Text: George Pope Morris, “[Review of The Raven and Other Poems],” the National Press: A Home Journal (New York, NY), October 10, 1846, p. 2, col. 3

[page 2, col. 3, continued:]

THE RAVEN, AND OTHER POEMS. By Edgar A. Poe. New-York. Wiley & Putnam. 1845.

WE take this work, not so much with a view to a particular examination of its merits, as for the purpose of saying to Mr. Poe, how much greater pleasure it gives us to meet him in his own proper field of poetical creation, than in the uncomfortable regions of criticism and controversy.

Mr. Poe is, unquestionably, a man of genius. Narratives which rivet the interest, and sway the passions, as powerfully as his do, indicate a vigor of imagination that might send its productions forward far along the line of future life. Many of these tales we have no doubt, will long survive, as among the ablest and most remarkable of American productions. In the perfect contrivance of the plans, which, though complex, are never embarrassing or perplexing, and in the orderly evolvement of all the incidents, they bear a resemblance to the dramatic plots of Ben Jonson, which of themselves, without reference to the treasures which they wrap up in them, have been considered as giving him a very eminent rank. Of the talents such as Mr. Poe is blessed with, the true employment is in original composition; in a genial exercise of the creative faculties of imagination and feeling, in extending through a space which is else void and silent, the limits of the region of living and lovely forms, and augmenting the trophies of the genius of his nation and his race. To one who possesses the powers of close, logical reasoning and of pointed and piercing sarcasm, the “torpe voluptas” of literary and social controversy is often a fatal fascination. But a man who is conscious within himself of faculties which indicate to him that he was born, not to wrangle with men of his own times, but to speak truth and peace to distant ages and a remote posterity, ought to make a covenant with himself, that he will be drawn aside by no temptation, however vehement from that calm dedication of his thoughts to literary art, which is the service he owes to that spirit which has given him power to become one of its ministers.

As an analytical critic, Mr. Poe possesses abilities, in our opinion, quite unrivalled in this country, and perhaps on either side of the water. We have scarcely ever taken up one of his more critical papers, on some author or work worthy of his strength, without a sense of surprise at the novel and profound views from which his inquiries began, nor followed their development without the closest interest, nor laid the essay down without admiration and respect for the masculine and acute understanding with which we had coped during the perusal. But in the case of inventive genius so brilliant and vigorous as is shown in these poems, and in the tales to which we have alluded, we feel that even criticism of the highest kind is an employment below the true measure of its dignity, and, we may say, its duty; for to be tender of the light in another man's tomb, is no fit occupation for one who is able to kindle a lamp of his own, whose ray may abide against all the forces of night, and storms, and time. The poet's is a consecrating gift. A man who can produce such a work as “The Raven,” ought to feel that it was his office to afford subjects, and not models, to criticism.