According to his fellow literary critic, James Russell Lowell, Poe was the most fearless critic in America in the field of imaginative works. Poe’s bold and forward reviews gained him the reputation and a nickname of “Tomahawk man.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was Poe’s favorite target to criticize due to Longfellow’s derivative and partially plagiarized poems. Poe’s works were also recognized in Europe particularly in France with the help of the French poet, Charles Baudelaire, who translated Poe’s works which then became popular throughout Europe.
Literary Power
Poe’s works in detective fiction helped the future lineup of literary writers. Arthur Doyle even said that detective fiction was unknown to the world of literature until Poe gave life to them. In his career, he also had few imitators even after his death, one claimed to be having the ability to talk to the spirit of Poe and giving his recent composition through their communication. Of course, there are also artists in the industry of writer who opposes the style of Poe’s writing and criticizing. Often of his critics call him “vulgar” and “too poetical” which they refer to his poems of sugar coating the elements too much.
Cosmology
Poe wrote an essay in 1848 called Eureka: A Prose Poem which partly discussed Charles’ Darwin’s Big Bang theory and other well-known scientific theories such as Isaac Newton’s density and planet theories. He claimed that Eureka was not science but art and that he considers it as his masterpiece.
Cryptography
Poe showed notable interest in cryptography, about deciphering a series of coded messages for understanding and communicating. In the Philadelphia paper Alexander’s Weekly (Express) Messenger, Poe submitted ciphers which he then solved. In Graham Magazine he also wrote an article called “A Few Words on Secret Writing” and also “The Gold-Bug” discussing the topic about ciphering. Poe’s success in cryptography was not because he knew a lot of methodologies in the field but because of his exceptional analytical skills and his natural talent in detective stories that helped him to solve mysteries. One of the most important men he influenced in cryptography was William Friedman, an American cryptologist, who read Poe’s article, “The Gold-Bug,” when he was a kid and later deciphered Japan’s PURPLE code during World War II.
Some of his works in literature include:
Poetry
“Al Aaraaf” | “Annabel Lee” | “The Bells” | “The City in the Sea” | “The Conqueror Worm” |
“A Dream Within a Dream” | “Eldorado” | “Eulalie” | “The Haunted Palace”| “To Helen” | “Lenore” | “Tamerlane” | “The Raven” | “Ulalume”
Tales
“The Black Cat” | “The Cask of Amontillado” | “A Descent into the Maelström” | “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” | “The Fall of the House of Usher” | “The Gold-Bug” | “Hop-Frog” | “The Imp of the Perverse” | “Ligeia” | “The Masque of the Red Death” | “Morella” | “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” | “The Oval Portrait” | “The Pit and the Pendulum” | “The Premature Burial” | “The Purloined Letter” | “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” | “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Other works
Politian (1835)
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)
“The Balloon-Hoax” (1844)
“The Philosophy of Composition” (1846)
Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848)
“The Poetic Principle” (1848)
“The Light-House” (1849)