SOURCE: A review of The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems, and Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems, in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol VIII, edited by James A. Harrison, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 275-318.

A distinguished poet, novelist, essayist, journalist, short story writer, editor, and critic, Poe stressed an analytical, rather than emotive approach to literature and emphasized the specifics of style and construction in a work, instead of concentrating solely on the importance of ideological statement. Although Poe and his literary criticism were subject to controversy in his own lifetime, he is now valued for his literary theories. In the following excerpt, originally published in 1836, from a review of Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems, Poe analyzes several of Halleck's works, including "Alnwick Castle," "Macro Bozzaris," "Burns," and "Lines on the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake, "praising the poet's power of expression but faulting his versification...