Appreciation …

… The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty | Books and Culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

This study is all the more significant for its confessional tone. Like Walt Whitman and T. S. Eliot before him, McGann came to grasp the significance of Poe after a distinguished career in which he had accepted the standard line that had been passed down in intellectual circles since Emerson that Poe was merely a "jingle man." Because of the enormous influence of Poe on literature for over 150 years, however, the standard American disparagement of Poe has been difficult to sustain. In this study, McGann argues for the importance of Poe's work while also confessing for himself and other critics that any perception of Poe's "insufficiency has largely been ours (or mine)."