Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. Stuart and Susan Levine), “Preface to Raven and Other Poems,” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe — EAP: Critical Theory (2009), pp. 52-53 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 52, continued:]

These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while going “the rounds of the press.” I am naturally anxious that if what I have written is to circulate at all, it should circulate as I wrote it. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent on me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier [page 53:] circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.

E. A. P.