SOURCE: Dayan, Joan. “From Romance to Modernity: Poe and the Work of Poetry.” Studies in Romanticism 29, no. 3 (fall 1990): 413-37.

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.

What is Poetry?—Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations as the nine-titled Cocyra! 

—Poe, “Letter to B——”

Poe began his writing career as a poet, and throughout his life he questioned the idea of poetry, worried about defining it, and by his own admission, failed to write poems “of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself.”¹ And yet, what Poe and his subsequent critics recognize as failure demands further consideration. The problem of Poe's poetry is nothing less than a demonstration of what...