Edgar, Allan Poe — A Study in Ameri- 

 can Literature. 



BY REV. CHARI.es J. STAPIvES. 



Delivered at a Meeting of Section E of the Manchester Insti- 

 tute of Arts and Sciences, January i8, 1902. 



Poe's literary work never met a more intelligent and enthus- 

 iastic appreciation than it is meeting today. Interest in his 

 writings, both here and abroad,- has been steadily growing; he 

 has challenged the attention of the best students of English lit- 

 erature everywhere, and like some isolated hill, which, as you 

 recede from it, shoots up above the plain, his position in the 

 world of letters becomes more commanding as the years spin 

 away. To Edgar Allan Poe that indispensable, undefinable 

 and misused word, genius, undoubtedly applies. The mark of 

 that genius is not graciousness nor wide understanding and sym- 

 pathy with human life, but power, — power to hold the reader's 

 attention, to compel his thought, to arouse his feeling, and even 

 at times to gripe the very soul. 



In approaching works so strange, so unreal, so grotesque and 

 yet so powerful, the ordinary methods and measures of criticism 

 do not seem to avail. This is truer of the tales than the poems. 

 But both are peculiarly and sharply individual. Poe stands, as 

 a maker of literature, in a class by himself. It is, perhaps, to 

 be hoped that he will never have an imitator or follower, for to 

 imitate him were to spoil him. A second Edgar Poe would 

 take away something of his fascination. There are none with 



