using Poe's reviews of specific texts, Parks reveals their relationship with Poe's general theories concerning originality, unity, and totality of effect in a literary work. Parks argues that it is these general theoretical principles that led to Poe's emphasis on the short story, or "tale," as the ideal creation in prose. For a more general overview of Park's views on Poe, see NCLC 1.

In the following essay, Rosenheim explores the nature and function of analysis and psychoanalysis in Poe's detective stories.

In the following essay, Foster analyzes several of Poe's fictions, and argues that for the characters in Poe's stories, “unpleasure is its own reward.”

Jacobs traces the development of Poe's general literary standards through the book reviews that Poe wrote during his last eight months as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836.

In the following essay, Thoms analyzes Edgar Allan Poe's stories featuring detective C. Auguste Dupin, and asserts that in “the Dupin stories the detective emerges not as the criminal's polar opposite but as an ambiguous figure who shares that transgressor's desire for control.”

In the following essay, Magistrale and Poger define Edgar Allan Poe as a quintessentially Romantic writer whose detective stories are best understood when examined within the context of his tales of horror.

In the following excerpt, Levy details Edgar Allan Poe's formative influence on the American short story by examining the economic and artistic ideals of his proposed literary magazine.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1980, Felman examines the limitations of psychoanalytic criticism that links Poe's life to his poetry and thus concludes that the poetry is symptomatic of sickness or abnormality.

In the following essay, Pike analyzes Poe's preoccupation with death and the “fetishism of the exquisite corpse” during the nineteenth century.

In the following essay, Lawler examines the critical assessment of Poe by the French symbolists Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Valéry.

In the following essay, Werner identifies Edgar Allan Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin as an example of what critic Walter Benjamin termed a “flaneur,” and asserts that Poe's use of this careful observer, who interacts within but still remains apart from the world he surveys, “represents a pivotal influence on Poe's philosophical perspective and fictional aims and strategies.”

In the following essay, Cole investigates the sexual and gender role of the mirror and mirroring in Poe's fiction, specifically focusing on the tale “The Assignation.”

In the following essay, Lerner examines psychoanalytical criticism of Poe's poetry, suggesting that the scope of such criticism should be broadened to cover not just the tragic elements of the poet's life but also to include his personal philosophy of poetry.

In the following essay, Merivale examines Edgar Allan Poe's “The Man of the Crowd” as a precursor to metaphysical, or postmodern, detective fiction.

In the following essay, Philippon considers whether Poe based his story “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” on the extant Ragged Mountains in Virginia and that “the discrepancy between the actual Ragged Mountains and the fanciful landscape his protagonist envisions is crucial to a complete understanding of the story.”

In the following essay, Von Hallberg argues that Poe should be studied as a poet-critic instead of an academic critic. As a poet-critic Poe's focus is on constructing principles of literary criticism that can carve out a unique place for American literature, rather than on tracing the general development of literary history in the larger European context.

In the following essay, St. Armand compares Poe's “Israfel” with Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Uriel.”

In the following essay, Garrison seeks to reconcile Poe's preoccupation with horror with his quest for "Supernal Beauty."

In the following essay, Fletcher discusses Poe's limitations as a poet, suggesting that Poe's own awareness of those limitations caused him to revise his poetry extensively.

In the following essay, Kennedy examines Poe's attitude toward women in his fiction; focusing on “Ligeia,” the critic asserts that like his male narrators who recognize their unwitting emotional dependence on women, Poe himself must have resented women.

In the following essay, Crisman investigates the character Dupin's status as a professional detective.

In the following essay, Kushigian traces connections between the detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges, and concludes that the two writers share a unique perception of the world.

In the following essay, Magistrale and Poger argue that works such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ”The Hound of the Baskervilles” and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reflect Edgar Allan Poe's conception of the human psyche as the ultimate mystery.

In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in 1982, Bassein suggests that Poe's concentration on dead women in his works has negatively influenced later treatments of women in American literature, as well as women's images of themselves.

In the following essay, Dameron delineates why Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin is considered “a major hero in American literature.”

In the following essay, DeNuccio examines the narrative authority in Poe's story “Metzengerstein.”

In the following excerpt, Zayed discusses the pervasive presence of death in Poe's poetry.

In the following essay, Engel argues that in "The Fall of the House of Usher, " Edgar Allan Poe uses language and imagery relating to enclosure as a means of tracing the journey of the narrator from reason to insanity.

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.

In the following essay, Postema studies Poe's attempt to control reader response to his works through the deliberate withholding of information that would allow readers to arrive at alternative interpretations.

In the following essay, Claudel suggests that Poe's “To Helen” is a more complex poem than is generally acknowledged.

In the following essay, Kennedy examines Poe's handling of putrefaction in The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, suggesting that the use of this taboo subject “afforded him the perfect trope for his own revolting and revolutionary project.”

In the following essay, Moore argues that Poe's main ambition was to be a magazine proprietor. He therefore examines Poe primarily as a journalist who was committed to the growth of the American magazine culture and, through it, the construction of an American literary criticism distinct from the English critical tradition.

In the following essay, Cantalupo discusses the symbolic significance of the lynx in “Silence—A Fable.”

The following essay is a contemporary unpublished critique of Poe as a literary critic which was found and published by Fagin in 1946. The essay condemns Poe as a petty, self-contradictory critic who had no literary standards and who used his book reviews to air his personal likes and dislikes.

Wilson attempts to rescue Poe's reputation as a literary critic by focusing on the latter's development of general critical principles that explain his specific criticisms of contemporary writers.

In the following essay, Allen examines the preponderance of night imagery in Poe's poetry.

In the following essay, Peters considers thematic affinities in the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Ernst Jünger, while noting their different attitudes toward salvation.

In the following essay, originally published in 1922, Murry explores the extent to which Poe is less an American poet than an English one in the tradition of English Romanticism.

In the following essay, Hogue studies the erotic elements in Poe's poem “For Annie” while avoiding the conventional Freudian commentary on Poe's sexuality.

Tracing Poe's career through his editorship of various magazines and the opinions of his contemporaries, Campbell concludes that though Poe was condemned by his fellow writers for being unduly severe in his reviews, he was also appreciated for his critical astuteness.

In the following excerpt, Hubbell examines Poe's career as the book reviewer for the Southern Literary Messenger.

One of the best-known and most influential poets of the twentieth century, Eliot is equally noted as a literary critic and theorist. In the following excerpt, he argues that Poe's essays on the art of poetry help to rationalize the latter's own poetic technique, but that they cannot be taken as general principles. For Eliot's critique of Poe as a poet and short-story writer, see NCLC 1.

In the following excerpt, Berthoff provides a brief overview of Ambrose Bierce's short stories and compares his short fiction to that of Edgar Allan Poe.