Poe, Edgar Allen / 2008-07-04 00:00:00

1850
CRITICISM
by Edgar Allan Poe
IT HAS been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by
one who is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and mine of
poetry, I feel to be false- the less poetical the critic, the less
just the critique, and the converse. On this account, and because
the world's good opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself
might here observe, "Shakespeare is in possession of the world's
good opinion, and yet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears
then that as the world judges correctly, why should you be ashamed
of their favourable judgment?" The difficulty lies in the
interpretation of the word "judgment" or "opinion." The opinion is the
world's, truly, but it may be called theirs as a man would call a book
his, having bought it; he did not write the book, but it is his;
they did not originate the opinion, but it is theirs. A fool, for
example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet- yet the fool has never
read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a step higher on the
Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say, his more exalted
thought) is too far above the fool to be seen or understood, but whose
feet (by which I mean his every-day actions) are sufficiently near
to be discerned, and by means of which that superiority is
ascertained, which but for them would never have been discovered- this
neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet- the fool believes
him, and it is henceforward his opinion.
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