SOURCE: "From Poe to Valery," in To Criticize the Critic, by T. S. Eliot, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1948, pp. 33-4.

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.

Imperfections in "The Raven" . . . may serve to explain why The Philosophy of Composition, the essay in which Poe professes to reveal his method in composing "The Raven"—has not been taken so seriously in England or America as in France. It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting, that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might...