Text: Richard P. Benton, “Preface,” Poe as Literary Cosmologer (1975), p. 2 (This material is protected by copyright)

Eureka continues to be Poe's single important work least comprehended as an art-product. Up to the present, the scientific imagery has beguiled scholarship away from the clear direction of the “Preface,” which is specifically addressed to “those who feel rather than to those who think — to the dreamers and those who put their faith in dreams as in the only realities.” Hence this “prose poem” should be seen partly as an essay, a romance, a creed (myth), a dream, an eschatology, and, above all, a soteriology — all comprising a work of art. In emphasizing esthetic considerations, this volume sees Eureka as a tour de force of mythopoetic expression in language, tone (indeed, in a variety of tones), and structure — all pointing to Poe's genius without, of course, neglecting its ties to the history of ideas and the traditional cosmological genre to which it obviously belongs. Poe shared Keats's belief that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” when apprehended by the intuitive power of the imagination. The papers in this volume will illuminate Poe's intention in writing Eureka. Notwithstanding their rich insights, I believe we are still only part way through the labyrinth.