Edgar Allan Poe: Poems and Poetics: (American Poets Project #5)

Richard Wilbur, a former Poet Laureate of the United States and one of the most admired poets and critics of his generation, revisits the poetry of Poe, exploring the philosophical seriousness of verse often identified with its macabre and gothic surfaces. Here is the whole canon of Poe’s mature poetry, along with a judicious selection of prose writings that illuminate Poe’s poetic goals.

“Our poetry, in Poe’s view, must specialize in aesthetic transcendence, eschewing the truth, morality, a...