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to hold convictions. It is by this con­trast, I think, that we can account for Valéry's admiration for Eureka—that cosmological fantasy which makes no deep impres­sion upon most of us, because we are aware of Poe's lack of quali­fication in philosophy, theology or natural science, but which Valéry, after Baudelaire, esteemed highly as a 'prose poem'. Finally, there is the astonishing result of Poe's analysis of the com­position of The Raven. It docs not matter whether The Philosophy of Composition is a hoax, or a piece of self-deception, or a more or less accurate record of Poe's calculations in writing the poem; what matters is that it suggested to Valéry a method and an occupation—that of observing himself write. Of course, a greater than Poe had already studied the poetic process. In the Biographia Literaria Coleridge is concerned primarily, of course, with the poetry of Wordsworth; and he did not pursue his philosophical enquiries concurrently with the writing of his poetry; but he docs anticipate the question which fascinated Valéry: 'What am I doing when I write a poem?' Yet Poe's Philosophy of Composi­tion is a mise an point of the question which gives it capital impor­tance in relation to this process which ends with Valéry. For the penetration of the poetic by the introspective critical activity is carried to the limit by Valéry, the limit at which the latter begins to destroy the former. M. Louis Bolle, in his admirable study of this poet, observes pertinently: 'This intellectual narcissism is not alien to the poet, even though he does not explain the whole of his work: "why not conceive as a work of art the production of a work of art?" '

Now, as I think I have already hinted, I believe that the art poitique of which we find the germ in Poe, and which bore fruit in the work of Valéry, has gone as far as it can go. I do not believe that this aesthetic can be of any help to later poets. What will take its place I do not know. An aesthetic which merely contradicted it would not do. To insist on the all-importance of subject-matter, to insist that the poet should be spontaneous and irreflectivc, that he should depend upon inspiration and neglect technique, would be a lapse from what is in any case a highly civilized attitude to a barbarous one. We should have to have an aesthetic which some­how comprehended and transcended that of Poe and Valéry.

This question does not greatly exercise my mind, since I think that the poet's theories should arise out of his practice rather than his practice out of his theories. But I recognize first that within this tradition from Poe to Valéry arc some of those modern poems which I most admire and enjoy; second, I think that the tradition itself represents the most interesting development of poetic con­sciousness anywhere in that same hundred years; and finally I value this exploration of certain poetic possibilities for its own sake, as we believe that all possibilities should be explored. And I find that by trying to look at Poe through the eyes of Baudelaire, Mallarm6 and most of all Valéry, I become more thoroughly con­vinced of his importance, of the importance of his work as a whole. And, as for the future: it is a tenable hypothesis that this advance of self-consciousness, the extreme awareness of and con­cern for language which we find in Valéry, is something which must ultimately break down, owing to an increasing strain against which the human mind and nerves will rebel; just as, it may be maintained, the indefinite elaboration of scientific discovery and invention, and of political and social machinery, may reach a point at which there will be an irresistible revulsion of humanity and a readiness to accept the most primitive hardships rather than carry any longer the burden of modern civilization. Upon that I hold no fixed opinion: I leave it to your consideration.

The Biographies

THE STORY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by Sherwin Cody

Alpheus Sherwin Cody (1868-1959) was an American writer and entrepreneur who developed a long-running home-study course in speaking