Eureka: A Prose Poem
()
About this ebook
Poe's best known fiction was Gothic, which was extremely popular at the time. Poe was a master of the genre, but he also realized that it would help him live off his writing, which was his goal. As a result, his most common themes involved death and madness, including its signs and physical manifestations. The darkness of his work is considered by many to be a reaction to Transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, short story writer, and editor. Born in Boston to a family of actors, Poe was abandoned by his father in 1810 before being made an orphan with the death of his mother the following year. Raised in Richmond, Virginia by the Allan family of merchants, Poe struggled with gambling addiction and frequently fought with his foster parents over debts. He attended the University of Virginia for a year before withdrawing due to a lack of funds, enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1827. That same year, Poe anonymously published Tamerlane and Other Poems, his first collection. After failing to graduate from West Point, Poe began working for several literary journals as a critic and editor, moving from Richmond to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. In 1836, he obtained a special license to marry Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin, who moved with him as he pursued his career in publishing. In 1838, Poe published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a tale of a stowaway on a whaling ship and his only novel. In 1842, Virginia began showing signs of consumption, and her progressively worsening illness drove Poe into deep depression and alcohol addiction. “The Raven” (1845) appeared in the Evening Mirror on January 29th. It was an instant success, propelling Poe to the forefront of the American literary scene and earning him a reputation as a leading Romantic. Following Virginia’s death in 1847, Poe became despondent, overwhelmed with grief and burdened with insurmountable debt. Suffering from worsening mental and physical illnesses, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore in 1849 and died only days later. He is now recognized as a literary pioneer who made important strides in developing techniques essential to horror, detective, and science fiction.
Read more from Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven: And Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of Mystery and Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 4 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Famous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volumes 1 and 2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult: Hidden Magic, Occult Truths, and the Stories That Started It All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tell Tale Heart - The Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (Fantasy and Horror Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fall of the House of Usher Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Mystery and Imagination - Illustrated by Harry Clarke Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gothic Novel Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Classic American Short Story MEGAPACK ® (Volume 1): 34 of the Greatest Stories Ever Written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Poems Tales Criticism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 1 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Eureka
Related ebooks
Eureka: A Prose Poem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Works Of Edgar Allan Poe; Vol IX; Essays - Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eureka Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEureka: A Prose Poem : An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFantasia of the Unconscious Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysticism and Logic and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poetic Thinking Today: An Essay Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysterious Psychic Forces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Way of Initiation or, How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn poetic interpretation of nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought: A Key to the Enigmas of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysticism and Logic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dance of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDecadence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Strange Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Reality of Being, Decoded: Getting to the Heart of the Matter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wisdom of George Santayana Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Strange Story — Volume 01 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Strange Story — Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInquiries and Opinions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlatform Monologues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOccult or Exact Science? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelf-Reliance and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDescartes' Devil: Three Meditations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Descent of Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDynamic Thought or The Law of Vibrant Energy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Religion & Spirituality For You
The Love Dare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Course In Miracles: (Original Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerous Prayers: Because Following Jesus Was Never Meant to Be Safe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gospel of Mary Magdalene Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Upon Waking: 60 Daily Reflections to Discover Ourselves and the God We Were Made For Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5NRSV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening the Sacred Conversation Within Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hindu View Of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel of Thomas: The Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer: Summary and Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weight of Glory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Eureka
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Eureka - Edgar Allan Poe
EUREKA: A PROSE POEM
..................
Edgar Allan Poe
DOSSIER PRESS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2016 by Edgar Allan Poe
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE.
AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
FOOTNOTES:
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
POPULAR VOLUMES FOR PRESENTATION,
ILLUSTRATED JUVENILES.
Eureka: A Prose Poem
By
Edgar Allan Poe
Eureka: A Prose Poem
Published by Dossier Press
New York City, NY
First published circa 1849
Copyright © Dossier Press, 2015
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About Dossier Press
PREFACE.
..................
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.
What I here propound is true:—therefore it cannot die:—or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will rise again to the Life Everlasting.
Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.
E. A. P.
AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
..................
IT IS WITH HUMILITY REALLY unassumed—it is with a sentiment even of awe—that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn—the most comprehensive—the most difficult—the most august.
What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity—sufficiently sublime in their simplicity—for the mere enunciation of my theme?
I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical—of the Material and Spiritual Universe:—of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash, moreover, as to challenge the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to question the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly reverenced of men.
In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announce—not the theorem which I hope to demonstrate—for, whatever the mathematicians may assert, there is, in this world at least, no such thing as demonstration—but the ruling idea which, throughout this volume, I shall be continually endeavoring to suggest.
My general proposition, then, is this:—In the Original Unity of the First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation.
In illustration of this idea, I propose to take such a survey of the Universe that the mind may be able really to receive and to perceive an individual impression.
He who from the top of Ætna casts his eyes leisurely around, is affected chiefly by the extent and diversity of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in the sublimity of its oneness. But as, on the summit of Ætna, no man has thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness of the prospect; and so, again, whatever considerations lie involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.
I do not know a treatise in which a survey of the Universe—using the word in its most comprehensive and only legitimate acceptation—is taken at all:—and it may be as well here to mention that by the term Universe,
wherever employed without qualification in this essay, I mean to designate the utmost conceivable expanse of space, with all things, spiritual and material, that can be imagined to exist within the compass of that expanse. In speaking of what is ordinarily implied by the expression, Universe,
I shall take a phrase of limitation—the Universe of stars.
Why this distinction is considered necessary, will be seen in the sequel.
But even of treatises on the really limited, although always assumed as the unlimited, Universe of stars, I know none in which a survey, even of this limited Universe, is so taken as to warrant deductions from its individuality. The nearest approach to such a work is made in the Cosmos
of Alexander Von Humboldt. He presents the subject, however, not in its individuality but in its generality. His theme, in its last result, is the law of each portion of the merely physical Universe, as this law is related to the laws of every other portion of this merely physical Universe. His design is simply synœretical. In a word, he discusses the universality of material relation, and discloses to the eye of Philosophy whatever inferences have hitherto lain hidden behind this universality. But however admirable be the succinctness with which he has treated each particular point of his topic, the mere multiplicity of these points occasions, necessarily, an amount of detail, and thus an involution of idea, which precludes all individuality of impression.
It seems to me that, in aiming at this latter effect, and, through it, at the consequences—the conclusions—the suggestions—the speculations—or, if nothing better offer itself the mere guesses which may result from it—we require something like a mental gyration on the heel. We need so rapid a revolution of all things about the central point of sight that, while the minutiæ vanish altogether, even the more conspicuous objects become blended into one. Among the vanishing minutiæ, in a survey of this kind, would be all exclusively terrestrial matters. The Earth would be considered in its planetary relations alone. A man, in this view, becomes mankind; mankind a member of the cosmical family of Intelligences.
And now, before proceeding to our subject proper, let me beg the reader’s attention to an extract or two from a somewhat remarkable letter, which appears to have been found corked in a bottle and floating on the Mare Tenebrarum—an ocean well described by the Nubian geographer, Ptolemy Hephestion, but little frequented in modern days unless by the Transcendentalists and some other divers for crotchets. The date of this letter, I confess, surprises me even more particularly than its contents; for it seems to have been written in the year two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. As for the passages I am about to transcribe, they, I fancy, will speak for themselves.
Do you know, my dear friend,
says the writer, addressing, no doubt, a contemporary—Do you know that it is scarcely more than eight or nine hundred years ago since the metaphysicians first consented to relieve the people of the singular fancy that there exist but two practicable roads to Truth? Believe it if you can! It appears, however, that long, long ago, in the night of Time, there lived a Turkish philosopher called Aries and surnamed Tottle.
[Here, possibly, the letter-writer means Aristotle; the best names are wretchedly corrupted in two or three thousand years.] The fame of this great man depended mainly upon his demonstration that sneezing is a natural provision, by means of which over-profound thinkers are enabled to expel superfluous ideas through the nose; but he obtained a scarcely less valuable celebrity as the founder, or at all events as the principal propagator, of what was termed the deductive or à priori philosophy. He started with what he maintained to be axioms, or self-evident truths:—and the now well understood fact that no truths are self-evident, really does not make in the slightest degree against his speculations:—it was sufficient for his purpose that the truths in question were evident at all. From axioms he proceeded, logically, to results. His most illustrious disciples were one Tuclid, a geometrician,
[meaning Euclid] "and one Kant, a Dutchman, the originator of that species of Transcendentalism which, with the change merely of a C for a K, now bears his peculiar name.
Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme, until the advent of one Hog, surnamed ‘the Ettrick shepherd,’ who preached an entirely different system, which he called the à posteriori or inductive. His plan referred altogether to sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing, and classifying facts—instantiæ Naturæ, as they were somewhat affectedly called—and arranging them into general laws. In a word, while the mode of Aries rested on noumena, that of Hog depended on phenomena; and so great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its first introduction, Aries fell into general disrepute. Finally, however, he recovered ground, and was permitted to divide the empire of Philosophy with his more modern rival:—the savans contenting themselves with proscribing all other competitors, past, present, and to come; putting an end to all controversy on the topic by the promulgation of a Median law, to the effect that the Aristotelian and Baconian roads are, and of right ought to be, the solo possible avenues to knowledge:—‘Baconian,’ you must know, my dear friend,
adds the letter-writer at this point, "was an adjective invented as equivalent to Hog-ian, and at the same time more dignified and euphonious.
Now I do assure you most positively
—proceeds the epistle—"that I represent these matters fairly; and you can easily understand how restrictions so absurd on their very face must have operated, in those days, to retard the progress of true Science, which makes its most important advances—as all History will show—by seemingly intuitive leaps. These ancient ideas confined investigation to crawling; and I need not suggest to you that crawling, among varieties of locomotion, is a very capital thing of its kind;—but because the tortoise is sure of foot, for this reason must we clip the wings of the eagles? For many centuries, so great was the infatuation, about Hog especially, that a virtual stop was put to all thinking, properly so called. No man dared utter a truth for which he felt himself indebted to his soul alone. It mattered not whether the truth was even demonstrably such; for the dogmatizing philosophers of that epoch regarded only the road by which it professed to have been attained. The end, with them, was a point of no moment, whatever:—‘the means!’ they vociferated—‘let us look at the means!’—and if, on scrutiny of the means, it was found to come neither under the category Hog, nor under the category Aries (which means ram), why then the savans went no farther, but, calling the thinker a fool and branding him a ‘theorist,’ would never, thenceforward, have any thing to do either with him or with his truths.
Now, my dear friend,
continues the letter-writer, "it cannot be maintained that by the crawling system, exclusively adopted, men would arrive at the maximum amount of truth, even in any long series of ages; for the repression of imagination was an evil not to be counterbalanced even by absolute certainty in the snail processes. But their certainty was very far from absolute. The error of our progenitors was quite analogous with that of the wiseacre who fancies he must necessarily see an object the more distinctly, the more closely he holds it to his eyes. They blinded themselves, too, with the impalpable, titillating Scotch snuff of detail; and thus the boasted facts of the Hog-ites were by no means always facts—a point of little importance but for the assumption that they always were. The vital taint, however, in Baconianism—its most lamentable fount of error—lay in its tendency to throw power and consideration into the hands of merely perceptive men—of those inter-Tritonic minnows, the microscopical savans—the diggers and pedlers of minute facts, for the most part in physical science—facts all of which they retailed at the same price upon the highway; their value depending, it was supposed, simply upon the fact of their fact,