05-02-2011, 12:00 AM
Though he was rather well versed in the science of his day, and though he was expert in reason and logic, in expressing something as profound as the essence of life and death, Poe uses all the tools in his kit, going beyond reason and logic, ultimately to art, to poetry, for his expression. In the brief introduction to Eureka, he gives us the clue to its reading:
"To the few who love me and whom I love -- to those who feel rather than to those who think -- to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities -- I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone, let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem."~Edgar Allan Poe
To see it as a poem, as a dream, as folly, real but not. Fluid truth. Art.
"To the few who love me and whom I love -- to those who feel rather than to those who think -- to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities -- I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone, let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem."~Edgar Allan Poe
To see it as a poem, as a dream, as folly, real but not. Fluid truth. Art.